e to me during the last few minutes. I am tired of the
boarding-house and I wish to leave it. The work which I do at night
is becoming more and more important. I should like to take two rooms
somewhere. If I take a third, would you care to call yourself what I
called you to the charwoman last night--my sister? I should expect you
to look after the meals and my clothes, and help me in certain other
ways. I cannot give you much of a salary," he continued, "but you would
have an opportunity during the daytime of looking out for some work, if
that is what you want, and you would at least have a roof and plenty to
eat and drink."

She looked at him in blank amazement. It was obvious that his
proposition was entirely honest.

"But, Mr. Tavernake," she protested, "you forget that I am not really
your sister."

"Does that matter?" he asked, without flinching. "I think you understand
the sort of person I am. You would have nothing to fear from any
admiration on my part--or anything of that sort," he added, with some
show of clumsiness. "Those things do not come in my life. I am ambitious
to get on, to succeed and become wealthy. Other things I do not even
think about."

She was speechless. After a short pause, he went on.

"I am proposing this arrangement as much for my own sake as for yours.
I am very well read and I know most of what there is to be known in my
profession. But there are other things concerning which I am ignorant.
Some of these things I believe you could teach me."

Still speechless, she sat and looked at him for several moments.
Outside, the station now was filled with a hurrying throng on their way
to the day's work. Engines were shrieking, bells ringing, the press of
footsteps was unceasing. In the dark, ill-ventilated room itself there
was the rattle of crockery, the yawning of discontented-looking young
women behind the bar, young women with their hair still in curl-papers,
as yet unprepared for their weak little assaults upon the good-nature or
susceptibility of their customers. A queer corner of life it seemed. She
looked at her companion and realized how fragmentary was her knowledge
of him. There was nothing to be gathered from his face. He seemed
to have no expression. He was simply waiting for her reply, with his
thoughts already half engrossed upon the business of the day.

"Really," she began, "I--"

He came back from his momentary wandering and looked at her. She
suddenly altered the man