are bad
enough; but one gets used to them. What I mean especially is something
we see about us all the time and have no chance of getting. Did you
ever want something like that, so that it nearly killed you, and
couldn't get it?"

Code was silent. The one rankling hurt of his whole life, after
seemingly being healed, broke out afresh--the engagement of Nat Burns
and Nellie Tanner.

He suddenly realized that, since seeing Elsa, he had not as much as
remembered Nellie's existence, when usually her mental presence was
not far from him. Elsa, with all her luxury and alluring feminine
charms, seemed to cast a spell that bound him helpless like the music
in the fairy stories. He liked the spell, and, after all she had done,
he confessed to an extraordinary feeling for the enchantress.

Now had come the memory of Nellie--dear, frank-eyed, open-hearted
Nellie Tanner--and the thought that her fresh wholesomeness was
pledged to make glad the life of Nat Burns seared his heart. A cloud
settled down on his brow. But in a moment he recalled himself. His
hostess had asked him a question; he must answer it.

"Yes, I have wanted something--and couldn't get it."

"Yes," said Elsa slowly, "a thing is bad enough; but it seems to me
that the most hopeless thing in the world is to want a person in that
way." Her voice was dreamy and retrospective. Its peculiar, vibrant
timbre thrilled him with the thought that perhaps there was some
hidden tragedy in her life that he had never suspected. Any unpleasant
sense that she was curious was overcome by the manner in which she
spoke.

"Yes, it is," he answered solemnly.

She looked up in astonishment at the sincerity of his tone, her heart
tingling with a new emotion of delicious uncertainty. What if, after
all, he had wanted some one in the way she wanted him? What if the
some one were herself and he had been afraid to aspire to a woman of
her wealth and position? She asked this without any feeling of
conceit, for one who loves always dreams he sees signs of favor in the
one beloved.

"Then you have wanted some one?" All her manner, her voice, her eyes
expressed sympathy. She was the soul of tact and no mean actress at
the same time.

Code, still in the depth of reminiscence and averted happiness,
scarcely heard her, but he answered

"Yes, I have." Then, coming to full realization of the confession, he
colored and laughed uneasily. "But let's not talk of such personal
things any mor