. Again his companion watched his hard face with affectionate
interest.

'Tell me just how it happened,' she said. 'I mean, if it will help you
at all to talk about it.'

'Yes. You always help me,' he answered, and then paused. 'I think I
should like to tell you the whole thing,' he added after an instant.
'Somehow, I never tell anybody much about myself.'

'I know.'

She bent her handsome head in assent. Just then it would have been
very hard to guess what the relations were between the oddly assorted
pair, as they sat a little apart from each other before the grate.
Mr. Van Torp was silent now, as if he were making up his mind how to
begin.

In the pause, the lady quietly held out her hand towards him. He saw
without turning further, and he stretched out his own. She took it
gently, and then, without warning, she leaned very far forward, bent
over it and touched it with her lips. He started and drew it back
hastily. It was as if the leaf of a flower had settled upon it, and
had hovered an instant, and fluttered away in a breath of soft air.

'Please don't!' he cried, almost roughly. 'There's nothing to thank me
for. I've often told you so.'

But the lady was already leaning back in the old easy-chair again as
if she had done nothing at all unusual.

'It wasn't for myself,' she said. 'It was for all the others, who will
never know.'

'Well, I'd rather not,' he answered. 'It's not worth all that. Now,
see here! I'm going to tell you as near as I can what happened, and
when you know you can make up your mind. You never saw but one side of
me anyhow, but you've got to see the other sooner or later. No, I know
what you're going to say--all that about a dual nature, and Jekyll and
Hyde, and all the rest of it. That may be true for nervous people, but
I'm not nervous. Not at all. I never was. What I know is, there are
two sides to everybody, and one's always the business side. The other
may be anything. Sometimes it's good, sometimes it's bad. Sometimes
it cares for a woman, sometimes it's a collector of art things,
Babylonian glass, and Etruscan toys and prehistoric dolls. It may
gamble, or drink, or teach a Sunday school, or read Dante, or shoot,
or fish, or anything that's of no use. But one side's always the
business side. That's certain.'

Mr. Van Torp paused, and looked at his companion's empty cup. Seeing
that he was going to get up in order to give her more, she herself
rose quickly and did it for herse