happened before, and it will never happen again."

"Not in the same way, perhaps," he said gravely. "But how do you know? I
think you are one girl in ten million, and to you all things are
possible."

"How many men in ten million are like you?" she asked.

"Men are all pretty much alike," he said. "They have good impulses and
bad."

In the stark darkness between the outer and the inner door of the
tenement in which she lived, there was an awkward, troubled silence. He
wished very much to kiss her, but had made up his mind that he would
not. She thought that he might, and had made up her mind that if he
attempted to she would resist. She was not in the least afraid of him
any more, but of herself.

He kissed her, and she did not resist.

"Good-night," he said, and then with a half-laugh, "Which is your
bell?"

She found it and rang it. Presently there was a rusty click, and the
inner door opened an inch or so. Neither of them spoke for a full
minute. Then she, her face aflame in the darkness:

"When you came I was only a little fool who'd bought a pair of shoes
that were too tight for her. I didn't _know_ anything. I'm wise now. I
know that I'm dreaming, and that if I wake up before the dream is ended
I shall die."

She tried to laugh gayly and could not.

"I've made things harder for you instead of easier," he said. "I'm
terribly sorry. I meant well."

"Oh, it isn't that," she said. "Thank you a thousand thousand times. And
good-night."

"Wait," he said. "Will you play with me again some time? How about
Saturday?"

"No," she said. "It wouldn't be fair--to me. Good-night."

She passed through the inner door and up the narrow creaking stair to
the dark tenement in which she lived; she could hear the restless
breathing of her sleeping family.

"Oh, my God!" she thought, "if it weren't for _them_!"

As for the young man, having lighted a long cigar, he entered his car
and drove off, muttering to himself:

"Damnation! Why does a girl like that _have_ a family!"

He never saw her again, nor was he ever haunted by the thought that he
had perhaps spoiled her whole life as thoroughly as if he had taken
advantage of her ignorance and her innocence.

BACK THERE IN THE GRASS

It was spring in the South Seas when, for the first time, I went ashore
at Batengo, which is the Polynesian village, and the only one on the big
grass island of the same name. There is a cable station just up the
beach from