hat she turned to the mantel, picked up a bag of bead,
opened it, took from it a little puff with which she dusted her nose.
Then the puff went back into the bag. With it went the bills.

"I run," she announced. She moved to the door. There, looking at
Loftus over her shoulder, she stopped. "You come again?"

For reply Loftus made a gesture.

"Yes," said the woman. "Naturally. It depends. But let me know. It is
more commodious. Pas de scandale, eh?"

To this Loftus made no reply whatever. But his expression was
translatable into "what do you take me for?"

"Allez!" the ex-first lady resumed. "I have confidence."

She opened the door and through it vanished. Loftus removed his
gloves, seated himself at the piano, ran his fingers over the keys,
struck a note which suggested another and attacked the waltz from
"Faust." The appropriateness of it appealed to him. As he played he
hummed. Then, passing upward with the score, he reached the "Salve
Dimora," Faust's salute to Marguerite's home. But in the den where he
sat the aria did not fit. He went back again to the waltz. Then,
precisely as on the stage Marguerite appears, Marie entered.

Loftus jumped up, went to her, took her hand. It was trembling. He led
her to a sofa, seating himself at her side, her hand still in his.

He looked at her. She had the prettiness and timidity of a kitten, a
kitten's grace as well. Like a kitten, she could not have been vulgar
or awkward had she tried. But association and environment had wrapped
about her one of the invisible yet obvious mantles that differentiate
class from class. Loftus was quite aware of that. He was, though,
equally aware that love is a famous costumer. There are few mantles
that it cannot remove and remake. That the girl loved him he knew. The
tremor of her hand assured him more surely than words.

None the less he asked her. It seemed to him only civil. But she did
not answer. The dinginess of the den oppressed him. It occurred to him
that it might be oppressing her. Again he inquired. Only the tremor of
the hand replied.

"Tell me," he repeated.

The girl disengaged her hand. She looked down and away.

"Won't you?" he insisted.

"I ought not to," she said at last.

"But why?"

With her parasol the girl poked at the carpet. "Because it is not
right. It is not right that I should." But at once, with a little
convulsive intake of the breath, she added, "Yet I do."

Then it seemed to her that the room