hooves
me therefore to be the more merciful."

Daniel could make no reply that would console him.

As he went home, he thought of the fidelity and the constant but
unassuming help he had received from Benda. He thought of the refined
and delicate consideration of his friend. He thought especially of that
extraordinary courtesy which was so marked in him, that, for example,
while laughing at a good joke, Benda would stop with open mouth if some
one resumed the conversation: he did not wish to lose anything another
might wish to say to him.

He stopped. It seemed to him that he had neglected the opportunity to
put an especially reassuring, cordial, and unforgettable force into his
final handshake. He would have liked to turn back. But it is not the
custom to turn back; no one in truth can do it.

III

Daniel did not wish to take the mask of Zingarella with him on his
tours. To expose the fragile material to all the risks associated with a
fortuitous life on the road seemed to him an act of impiety. He had
consequently promised Eleanore to leave the mask with her in Jordan's
house during his absence.

Eleanore opened the door; Daniel entered. Gertrude arose from her seat
at the table, and came up to meet him. Her face showed, as it always did
when she saw him, unmistakable traces of resignation, willingness,
submissiveness.

Daniel walked over to the table, took the newspaper wrapping from the
mask, and held it up in the light of the lamp.

"How beautiful!" exclaimed Gertrude, whose senses were now delighted at
the sight of any object that appealed to one's feelings.

"Well, take it, then, Gertrude," said Eleanore, as she leaned both
elbows on the top of the table. "Keep it with you," she continued
somewhat tensely, when she noticed that Gertrude was looking at Daniel
as if to say, "May I?"

"But won't he give it to both of us?" replied Gertrude with a covetous
smile.

"No, no, he simply mentioned me for courtesy's sake," said Eleanore,
quite positively.

"Eleanore, I can scarcely tell you how I feel toward you," said Daniel,
half confused, half angry, and then stopped with conspicuous suddenness
when the fiery blue of her eyes fell upon him.

"You?" she whispered in astonishment, "you?"

"Yes, you," he replied emphatically. "Later I can tell everybody; to-day
it is true in a double sense: you seem to me just like a sister."

He had laid the mask to one side and exten