s she like?"

"I can't tell you."

He was evidently very cross with her. It seemed so unkind of him.

"Why can't you tell me--or, why won't you tell me? Do you mean she's
too awful for words?"

"No, certainly not--as a matter of fact--"

"Well, what?"

She felt she must get away or there would be hysterics somewhere. She
sprang up and began to walk rapidly towards the gate. He followed her.

"I'll write you," said Ann.

"But why--?"

"I can't," said Ann. "I've got a rehearsal."

A car was passing. She made a dash for it and clambered on. Before he
could make up his mind it had gathered speed.

Ann let herself in with her key. She called downstairs to the small
servant that she wasn't to be disturbed for anything. She locked the
door.

So it was to Matthew that for six years she had been pouring out her
inmost thoughts and feelings! It was to Matthew that she had laid bare
her tenderest, most sacred dreams! It was at Matthew's feet that for
six years she had been sitting, gazing up with respectful admiration,
with reverential devotion! She recalled her letters, almost passage
for passage, till she had to hold her hands to her face to cool it.
Her indignation, one might almost say fury, lasted till tea-time.

In the evening--it was in the evening time that she had always written
to him--a more reasonable frame of mind asserted itself. After all, it
was hardly his fault. He couldn't have known who she was. He didn't
know now. She had wanted to write. Without doubt he had helped her,
comforted her loneliness; had given her a charming friendship, a
delightful comradeship. Much of his work had been written for her, to
her. It was fine work. She had been proud of her share in it. Even
allowing there were faults--irritability, shortness of temper, a
tendency to bossiness!--underneath it all was a man. The gallant
struggle, the difficulties overcome, the long suffering, the high
courage--all that she, reading between the lines, had divined of his
life's battle! Yes, it was a man she had worshipped. A woman need not
be ashamed of that. As Matthew he had seemed to her conceited,
priggish. As Aston Rowant she wondered at his modesty, his patience.

And all these years he had been dreaming of her; had followed her to
New York; had--

There came a sudden mood so ludicrous, so absurdly unreasonable that
Ann herself stopped to laugh at it. Yet it was real, and it hurt. He
had come to New Yor