corner there, didn't I hear your step three flights down?
Sometimes I have heard it come, and it sounds like something leaden
beating time to the music of despair. And to-night you tripped up
like a boy home for the holidays. You are going out to-night,
Arnold."

He nodded.

"A man whom I met the other night has asked me to dine with him," he
announced.

"A man! You are not going to see her, then?"

He laughed gayly and placed his hand upon the fingers which had
drawn him towards her.

"Silly girl!" he declared. "No, I am going to dine alone with her
brother, the Count Sabatini. You see, I am private secretary now to
a merchant prince, no longer a clerk in a wholesale provision
merchant's office. We climb, my dear Ruth. Soon I am going to ask
for a holiday, and then we'll make Isaac leave his beastly lecturing
and scurrilous articles, and come away with us somewhere for a day
or two. You would like a few days in the country, Ruth?"

Her eyes met his gratefully.

"You know that I should love it, dear," she said, "but, Arnie, do
you think that when the time for the holiday comes you will want to
take us?"

He sat on the arm of her chair and held her hand.

"Foolish little woman!" he exclaimed. "Do you think that I am likely
to forget? Why, I must have shared your supper nearly every night
for a month, while I was walking about trying to find something to
do. People don't forget who have lived through that sort of times,
Ruth."

She sighed. Strangely enough, her tone had in it something of vague
regret.

"For your sake, dear, I am glad that they are over."

"Things, too, will improve with you," he declared. "They shall
improve. If only Isaac would turn sensible! He has brains and he is
clever enough, if he weren't stuffed full with that foolish
socialism."

She looked around the room and drew him a little closer to her.

"Arnold," she whispered, "now that you have spoken of it, let me
tell you this. Sometimes I am afraid. Isaac is so mysterious. Do you
know that he is away often for the whole day, and comes back white
and exhausted, worn to a shadow, and sleeps for many hours?
Sometimes he is in his room all right, but awake. I can hear him
moving backwards and forwards, and hammering, tap, tap, tap, for
hours."

"What does he do?" Arnold asked quickly.

"He has some sort of a little printing press in his room," she
answered. "He prints some awful sheet there which the police have
stopped. The nig