her as his
proselyte, he called her a Puritan, and he seemed more concerned that she
should shed these relics of an ancestral code than acquire the doctrines
of Sorel and Pouget. And yet association with him presented the
allurement of a dangerous adventure. Intellectually he fascinated her;
and still another motive--which she partially disguised from
herself--prevented her from repelling him. That motive had to do with
Ditmar. She tried to put Ditmar from her mind; she sought in desperation,
not only to keep busy, but to steep and lose herself in this fierce creed
as an antidote to the insistent, throbbing pain that lay ambushed against
her moments of idleness. The second evening of her installation at
Headquarters she had worked beyond the supper hour, helping Sanders with
his accounts. She was loath to go home. And when at last she put on her
hat and coat and entered the hall Rolfe, who had been talking to Jastro,
immediately approached her. His liquid eyes regarded her solicitously.

"You must be hungry," he said. "Come out with me and have some supper."

But she was not hungry; what she needed was air. Then he would walk a
little way with her--he wanted to talk to her. She hesitated, and then
consented. A fierce hope had again taken possession of her, and when they
came to Warren Street she turned into it.

"Where are you going?" Rolfe demanded.

"For a walk," she said. "Aren't you coming?"

"Will you have supper afterwards?"

"Perhaps."

He followed her, puzzled, yet piqued and excited by her manner, as with
rapid steps she hurried along the pavement. He tried to tell her what her
friendship meant to him; they were, he declared, kindred spirits--from
the first time he had seen her, on the Common, he had known this. She
scarcely heard him, she was thinking of Ditmar; and this was why she had
led Rolfe into Warren Street they might meet Ditmar! It was possible that
he would be going to the mill at this time, after his dinner! She
scrutinized every distant figure, and when they reached the block in
which he lived she walked more slowly. From within the house came to her,
faintly, the notes of a piano--his daughter Amy was practising. It was
the music, a hackneyed theme of Schubert's played heavily, that seemed to
arouse the composite emotion of anger and hatred, yet of sustained
attraction and wild regret she had felt before, but never so poignantly
as now. And she lingered, perversely resolved to steep hersel