s, and the priest himself, crowded
round her candy stand? Why did she care about any one but him? Why
could he never, never find the thing he looked for in her playful,
affectionate eyes?

Then he fell to imagining that he looked once more and found it
there, and what it would be like if she loved him,--she who, as
Alexandra said, could give her whole heart. In that dream he could
lie for hours, as if in a trance. His spirit went out of his body
and crossed the fields to Marie Shabata.

At the University dances the girls had often looked wonderingly
at the tall young Swede with the fine head, leaning against the
wall and frowning, his arms folded, his eyes fixed on the ceiling
or the floor. All the girls were a little afraid of him. He was
distinguished-looking, and not the jollying kind. They felt that
he was too intense and preoccupied. There was something queer about
him. Emil's fraternity rather prided itself upon its dances, and
sometimes he did his duty and danced every dance. But whether he
was on the floor or brooding in a corner, he was always thinking
about Marie Shabata. For two years the storm had been gathering
in him.

XII

Carl came into the sitting-room while Alexandra was lighting the
lamp. She looked up at him as she adjusted the shade. His sharp
shoulders stooped as if he were very tired, his face was pale,
and there were bluish shadows under his dark eyes. His anger had
burned itself out and left him sick and disgusted.

"You have seen Lou and Oscar?" Alexandra asked.

"Yes." His eyes avoided hers.

Alexandra took a deep breath. "And now you are going away. I
thought so."

Carl threw himself into a chair and pushed the dark lock back
from his forehead with his white, nervous hand. "What a hopeless
position you are in, Alexandra!" he exclaimed feverishly. "It is
your fate to be always surrounded by little men. And I am no better
than the rest. I am too little to face the criticism of even such
men as Lou and Oscar. Yes, I am going away; to-morrow. I cannot
even ask you to give me a promise until I have something to offer
you. I thought, perhaps, I could do that; but I find I can't."

"What good comes of offering people things they don't need?"
Alexandra asked sadly. "I don't need money. But I have needed
you for a great many years. I wonder why I have been permitted to
prosper, if it is only to take my friends away from me."

"I don't deceive myself," Carl said frankly. "I know th