f it. You
must come with me tomorrow evening to see it--with your friends, of
course.--That is," he added, "if there's any sort of chance of getting
seats."

The flash of a street lamp lit up her radiant face. "Oh, will you really
take us? What fun to think that it's tomorrow already!"

It was wonderfully pleasant to be able to give such pleasure. Darrow was
not rich, but it was almost impossible for him to picture the state of
persons with tastes and perceptions like his own, to whom an evening at
the theatre was an unattainable indulgence. There floated through his
mind an answer of Mrs. Leath's to his enquiry whether she had seen the
play in question. "No. I meant to, of course, but one is so overwhelmed
with things in Paris. And then I'm rather sick of Cerdine--one is always
being dragged to see her."

That, among the people he frequented, was the usual attitude toward such
opportunities. There were too many, they were a nuisance, one had to
defend one's self! He even remembered wondering, at the moment,
whether to a really fine taste the exceptional thing could ever become
indifferent through habit; whether the appetite for beauty was so soon
dulled that it could be kept alive only by privation. Here, at any rate,
was a fine chance to experiment with such a hunger: he almost wished he
might stay on in Paris long enough to take the measure of Miss Viner's
receptivity.

She was still dwelling on his promise, "It's too beautiful of you! Oh,
don't you THINK you'll be able to get seats?" And then, after a pause of
brimming appreciation: "I wonder if you'll think me horrid?--but it may
be my only chance; and if you can't get places for us all, wouldn't you
perhaps just take ME? After all, the Farlows may have seen it!"

He had not, of course, thought her horrid, but only the more engaging,
for being so natural, and so unashamed of showing the frank greed of her
famished youth. "Oh, you shall go somehow!" he had gaily promised her;
and she had dropped back with a sigh of pleasure as their cab passed
into the dimly-lit streets of the Farlows' quarter beyond the Seine...

This little passage came back to him the next morning, as he opened his
hotel window on the early roar of the Northern Terminus.

The girl was there, in the room next to him. That had been the first
point in his waking consciousness. The second was a sense of relief at
the obligation imposed on him by this unexpected turn of everts. To
wake to th