d in Othello's place. Whether, when
the furious general takes Iago by the throat in his wrath, the Swede's
grip would have relaxed so easily on one who should dare to whisper a
breath against the Countess Margaret. She so lived in the thought for a
moment that her whole face glowed in the shade of the box, and her dark
eyes shot out fire. Ah me! Margaret, will he come back to stand by your
side and face the world for you? Who knows. Men are deceivers ever, says
the old song.

Home through the long streets, lighted with the pale electric flame that
gives so deathly a tinge to everything that comes within the circling of
its discolour; home to her rooms with the pleasant little fire
smouldering on the hearth, and flowers--Barker's flowers--scenting the
room; home to the cares of Clementine, to lean back with half-closed
eyes, thinking, while the deft French fingers uncoil and smooth and coil
again the jet-black tresses; home to the luxury of sleep unbroken by ill
ease of body, though visited by the dreams of a far-away lover--dreams
not always hopeful, but ever sweet; home to a hotel! Can a hostelry be
dignified with that great name? Yes. Wherever we are at rest and at
peace, wherever the thought of love or dream of lover visits us,
wherever we look forward to meeting that lover again--that is home. For
since the cold steel-tipped fingers of science have crushed space into a
nut-shell, and since the deep-mouthed capacious present has swallowed
time out of sight, there is no landmark left but love, no hour but the
hour of loving, no home but where our lover is.

The little god who has survived ages of sword-play and centuries of
peace-time, survives also science the leveller, and death the destroyer.

And in the night, when all are asleep, and the chimes are muffled with
the thick darkness, and the wings of the dream-spirits caress the air,
then the little Red Mouse comes out and meditates on all these things,
and wonders how it is that men can think there is any originality in
their lives or persons or doings. The body may have changed a little,
men may have grown stronger and fairer, as some say, or weaker and more
puny, as others would have it, but the soul of man is even as it was
from the beginning.

CHAPTER XVIII.

A month has passed since Margaret went to see _Othello_, and New York is
beginning to wake to its winter round of amusements. There are dinners
and dances and much leaving of little pasteboard