. Ditmar, removing one of the side curtains that she might see, with
just a hint in his voice of a reverence she was too excited to notice,
pointed out the stern and respectable facades of the twin Chippering
mansions standing side by side. Save for these shrines--for such in some
sort they were to him--the Back Bay in his eyes was nothing more than a
collection of houses inhabited by people whom money and social position
made unassailable. But to-day he, too, was excited. Never had he been
more keenly aware of her sensitiveness to experience; and he to whom it
had not occurred to wonder at Boston wondered at her, who seemed able to
summon forth a presiding, brooding spirit of the place from out of the
snow. Deep in her eyes, though they sparkled, was the reflection of some
mystic vision; her cheeks were flushed. And in her delight, vicariously
his own, he rejoiced; in his trembling hope of more delight to come,
which this mentorship would enhance,--despite the fast deepening snow he
drove her up one side of Commonwealth Avenue and down the other,
encircling the Common and the Public Garden; stopping at the top of Park
Street that she might gaze up at the State House, whose golden dome, seen
through the veil, was tinged with blue. Boston! Why not Russia? Janet was
speechless for sheer lack of words to describe what she felt....

At length he brought the car to a halt opposite an imposing doorway in
front of which a glass roof extended over the pavement, and Janet
demanded where they were.

"Well, we've got to eat, haven't we?" Ditmar replied. She noticed that he
was shivering.

"Are you cold?" she inquired with concern.

"I guess I am, a little," he replied. "I don't know why I should be, in a
fur coat. But I'll be warm soon enough, now."

A man in blue livery hurried toward them across the sidewalk, helping
them to alight. And Ditmar, after driving the car a few paces beyond the
entrance, led her through the revolving doors into a long corridor, paved
with marble and lighted by bulbs glowing from the ceiling, where benches
were set against the wall, overspread by the leaves of potted plants set
in the intervals between them.

"Sit down a moment," he said to her. "I must telephone to have somebody
take that car, or it'll stay there the rest of the winter."

She sat down on one of the benches. The soft light, the warmth, the
exotic odour of the plants, the well-dressed people who trod softly the
strip of carpet se