lute challenge.

At least, now, as the weeks passed, he sought her company more and more.
She helped him, she cheered and comforted him, enough for her present
need.

Even, beyond it all, could she survey herself humorously. This the first
love affair of her life made her smile at her capture and defeat.

"Well, I'm just like the rest--And oh! I'm glad, I'm glad that I am."

Finally she knew that there was still a step that might be taken,
between them, at any moment. He had, she knew, something to tell her.
Again and again lately he had been about to speak and then had caught
the impulse back.

This too she would not examine too closely, but from the moment that he
should demand from her definite concrete assistance, from that moment
she would be to him what she knew no one now living could claim to be.

Breton was glad when the little maid told him that Mrs. Rand was out,
but that Miss Lizzie was at home. He saw her in the warm cosy room,
sitting before the fire with her toes on the fender and her skirts
pulled up, drying her shoes.

She looked up and smiled at him and told him to sit down, but did not
move from her position.

"Mother's out at a matinee with Daisy. I got away early this afternoon.
Do you hate snow, Mr. Breton?"

"I hate it to-day. I've got the dumps. I had to find someone to talk to
or I'd have gone screaming into the street----"

"Couldn't find anyone better, so took me--thank you for the compliment.
But I like the snow. Your pool's more like a pool now than ever, Mr.
Breton."

He went across to the window and stood there looking at the little
square now white with the gaunt trees rising black from the heart of it
and the grey houses that hemmed it in. Over it the snow, yellow and grey
and then delicately white, swirled and tossed.

He came back and sat down beside her and wondered at her neat comfort
and air of calm control of all her emotions and desires.

She, looking at him, saw that he was ill. Dark lines beneath his eyes,
his cheeks pale and an air of picturesque melancholy that made her want
first to laugh at him and then mother him.

"I know what's the matter with you," she said, nodding her head.

"What?"

"Something to do. That's what you want." She turned towards him, looking
at him with a little smile and yet with grave seriousness in her eyes.
"Oh! Mr. Breton, why don't you? What is the use of sitting here month
after month, doing nothing, just waiting for something t