moment
almost lost himself in unconscious rest. It was good to stop thinking.

It was thus she saw him as she came softly in, with scarce a silken
rustle. Her face, as she gazed, lost its look of welcome and ready
speech, for she saw all his anguish uncovered there before her. It was
in his young face, gaunt and jaded and bleached to the city pallor; in
the closed eyes, the folded lips; and in the body wearily relaxed. So
little life he showed, it seemed to her he might be sleeping, and again,
as at the other time, she was shaken by a rush of tenderness for
him--tenderness and fear, alike terrible.

She could not speak. She hovered a half step toward him, with a hand
instinctively up to shelter and cherish, her eyes wide with pity and a
great gladness. Poised so, she waited, breathless.

Though she had made no sound, he thrilled suddenly to the knowledge of
her presence, and his eyes opened to hers. They stared dully an instant,
then shone with a quick light that held her exposed and defenseless,
while he came to himself--for the first time in her presence--as a man.
Helpless to stay it, she watched this consciousness unfolding within
him, traced it lucidly from its birth to the very leaping of it from his
lips in a smothered cry of want unutterable.

So he held her with his look. Though every nerve warned her to flight,
she was powerless even when he started toward her, raising himself
slowly from the couch with his hands; her own hand even groped a little
toward him, blindly fighting its way into both his own. It turned and
nestled there, unreasoningly, warming itself, clasping and unclasping.
He towered above her--she had never felt herself so small, so frail as
now. His two hands fiercely smothered her own, and his eyes were on her
with a look she had never seen there, a look she could not face. It was
then that her tenderness was lost in fear of him, and she forced herself
to laugh. She laughed in the desperate knowledge that his rising arm
threatened her with some crushing, blinding enfoldment where no striving
would avail her--laughed with a little easy, formal grace.

He fell back dazed, scanning her in uncomprehending dismay as they stood
apart. Then he seemed to recover himself and smiled foolishly as she
moved to a chair.

"I'm so glad you came," she began with nervous quickness. He dropped
back on the couch, his eyes still on her--the man's eyes.

She endured the look, but she could not suppress the