head lying back against
the brocade chair was guilty of new gleams. Brass, with a greenish alloy.
Sitting there with the look of unshed tears seeming to form a film over
her gaze, it was as if the dusk, flowing into a silence that was solemnly
shaped to receive it, folded her in, more and more obscuring her.

A door opened at the far end of the room, letting in a patch of hall light
and a dark figure coming into silhouette against it.

"You there?"

She sprang up.

"Yes, Harry--yes."

"Good Lord! sitting in the dark again!" He turned a wall key, three
pink-shaded lamps, a cluster of pink-glass grapes, and a center bowl of
alabaster flashing up the familiar spectacle of Louis Fourteenth and the
interior decorator's turpitude; a deep-pink brocade divan backed up by a
Circassian-walnut table with curly legs; a maze of smaller tables; a
marble Psyche holding out the cluster of pink grapes; a gilt grand piano,
festooned in rosebuds. Around through these Mr. Ross walked quickly,
winding his hands, rubbing them.

"Well, here I am!"

"Had your supper--dinner, Harry?"

"No. What's the idea calling me off when I got a business dinner on hand?
What's the hurry call this time? I have to get back to it."

She clasped her hands to her bare throat, swallowing with effort.

"I--Harry--I--"

"You've got to stop this kind of thing, Millie, getting nervous spells like
all the other women do the minute they get ten cents in their pocket. I
ain't got the time for it--that's all there is to it."

"I can't help it, Harry. I think I must be going crazy. I can't stop
myself. All of a sudden everything comes over me. I think I must be going
crazy."

Her voice jerked up to an off pitch, and he flung himself down on the
deep-cushioned couch, his stiff expanse of dress shirt bulging and
straining at the studs. A bit redder and stouter, too, he was constantly
rearing his chin away from the chafing edge of his collar.

"O Lord!" he said. "I guess I'm let in for some cutting-up again! Well,
fire away and have it over with! What's eating you this time?"

She was quivering so against sobs that her lips were drawn in against her
teeth by the great draught of her breathing.

"I can't stand it, Harry. I'm going crazy. I got to get relief. It's
killing me--the lonesomeness--the waiting. I can't stand no more."

He sat looking at a wreath of roses in the light carpet, lips compressed,
beating with fist into palm.

"Gad! I dunno! I giv