re of her, and by his
uncompromising admiration of her beauty as well as of her character, and
she yielded to him purposely in small things that she might the better
feel his strength, as she supposed. The truth, had she known it, was
that he hardly asserted himself at all, and was ready to make any and
every sacrifice for her comfort and happiness. He had sacrificed his
pride to borrow money from a friend to meet the first necessities of
their life together. He would have given his life as readily.

They led a strangely lonely existence in the little apartment in the Via
della Frezza. The world had very soon heard of what had happened, and
had behaved according to its lights. Walking alone one morning while
Griggs was at work, Gloria had met Donna Tullia Meyer, whom she had
known in society, and thoughtlessly enough had bowed as though nothing
had happened. Donna Tullia had stared at her coldly, and then turned
away. After that, Gloria had realized what she had already understood,
and had either not gone out without Griggs, or, when she did, had kept
to the more secluded streets, where she would not easily meet
acquaintances.

Griggs worked perpetually, and she watched him, delighting at first in
the difference between his way of working and that of Angelo Reanda;
delighted, too, to be alone with him, and to feel that he was writing
for her. She could sit almost in silence for hours, half busy with some
bit of needlework, and yet busy with him in her thoughts. It seemed to
her that she understood him--she told him so, and he believed her, for
he felt that he could not be hard to understand.

He was as singularly methodical as Reanda was exceptionally intuitive.
She felt that his work was second to her in his estimation of it, but
that, since they both depended upon it for their livelihood, they had
agreed together to put it first. With Reanda, art was above everything
and beyond all other interests, and he had made her feel that he worked
for art's sake rather than for hers. There was a vast difference in the
value placed upon her by the two men, in relation to their two
occupations.

"I have no genius," said Griggs to her one day. "I have no intuitions of
underlying truth. But I have good brains, and few men are able to work
as hard as I. By and bye, I shall succeed and make money, and it will be
less dull for you."

"It is never dull for me when I can be with you," she answered.

As he looked, the sunshine cau