ld but of how they looked.

Suddenly Sidney felt very tired. She wanted to go back to the hospital,
and turn the key in the door of her little room, and lie with her face
down on the bed.

"Would you mind very much if I asked you to take me back?"

He did mind. He had a depressed feeling that the evening had failed.
And his depression grew as he brought the car around. He understood, he
thought. She was grieving about Max. After all, a girl couldn't care as
she had for a year and a half, and then give a man up because of another
woman, without a wrench.

"Do you really want to go home, Sidney, or were you tired of sitting
there? In that case, we could drive around for an hour or two. I'll not
talk if you'd like to be quiet." Being with K. had become an agony, now
that she realized how wrong Christine had been, and that their worlds,
hers and K.'s, had only touched for a time. Soon they would be separated
by as wide a gulf as that which lay between the cherry bookcase--for
instance,--and a book-lined library hung with family portraits. But she
was not disposed to skimp as to agony. She would go through with it,
every word a stab, if only she might sit beside K. a little longer,
might feel the touch of his old gray coat against her arm. "I'd like to
ride, if you don't mind."

K. turned the automobile toward the country roads. He was remembering
acutely that other ride after Joe in his small car, the trouble he
had had to get a machine, the fear of he knew not what ahead, and his
arrival at last at the road-house, to find Max lying at the head of the
stairs and Carlotta on her knees beside him.

"K." "Yes?"

"Was there anybody you cared about,--any girl,--when you left home?"

"I was not in love with anyone, if that's what you mean."

"You knew Max before, didn't you?"

"Yes. You know that."

"If you knew things about him that I should have known, why didn't you
tell me?"

"I couldn't do that, could I? Anyhow--"

"Yes?"

"I thought everything would be all right. It seemed to me that the mere
fact of your caring for him--" That was shaky ground; he got off it
quickly. "Schwitter has closed up. Do you want to stop there?"

"Not to-night, please."

They were near the white house now. Schwitter's had closed up, indeed.
The sign over the entrance was gone. The lanterns had been taken down,
and in the dusk they could see Tillie rocking her baby on the porch. As
if to cover the last traces of his late infamy,