he was
all of them in one.

And once he had been almost careless in her presence! How he marveled at
that now, when he knew that henceforth every approach to her would be an
event. He shuddered at the memory of what he had been saved from--that
swift brute impulse to hold her close against his breast. Must he feel
that always--fight it always, to be blasted if he lost? At least in his
own secret world he was free to treasure each memory of her dearness.
And he could make her glad. He could work as man had not worked before.
He could make her a little glad.

He feverishly began a drawing for the _Knickerbocker_ the next morning.
Craig, the art editor, had said that he could use six drawings as good
as the two he was shown, and they had decided on scenes that would give
variety to the series. But that was before a Teevan had come into his
life, and now he had lost a month in the dream of satisfying that patron
critic.

It was good to prove that he could still draw in his own way; he had
suffered so long in that rage of impotence; and he kept to the work
until dusk, making no stop for food, even when the noise of falling
bodies came to mark the luncheon hour.

When Teevan sauntered in at six the two went to dine at a restaurant.
Ewing had no longer dreaded the meeting. He was ready to show Teevan
that there had been no true failure. But Teevan merely listened to the
bare outline of fact as they threaded a way through the evening crowd.
He made no comment, and Ewing thought this might be due to the
difficulty of conversing in a noisy street.

But after ordering dinner with a nice deliberation, Teevan spoke
determinedly of other matters. Ewing ventured a humorous reference to
his despair when he left the school, meaning to compel the inference
that he no longer despaired. Teevan languidly mentioned a violinist he
had heard the evening before.

"--Two Bach numbers, the suite in F minor rather exquisitely done. Bach
wrote tremendously well for the fiddle. Technical skill in the
performer, you ask? Yes, entirely adequate; indeed, he gave rather a
warm reading, really not lacking a certain elevation of style, even a
nobility of utterance. That was quite all of interest, though. The
Dvorak _humoresque_--a thing transcribed from a piano piece and made
sentimental--has one of those effective passages in double notes,
certain to win an encore from the mob; and the twenty-fourth caprice of
Paganini was merely a smart exhibiti