ts from his pocket, laid
one on the desk for Crailey and lit the other himself, with extreme
carefulness, at the candle. After this ceremonial he dragged a chair to
the window, tilted back in it with his feet on the low sill, his back to
the thin light and his friend, and said in a slow, gentle tone: "Well,
Crailey?"

"I suppose you mean that I ought to offer my explanation first," said
the other, still standing. "Well, there isn't any." He did not speak
doggedly or sullenly, as one in fault, but more with the air of a man
curiously ready to throw all possible light upon a cloudy phenomenon.
"It's very simple--all that I know about it. I went there first on the
evening of the Madrillon masquerade and played a little comedy for
her, so that some of my theatrical allusions--they weren't very
illuminating!--to my engagement to Fanchon, made her believe I was
Vanrevel when her father told her about the pair of us. I discovered
that the night his warehouses burned--and I saw something more, because
I can't help seeing such things: that yours was just the character to
appeal to a young girl fresh from the convent and full of honesty and
fine dreams and fire. Nobody could arrange a more fatal fascination for
a girl of nineteen than to have a deadly quarrel with her father. And
that's especially true when the father's like that mad brute of a Bob
Carewe! Then, too, you're more or less the town model of virtue and
popular hero, in spite of the Abolitionism, just as I am the town scamp.
So I let it go on, and played a little at being you, saying the things
that you only think--that was all. It isn't strange that it's lasted
until now, not more than three weeks, after all. She's only seen you
four or five times, and me not much oftener. No one speaks of you to
her, and I've kept out of sight when others were about. Mrs. Tanberry is
her only close friend, and, naturally, wouldn't be apt to mention that
you are dark and I am fair, or to describe us personally, any more than
you and I would mention the general appearance of people we both meet
about town. But you needn't tell me that it can't last much longer. Some
petty, unexpected trifle will turn up, of course. All that I want to
know is what you mean to do."

"To do?" repeated Tom softly, and blew a long scarf of smoke out of the
window.

"Ah!" Crailey's voice grew sharp and loud. "There are many things you
needn't tell me! You need not tell me what I've done to you--nor what