n during the achievement of this
first success, to learn the comparative rarity of those hours. Though,
as she looked back on it afterward, the whole of this first job seemed
to have been done with a kind of miraculous facility she couldn't
account for.

And all through those five hours, fast as her mind flew, utterly
absorbed as it seemed to be, she never once lost the consciousness of
the almost palpable presence of Rodney Aldrich there in the room with
her. Once she laughed outright over the memory of a girl who had tried
to win her husband's friendship by studying law. Fancy Rodney trying to
study costumes! But he would understand what it meant to conceive them
and the sort of work it took, once they were conceived, to project them
as something objective to herself--something that had to challenge
expert opinion; meet the exactions of criticism. He'd understand the
thrill, too, of seeing them come up for judgment--the triumph of getting
them accepted and paid for.

And, in the confidence born of that understanding, he'd be able to offer
for her to understand, the fundamentals of his own work. Not the dry
husks of technical considerations. What did they amount to anyway,
except as they formed the boundaries of the live thing he meant? But the
live thing itself--the thing that spelled challenge and work and victory
for him,--that thing, since at last she'd grown to deserve it, he'd
give her. Freely, fully,--just because he couldn't help giving it.

Tired as she was, she could hardly bear to stop work. The half finished
thing on the manikin lured her on from one moment to another. It was
really insane not to stop. She must get up at seven-thirty, three hours
or so from now, in order to get to the shops ahead of the crowds and
begin the selection of her fabrics. At last, with a single movement of
resolution she turned out the gas and undressed, or rather, finished
undressing, in the dark, amid a litter of pins and paper cambric.

And now, for the first time in this squalid, mean little room, the dark
had balm in it, became a fragrant miracle, obliterating the harsh
actualities of her immediate yesterdays and to-morrows, winging her
spirit for a breathless flight straight to the end she sought,--to the
time when the long pilgrimage before her should be accomplished.

What a wonderful thing Rodney's cool firm friendship would be! Worth
anything, anything in the world it might cost to win it. But ... But....

She dre