l was forced, however willingly, to labours beyond
her strength, to irksome confinement, and to that intimate and wearing
close association with the abnormal which in the long run is bound to
deaden the spirit. He lost sight of his own grievance in the matter.
With perhaps somewhat of exaggeration he came mightily to desire for her
more of the open air, both of body and spirit. Often when tramping back
to his hotel he communed savagely with himself, turning the problem over
and over in his mind until, like a snowball, it had gathered to itself
colossal proportions.

And in his hotel room he brooded over the state of affairs until his
thoughts took a very gloomy tinge indeed. To begin with, in spite of his
mother's assurance, he had no faith in his own cause. His acquaintance
with Carroll was but an affair of months, and their actual meetings
comprised incredibly few days. Orde was naturally humble-minded. It
did not seem conceivable to him that he could win her without a long
courtship. And superadded was the almost intolerable weight of Carroll's
ideas as to her domestic duties. Although Orde held Mrs. Bishop's
exactions in very slight esteem, and was most sceptical in regard to
the disasters that would follow their thwarting, nevertheless he had to
confess to himself that all Carroll's training, life, the very purity
and sweetness of her disposition lent the situation an iron reality for
her. He became much discouraged.

Nevertheless, at the very moment when he had made up his mind that it
would be utterly useless even to indulge in hope for some years to come,
he spoke. It came about suddenly, and entirely without premeditation.

The two had escaped for a breath of air late in the evening. Following
the conventions, they merely strolled to the end of the block and back,
always within sight of the house. Fifth Avenue was gay with illumination
and the prancing of horses returning uptown or down to the Washington
Square district. In contrast the side street, with its austere rows of
brownstone houses, each with its area and flight of steps, its spaced
gas lamps, its deserted roadway, seemed very still and quiet. Carroll
was in a tired and pensive mood. She held her head back, breathing
deeply.

"It's only a little strip, but it's the stars," said she, looking up to
the sky between the houses. "They're so quiet and calm and big."

She seemed to Orde for the first time like a little girl. The maturer
complexities whi