and smiled a leering smile.

"Pretty good frien's, you an' the li'l Teufel, yes? Guess we'll have to
watch you, huh, Anna? We'll watch 'em, won't we?"

He began to climb the stairs laboriously, with Frau Nirlanger's light
figure flitting just ahead of him. At the bend in the stairway she
turned and looked down on us a moment, her eyes very bright and big. She
pressed her fingers to her lips and wafted a little kiss toward us with
a gesture indescribably graceful and pathetic. She viewed her husband's
laborious progress, not daring to offer help. Then the turn in the stair
hid her from sight.

In the dim quiet of the little hallway Von Gerhard held out his
hands--those deft, manual hands--those steady, sure, surgeonly
hands--hands to cling to, to steady oneself by, and because I needed
them most just then, and because I longed with my whole soul to place
both my weary hands in those strong capable ones and to bring those
dear, cool, sane fingers up to my burning cheeks, I put one foot on
the first stair and held out two chilly fingertips. "Good-night, Herr
Doktor," I said, "and thank you, not only for myself, but for her. I
have felt what she feels to-night. It is not a pleasant thing to be
ashamed of one's husband."

Von Gerhard's two hands closed over that one of mine. "Dawn, you will
let me help you to find comfortable quarters? You cannot tramp about
from place to place all the week. Let us get a list of addresses, and
then, with the machine, we can drive from one to the other in an hour.
It will at least save you time and strength."

"Go boarding-house hunting in a stunning green automobile!" I exclaimed.
From my vantage point on the steps I could look down on him, and there
came over me a great longing to run my fingers gently through that crisp
blond hair, and to bring his head down close against my breast for one
exquisite moment. So--"Landladies and oitermobiles!" I laughed. "Never!
Don't you know that if they got one glimpse, through the front parlor
windows, of me stepping grand-like out of your green motor car, they
would promptly over-charge me for any room in the house? I shall go
room-hunting in my oldest hat, with one finger sticking out of my
glove."

Von Gerhard shrugged despairing shoulders.

"Na, of what use is it to plead with you. Sometimes I wonder if, after
all, you are not merely amusing yourself. Getting copy, perhaps, for the
book, or a new experience to add to your already varied store