I came in to ask Mr. Neumann-Schultz if there's anything I can do for
you," said Robin.

"Did you? He lives next door."

"I know. I knocked there first, but he didn't answer so I thought he
must be here."

Priscilla said nothing. At any other time she would have snubbed Robin
and got rid of him. Now she merely sat and drooped.

"Has he gone out?"

"Yes."

Her voice was very low, hardly more than a whisper. Those who know the
faintness of hunger at this stage will also know the pathos that
steals into the voice of the sufferer when he is unwillingly made to
speak; it becomes plaintive, melodious with yearning, the yearning for
food. But if you do not know this, if you have yourself just come from
dinner, if you are half in love and want the other person to be quite
in love, if you are full of faith in your own fascinations, you are
apt to fall into Robin's error and mistake the nature of the yearning.
Tussie in Robin's place would have doubted the evidence of his senses,
but then Tussie was very modest. Robin doubted nothing. He saw, he
heard, and he thrilled; and underneath his thrilling, which was real
enough to make him flush to the roots of his hair, far down underneath
it was the swift contemptuous comment, "They're all alike."

Priscilla shut her eyes. She was listening for the first sound of
Tussie's or Fritzing's footfall, the glad sound heralding the approach
of something to eat, and wishing Robin would go away. He was kind at
times and obliging, but on the whole a nuisance. It was a great pity
there were so many people in the world who were nuisances and did not
know it. Somebody ought to tell them,--their mothers, or other useful
persons of that sort. She vaguely decided that the next time she met
Robin and was strengthened properly by food she would say a few things
to him from which recovery would take a long while.

"Are you--not well?" Robin asked, after a silence during which his
eyes never left her and hers were shut; and even to himself his voice
sounded deeper, more intense than usual.

"Oh yes," murmured Priscilla with a little sigh.

"Are you--happy?"

Happy? Can anybody who is supperless, dinnerless, breakfastless, be
happy, Priscilla wondered? But the question struck her as funny, and
the vibrating tones in which it was asked struck her as rather funny
too, and she opened her eyes for a moment to look up at Robin with a
smile of amusement--a smile that she could not guess was turned b