in Lee, and
for his service he would give the young Cohen untold gold. He exhibited
the untold gold. The young Cohen choked at the sight and sprang into
the seat beside the driver of a taxicab.

"To the Working Girls' Home, on Tenth Street!" he commanded.

Through the falling snow and the flashing lights they slid, skidded,
and leaped. Inside the cab Lee shivered with excitement, with cold,
with fear that it might not be true. He could not realize she was
near. It was easier to imagine himself still in the jungle, with
months of time and sixteen thousand miles of land and water separating
them; or in the hospital, on a white-enamel cot, watching the shadow
creep across the whitewashed wall; or lying beneath an awning that did
not move, staring at a burning, brazen sea that did not move, on a
transport that, timed by the beating of his heart, stood still.

Those days were within the radius of his experience. Separation,
absence, the immutable giants of time and space, he knew. With them he
had fought and could withstand them. But to be near her, to hear her
voice, to bring his love into her actual presence, that was an attack
upon his feelings which found him without weapons. That for a very few
dollars she had traded the cup from which she had sworn never to part
did not concern him. Having parted from him, what she did with a
silver mug was of little consequence. It was of significance only in
that it meant she was poor. And that she was either an inmate or a
matron of a lodging-house for working girls also showed she was poor.

He had been told that was her condition, and that she was in ill
health, and that from all who loved her she had refused to accept help.
At the thought his jaws locked pugnaciously. There was one who loved
her, who, should she refuse his aid, was prepared to make her life
intolerable. He planned in succession at lightning speed all he might
do for her. Among other things he would make this Christmas the
happiest she or he would ever know. Not for an instant did he question
that she who had refused help from all who loved her could refuse
anything he offered. For he knew it was offered with a love that
demanded nothing in return, with a love that asked only to be allowed
to love, and to serve. To refuse help inspired by such a feeling as
his would be morbid, wicked, ridiculous, as though a flower refused to
turn its face to the sun, and shut its lips to the dew.

The cab s