He was very glad to see her. He stood on the post office steps looking
richer and smarter than she had ever known him. He wore a dark blue suit
and a black tie and a bowler hat--all ordinary garments enough--but they
surrounded him with an air of prosperity that had not been his before.
He seemed to her to gleam and glitter and shine with confidence and
assurance. One hurried glimpse she had had of him some weeks before,
miserable, unkempt, almost furtive. She was glad for his sake that all
was well with him, but he needed her more when he was unhappy....

But he was delighted. "Miss Rand. That's splendid! Are you going back to
Saxton Square now? The very thing! I've been wanting badly to see you!"
It was always, she thought, in little hurried and occasional walks that
they exchanged their confidences. There was not much to show for all the
elaborate palace that she had once been building--snatches of
conversation, clutches at words and movements, even eloquent
interpretation of silences--well, she was wiser than all that now!

But, when they started off together, she found that she was caught up
instantly into that fine assumption of intimacy that was one of his most
alluring qualities. Radiant though he was he still needed her; he was
more eager to talk to _her_ than to anyone else even though he had
forgotten her very existence until he saw her standing there.

"I am glad to see you. I should have come down and tried to find you,
anyway, in a day or two. I've been through a rotten time--really
rotten--and one doesn't want to see anyone--even one's best friends--in
that sort of condition, does one?"

"That's just the time your _real_ friends--if they're worth
anything--want to see you. If they can be of any use----"

"But you'd been such a tremendous help to me. I was ashamed to come to
you any more. Besides, you'd showed me, in a way, that I ought to get
through on my own without asking help from anyone. You'd taught me that
I did try."

She saw that he was shining with the glory of one who had come,
rather mightily, unaided through times of stress. A pleasant
self-congratulatory pathos stirred behind his words. "It _was_ a bad
time--but it's all right now. And I expect it was good for me," was
really what he said.

"I do want to tell you," he went on eagerly, "about Rachel. It's all
been so strange--wonderful in a way. After that talk I had with you in
the park I was absolutely broken up. Oh! but done for!