her head with gentle obduracy.

For a time they had met as they might have met had the interview in her
apartment on the drizzly afternoon never occurred. She had torn that
page out of their chronicles of acquaintanceship, and assumed that it
had never been included. Her wit had sparkled for him and her individual
charm had blossomed as though her life had never known a season other
than spring and blossom-time. Sometimes he found himself wondering if
that afternoon had been actual.

He discovered himself using quaint phrases of her invention as part of
his own conversational equipment, and often he found himself applauded
for some flash of repartee which he knew was only a quotation from her.
But also he found himself incapable of that continuous self-restraint
which she required of him under their agreement of a future basis. He
had his moments when he could no more avoid feeling and acting and
declaring himself her lover than he could avoid later regretting them,
and, for this inability, he had been exiled.

"To you," she told him, "it means a minor thing--but it's not minor to
me. I have had unhappiness enough without risking more. We must not see
or write to each other." Paul knew nothing of what this decision cost
her or of the many letters she had written to him--and destroyed
unmailed.

Now he was utterly miserable and his heart was aching for companionship
outside the two houses where the mildew of misery tainted even the
sunshine that came through the windows. He craved the cheer and strength
of a heart braver than his own, and in defiance of her orders he was
going to see the woman in whose presence he should find these things;
the woman whom he had not seen for months.

CHAPTER XXVI

As he reached Washington square it seemed that the quiet of the section
held a sort of benediction, and such peace as hangs between old walls,
where the fever of stress has passed and left in its wake a philosophy
and a contentment.

But when he came to the house where he had visited her, he was told that
she no longer lived there. With a sudden pang it occurred to him that
once more she might have moved a step down the economic scale toward the
furnished room in one of those dingy lodging-houses which she had
dreaded; places where the heart sickens at the forlornness of its
environment.

He inquired for the girl with whom Marcia had shared the little
apartment, and to his relief learned that she still had her