e sharing together, back into a world where life
and death were matters of small moment, where the great passions were
unchained, and men and women moved among the naked things of life.
Almost he felt the thrill of it. It was something new to him, the touch
of a magic finger upon his eyelids. Then the moment passed and he was
himself again, matter-of-fact, prosaic.

"Let us dismiss the subject finally," he said. "I must see your sister
on business to-morrow, but it shall be for the last time."

"I think," she murmured, "that you will be wise."

He crossed the room and returned with a newspaper.

"I saw your music in the hall as I came in," he remarked. "Are you
singing to-night?"

The question was entirely in his ordinary tone. It brought her back to
the world of every-day things as nothing else could have done.

"Yes; isn't it luck?" she told him. "Three in one week. I only heard an
hour ago."

"A city dinner?" he inquired.

"Something of the sort," she replied. "I am to be at the Whitehall Rooms
at ten o'clock. If you are tired, Leonard, please let me go alone. I
really do not mind. I can get a 'bus to the door, there and back again."

"I am not tired," he declared. "To tell you the truth, I scarcely know
what it is to be tired. I shall go with you, of course."

She looked at him with a momentary admiration of his powerful frame, his
strong, forceful face.

"It seems too bad," she remarked, "after a long day's work to drag you
out again."

He smiled.

"I really like to come," he assured her. "Besides," he added, after a
moment's pause, "I like to hear you sing."

"I wonder if you mean that?" she asked, looking at him curiously. "I
have watched you once or twice when I have been singing to you. Do you
really care for it?"

"Certainly I do. How can you doubt it? I do not," he continued, slowly,
"understand music, or anything of that sort, of course, any more than
I do the pictures you take me to see, and some of the books you talk
about. There are lots of things I can't get the hang of entirely, but
they all leave a sort of pleasure behind. One feels it even if one only
half appreciates."

She came over to his chair.

"I am glad," she said, a little wistfully, "that there is one thing I do
which you like."

He looked at her reprovingly.

"My dear Beatrice," he said, "I often wish I could make you understand
how extraordinarily helpful and useful to me you have been."

"Tell me in what way?" sh