serve as a pastime, nothing more; a toy which now and then
he took up, but only because it was there, beneath his feet. Yet even
then she was not quite unhappy. Even then she had faith. She believed
in him still. Hope had not gone.

Hope has its braveries. Its outposts patrol our lives. Until death
annihilates it and us, always beyond is a sentry. The sentry which she
still discerned was the promise he had made. Latterly it had not been
much of a sentry. It had far more resembled a straw. But it was all
she had. She had clung to it. Hope indeed has its braveries, but it
has its cowardices as well.

This hope, ultimate and forlorn, she knew now was craven, mated to her
degradation, born of her shame. If it were to be realized the
realization must delay no more. She was at the gates. She must pass
through. On that she had decided. When Loftus came she would tell him
so. She would tell him that she would work for him, slave for him,
envelop him with her love, pillow him on her heart. Though he lost his
wretched money what would it matter to her and how should it matter to
him? She could sing him if not into affluence at least into ease.
Tambourini, with whom until recently she had studied, had told her not
once, out of politeness merely, but again and again that in her throat
was a volcano of gold. With Italian exaggeration he had called her
Pasta, Alboni, Malibran, predicting their triumphs for her. If Loftus
would make an honest woman of her those triumphs would be for him. But
as she told herself that she told herself too that such triumphs he
would prefer to avoid. He should have, though, the chance. If he
rejected it she would go. And of its rejection she had little manner
of doubt. But the chance he should have, yes, even though she knew
beforehand that with his usual civility--a civility which she had
learned to hate--he would hand it back. She could see him at it. She
could see his negligent smile. That smile she had learned too to hate.
Always she loved him to distraction, but sometime she hated him to the
death.

From Loftus for a moment her thoughts veered to Tambourini. The week
previous suddenly, without warning, he had told her torrentially that
he adored her. He was a good teacher. Yet, of course, after that she
had been obliged to let him go.

But now her thoughts were interrupted. At the table where she sat she
started, her head drawn abruptly in that attitude which deers have
when surprised. In the d