they reached the centre of Paris and he
found himself in the street by her side, and they were crossing the Pond
des Arts on foot. The lamps were lit. The tumult and stir of the city
was around them, the odour of fires and the perfume of the city pungent
to their nostrils. They walked along silently, and Fairfax asked her
suddenly--

"Where shall I take you? Where do you live?" and realized as he spoke
how little he knew of her, how unknown they were to each other, and yet
what a factor she had been in his emotional life. He had held her in his
arms and kissed her not three hours ago.

She put her hand out to him. "We will say good-bye here," she said
evenly. "I can go home alone."

"Oh no," he objected, but he saw by her face that in her, too, a
revulsion had taken place, perhaps stronger than his own. He was ashamed
and annoyed. He put out his hand and hers just touched it.

"Thank you," she said, "for the excursion, and would you please give me
my portfolio?"

He handed it to her. Then quite impulsively: "I don't want to part from
you like this. Why should I? Let me take you home, won't you?"

He wanted to say, "Forgive me," but she had possessed herself of her
little sketches, the poor, inadequate work of fruitless months. She
turned and was gone almost running up the quays, as she had run before
him down the alley of Versailles. He saw her go with great relief, and,
when the little brown figure was lost in the Paris multitude, he turned
and limped home to the studio in the Quais.

CHAPTER XIV

He did not go to the Avenue du Bois de Boulogne at the appointed hour,
and was so ungracious as not to send her any word. He took the time for
his own work, and from thence on devoted himself to finishing the
portrait of his mother. Meanwhile, Dearborn, enveloped in smoke, dug
into the mine of his imagination and brought up treasures and nearly
completed his play. He recited from it copiously, read it aloud, wept at
certain scenes which he assured Tony would never be as sad to any
spectator as they were to him.

"I wrote them on an empty stomach," he said.

Fairfax, meanwhile, finished his statuette and decided to send it to an
exhibition of sculpture to be opened in the Rue de Sevres. He had
bitterly renounced his worldly life, and was shortly obliged to pawn his
dress suit, and, indeed, anything else that the young men could gather
together went to the Mont de Piete, and once more the comrades were
nea