distracted and enraged him. He listened to her
at first moodily and then with an attention which, in spite of his
resolution, was fixed upon the fine points of his play as she made now
and then friendly suggestions as to the interpretations of particular
lines or scenes. The charming deference in her voice soothed his ruffled
vanity and it seemed to him presently that the flattering intoxication
of her praise sent his imagination spinning among the stars.

Kemper listened to it all with an intelligent and animated interest, and
when he spoke, as he did from time to time, it was to put a sympathetic
question which dismissed Trent's darling prejudice into the region of
departed errors. To have held out against the singular attraction of the
man, would have been, Trent thought a little later, the part of a
perverse and stiffnecked fool. It was not only that he succumbed to
Kemper's magnetism, but that he recognised his sincerity--his utter lack
of the dissimulation he had once believed him to possess. Then, as
Kemper sat in the square of sunlight which fell through the bow window,
Trent noticed each plain, yet impressive detail of his appearance. He
saw the peculiar roughness of finish which lent weight, if not beauty,
to his remarkably expressive face, and he saw, too, with an eye trained
to attentive observation, that the dark brown hair, so thick upon the
forehead and at the back of the neck, had already worn thin upon the
crown of the large, well-turned head. "In a few years he will begin to
be bald," thought the younger man, "then he will put on glasses, and yet
these things will not keep him from appealing to the imaginary ideal of
romance which every woman must possess. Even when he is old he will
still have the power to attract, if he cannot keep the fancy." But the
bitterness had gone out of his thoughts, and a little later, when he
left the house and walked slowly homeward, he discovered that a hopeless
love might lend a considerable sweetness to a literary life. After all,
he concluded, one might warm oneself at the flame, and yet neither
possess it utterly nor be destroyed.

His mother sat knitting by the window when he entered the apartment, and
he saw that the table was already laid for dinner in the adjoining room.

"I ordered dinner a little earlier for you," she explained as she laid
aside the purple shawl while the ball of yarn slipped from her short,
plump knees and rolled under the chair in which she s