chimneys were outlined against the faintly dappled sky in the west. In
the next yard a hollow tree looked as if it were cut out of silver, and
beneath its boughs, which drooped into the alley, he could see the
huddled figure of an aged negress who had fallen asleep on a flagstone.
So still was the night that the very smoke appeared to hang suspended
above the tops of the chimneys, as though it were too heavy to rise and
yet too light to float downward toward the motionless trees. Under the
pale beams the town lost its look of solidity and grew spectral. Nothing
seemed to hold it to the earth except the stillness which held the
fallen flowers of the syringa there also. Even the church towers showed
like spires of thistledown, and the winding streets, which ran beside
clear walls and dark shining gardens, trailed off from the ground into
the silvery air. Only the black bulk of the Treadwell factory beside the
river defied the magic of the moon's rays and remained a solid reminder
of the brevity of all enchantment.

Gradually, while Oliver waited for Mrs. Peachey's return, he ceased to
think of the furniture in his room; he ceased to think even of the way
in which he should manage to do his work, and allowed his mind to dwell,
almost with a feeling of ecstasy, on the memory of Virginia. He saw the
mist of little curls on her temples, her blue eyes, with their good and
gentle expression, and the look of radiant happiness which played like
light over her features. The beauty of the night acted as a spur to his
senses. He wanted companionship. He wanted the smile and the touch of a
woman. He wanted to fall in love with a girl who had blue eyes and a
mouth like a flower!

"It wouldn't take me ten minutes to become a fool about her," he
thought. "Confound this moonlight, anyhow. It's making an idiot of me."

Like many persons of artistic sensibility, he had at times the feeling
that his imagination controlled his conduct, and under the sharp
pressure of it now, he began to picture what the end would be if he were
to fling himself headlong in the direction where his desires were
leading him. If he could only let himself go! If he could only defy the
future! If he could only forget in a single crisis that he was a
Treadwell!

"If I were the right sort, I suppose I'd rush in and make her fall in
love with me, and then marry her and let her starve," he thought. "But
somehow I can't. I'm either not enough of a genius or not enou