t, spoke to her once or twice but got no other answer than a
long, contented sigh. He stood for a little while trying to make out
her outline in the dim corner of the room. Then he tiptoed out to the
hall, possessed himself of a warm motor-rug, returned with it and laid
it gently and tenderly over the unconscious girl.

He didn't intend to let sleep rob him of the first sight of a day that
was to mean so much to him, and he went over to the open window, caught
the scent of lilac and listened, with all his imagination and sense of
beauty stirred, to the deep breathing of the night.... Yes, he had cut
through the bars which had kept this girl from taking her place among
the crowd. He was responsible for the fact that she was about to play
her part in the comedy of life. He was glad to be responsible. He had
passionately desired a cause to which to attach himself; and was there,
in all the world, a better than Joan?

Spring had come again, and all things were young, and the call to mate
rang in his ears and set his heart beating and his thoughts racing
ahead. He loved her, this girl that he had come upon standing out in
all her freshness against a blue sky. He would serve her as the great
lovers had served, and please God, she would some day return his love.
They would build up a home and bring up a family and go together up the
inevitable hill.

And as he stood sentinel, in a waking dream, waiting for the finger of
dawn to rub the night away, sleep tapped him on the shoulder, and he
turned and went to the divan and sat down with his back to it, touched
one of Joan's placid hands with his lips and drifted into further
dreams with a smile around his mouth.

V

It was ten o'clock in the morning when Martin brought his car to a stop
and looked up at the heavy Gothic decorations of a pompous house in
East Fifty-fifth Street. "Is this it?"

"Yes," said Joan, getting out of the leather-lined coat that he had
wrapped her in. "It really is a house, isn't it; and luckily, all the
gargoyles are on the outside." She held out her hand and gave Martin
the sort of smile for which any genuine man would sell his soul.
"Marty," she added, "you've been far more than a brother to me. You've
been a cousin. I shall never be able to thank you. And I adored the
drive with our noses turned to the city. I shan't be able to be seen on
the streets until I've got some frocks, so please come and see me every
day. As soon as Alice has go