ek; came
but soon departed. The long gold-and-black lashes, which surely had been
made for ornaments, fluttered and fell.

Out of the dead silence she said, with some difficulty:

"It's very sweet of you to say that."

Cally moved away from him, toward the door, deeply touched. She had
wanted to hear such words as these, make no doubt of that. Among all her
meetings with this man last year, she had only that May morning to
remember without a stinging sense of her inferiority. And she supposed
that he had forgotten....

"You see," she said, not without an effort, "I have been telling you my
troubles, after all.... I--I'm afraid I've kept them waiting for you
upstairs. I must go."

But she did not leave the parlor at once, even when Hen, hearing the
door creak open, cried down that the infirmary was ready....

If Cally felt that she had somehow confessed her weakness to Mr.
V.V.--about the Works, about life--and been forgiven by him, it seemed
that even that did not quite settle it all. It must have been that one
small corner of her mind refused to consider that all this was a
closed episode.

She turned, with her hand on the knob.

"Shall you go to that meeting of Mr. Pond's next Wednesday--his meeting
for workers? He has asked me to go."

The young man said that he would be at the meeting; that he hoped to see
her there.

Cally hesitated again. Perhaps she thought of Hugo then; of perhaps the
small unreconstructed corner of her mind grew more unrestful.

"I'm not sure that I'll be able to go," she said, slowly.... "Dr.
Vivian--is your telephone number still the same--Meeghan's Grocery? I--I
may want to speak to you some time."

Yes, it was just the same. Meeghan's Grocery.

V.V. stood looking at her from the middle of the floor, one hand raised
to his hair in his characteristic gesture. His old-fashioned sort of
face wore a faraway look, not so much hopeful now as wistful; a look
which had been moving to Cally Heth, even in the days when she had tried
to dislike him. But of this, the young man from the lonely outskirts was
not aware; of the nature of his replies he had taken no note. In his
ears whispered the subtlest of all his many voices: "She'll never speak
to you, once that's printed. Tear it up. You've a right to your
youth...."

"Good-bye," said Cally, "and thank you."

"Miss Heth," said Vivian, starting, hurriedly--"I--if I--if it should
ever happen that I could _help_ you in any way--it's no