at brotherliness, that vast restraint so that she could not even guess
the strange and unimaginable pangs he suffered from his self-control.

Before Dickie's resolution was burnt away by the young inner fire, Sheila
withdrew herself gently from his arms and got up from the chair. She
walked over to one of the two large windows--the sunset windows she
called them, in contradistinction to the one sunrise window--and stood
composing herself, her hands twisted together and lifted to the top of
the lower sash, her forehead rested on them.

A rattle of china, a creaking step outside the door, interrupted their
tremulous silence in which who knows what mysterious currents were
passing between their young minds.

"It's my dinner," said Sheila, and Dickie walked over mechanically and
opened the door.

Amelia Plecks came panting into the room, set the tray down on a small
table, and looked contempt at Dickie.

"There now, Miss Arundel," she said with breathless tenderness, "I've
pro-cured a dandy chop for you. You said you was kind of famished for a
lamb chop, and, of course, in a sheep country good mutton's real hard to
come by, and this ain't properly speaking--lamb, _but_--! Well, say, it's
just dandy meat."

She ignored Dickie as one might ignore the presence of some obnoxious
insect in the reception-room of a queen. Her eyes were disgustedly
fascinated by his presence, but in her conversation she would not admit
this preoccupation of disgust.

"I'll be going," said Dickie.

Amelia nodded as one who applauds the becoming move of an inferior.

"Here's a note for you, Miss Arundel," she said, coming over to Sheila's
post at the window, where she was trying to hide the traces of her tears.
"Well, say, who's been botherin' you?" Amelia's voice went down a long,
threatening octave to a sinister bass note, at the voicing of which she
turned to look at Dickie.

"Good-night, Sheila," he said diffidently; and Sheila coming quickly
toward him, put out her hand. The note Amelia had handed her fell. Dickie
and Amelia both bent to pick it up.

"No, you don't," said Amelia, snatching it and accusing him, by her tone,
of inexpressibly base intentions. "Say, Miss Arundel," in a whisper of
thrilled confidence, "_Mister Jim_! Uh?"

"Thank you, Dickie," murmured Sheila, half-embarrassed, half-amused by
her adoring follower's innuendoes. "Thank you for everything. I shall
have to think what I can do ... Good-night."

Dickie, his