ped by since noon. Outside lay
the quick-moving throngs which he so loved, in his room there waited
for him the gentle marine, the bit of brown ivory, the luxury of deep
blooming roses, and yet he was not conscious of missing them. Those
things had been waiting for him all through the long tedious years, and
this--well perhaps this, too, had been waiting for him. He wondered if
this effect was produced by the surroundings which were much as he
would have chosen them if he had possessed the means from the first.
The sober good taste of the room, its quiet richness, its air of being
a part of several generations of men of culture pleased him.

He turned to the girl again. She too was one with this past of the
room. The straight nose with its shell-like nostrils as sensitive to
her thoughts as her eyes, the sharp cut corners of her mouth, and the
fine hair over her white forehead dated back to women whose features
had long been refined through their souls. All that he wished to crowd
into a week, they had possessed for a hundred years or more. It showed
even in this girl who had not yet come into the fulness of her
womanhood.

She sat uneasily far forward on her chair, leaning toward the flames as
though fearful of what might happen next. The light played upon her
hair and her white face, making her seem almost a thing of some
lighter, spirit world.

"I don't feel that I ought to detain you," she said, breaking the
silence which he for his part would have been willing to continue,
"but"--she looked up at him with a half-shamed smile--"I have n't the
courage to refuse your kindness."

"You have the right to accept it merely as a woman," he assured her.

"But I should n't need help," she answered with some spirit. "I don't
know what has come over me. I 'm just afraid of being alone."

"It is n't good for any one to be alone."

"You know?"

He answered slowly,

"Yes, I know."

Did any one know better? The curse of it had driven him to secure at
any cost the broader comradeship of men and women which, if it does not
come through some more subtle means such as she now seemed to suggest
to him, can be found in that cruder relationship always at the command
of those with some fortune. The thought swept over him that if he had
known her before yesterday, he could never have felt alone again. But
what had he to do with yesterday any more than with to-morrow?

"It is n't that there is anything to be afraid