en she had come clicking down the
stairs to find the tall outlander standing here in her familiar
background. Only there was no feeling in her now that he was an alien in
the Heth drawing-room. No, here V. Vivian seemed to belong to-day, the
best and worthiest thing in the room.

To her, that was; but it was not so with others. The one speck in the
perfect balm was that, to have this man here at all, she had had to
manage it secretly, as if it were something discreditable....

The greetings were over; they were seated; he was advised that it was
about a building matter that she desired his help; and even when, as
talk progressed, she placed her building lot for him at Seventeenth and
Canal Streets, the doctor's manner, which was quite eager and interested
and pleased at being summoned for help, showed no signs of
understanding.

"Seventeenth and Canal Streets," he repeated, alert and businesslike.
"Yes? It's to be a business building, then?"

"There's a building there now, but I'm going to pull that one down,"
said Cally. "I don't like it."

And at this moment it was that she saw consciousness burst into the
unconscious; burst with the strong suddenness of an explosion.

"_Seventeenth and Canal Streets_!... That's the Heth Works corner!"

"That's the building I'm going to pull down. I--I've taken a dislike to
it."

The tall young man came to his feet, slowly, as if hoisted from above by
an invisible block and tackle. All in a moment, his face had become
quite pale.

"What do you mean?" he asked, in a queer clipped voice.

"I mean ... I don't think you will have to say anything about my father
in your articles.... We're going to build a new Works--_now_!"

He stood staring a second like a man of stone; and then turned abruptly
from her and walked away. But in that second she saw that his
petrifaction was already scattering, and his face wore the strangest
look, like a kind of glory....

So Cally thought that he understood now; and that was all the reward she
wanted. Sitting silent, she looked after his retreating back. She
perceived, with a queer little twitching in her heart, that the polished
spaces upon Mr. V.V.'s right elbow had thinned away into an unmistakable
darning. And then it came over her quite suddenly that the reason he
wore this suit to-day was probably that he had given his blue suit away,
to one of his sick. She seemed quite sure that that was it. And oh, how
like him, and like nobody else