n a vague way
he recalled a certain mysterious change in Anne Tresslyn's face. It was
not age that had wrought the change in her, nor could it be age that had
done the same for him.

The solution came to him suddenly, as he stepped out into the open air and
saw the faces of other men. It was strength, not weakness, that had put
its stamp upon his countenance, and upon Anne's; the strength that
survives the constructive years, the years of development. He saw this
set, firm strength in the faces of other men for the first time. They too
no doubt had awakened abruptly from the dream of ambition to find
themselves dominated by a purpose. That purpose was in their faces.
Ambition was back of that purpose perhaps, deep in the soul of the man,
but purpose had become the necessity.

Every man comes to that strange spot in the dash through life where he
stops to divest himself of an ideal. He lays it down beside the road and,
without noticing, picks up a resolve in its place and strides onward,
scarcely conscious of the substitution. It requires strength to carry a
resolve. An ideal carries itself and is no burden. So each of these men in
the street,--truckman, motorman, merchant, clerk, what you will,--sets forth
each day with the same old resolution at his heels; and in their set faces
is the strength that comes with the transition from wonder to earnestness.
Its mark was stamped upon the countenances of young and old alike. Even
the beggar at the street corner below was without his ideal. Even he had a
definite, determined purpose.

Then there was that subtle change in Anne. He thought of it now, most
unwillingly. He did not want to think of her. He was certain that he had
put her out of his thoughts. Now he realised that she had merely lain
dormant in his mind while it was filled with the intensities of the past
few days. She had not been crowded out, after all. The sharp recollection
of the impression he had had on seeing her immediately after his arrival
was proof that she was still to be reckoned with in his thoughts.

The strange, elusive maturity that had come into her young, smooth
face,--that was it. Maturity without the passing of Youth; definiteness,
understanding, discovery,--a grip on the realities of life, just as it was
with him and all the others who were awake. A year in the life of a young
thing like Anne could not have created the difference that he felt rather
than saw.

Something more significant tha