hair back from the desk, and, leaning far
over to one side, set the needle on a phonograph record, pressed the
starter, and absorbed himself in rolling and lighting a cigarette. This
accomplished, he put his hands behind his head and, wreathed in aromatic,
bluish smoke, gave himself up to complete enjoyment of the music.

It was a song from some popular light opera. A very high soprano and a
musical tenor duet, sentimental, humoresque:

"There, dry your eyes,
I sympathize
Just as a mother would--
Give me your hand,
I understand, we're off to slumber land
Like a father, like a mother, like a sister, like a brother."

Listening to this melody, Dickie Hudson's face under the gaslight
expressed a rapt and spiritual delight, tender, romantic, melancholy.

He was a slight, undersized youth, very pale, very fair, with the face of
a delicate boy. He had large, near-sighted blue eyes in which lurked a
wistful, deprecatory smile, a small chin running from wide cheek-bones
to a point. His lips were sensitive and undecided, his nose unformed, his
hair soft and easily ruffled. There were hard blue marks under the
long-lashed eyes, an unhealthy pallor to his cheeks, a slight
unsteadiness of his fingers.

Dickie held a position of minor importance in the hotel, and his pale,
innocent face was almost as familiar to its patrons as to those of the
saloon next door--more familiar to both than it was to Hudson's
"residence." Sometimes for weeks Dickie did not strain the scant welcome
of his "folks." To-night, however, he was resolved to tempt it. After
listening to the record, he strolled over to the saloon.

Dickie was curious. He shared Millings's interest in the "young lady from
Noo York." Shyness fought with a sense of adventure, until to-night, a
night fully ten nights after Sheila's arrival, the courage he imbibed at
the bar of The Aura gave him the necessary impetus. He pulled himself up
from his elbow, removed his foot from the rail, straightened his spotted
tie, and pushed through the swinging doors out into the night.

It was a moonlit night, as still and pure as an angel of annunciation--a
night that carried tall, silver lilies in its hands. Above the small,
sleepy town were lifted the circling rim of mountains and the web of
blazing stars. Sylvester's son, after a few crunching steps along the icy
pavement, stopped with his hand against the wall, and stood, not quite
steadily, his face lifted. The whiteness sank throug