n for Heaven's sake be merciful," he exclaimed. "Lift up one
corner of the curtain for me."

"Very well. You shall tell me if I am wrong. You see me here, an
admitted failure in the object to which I have devoted two years of my
life. You know that I am practically destitute, without means or any
certain knowledge of where my next meal is coming from. I speak
frankly, because you also know that no possible extremity would induce
me to accept help from any living person. You notice that I have
recently spent ten francs on a box of the best Russian cigarettes, and
that there are roses upon my table. You observe that I am, as usual,
fairly cheerful, and moderately amiable. It surprises you. You do not
understand, and you would like to. Very well! I will try to help you."

Her hand hung over the side of her chair nearest to him. He looked at
it eagerly, but made no movement to take it. During all their long
comradeship he had never so much as ventured to hold her fingers. This
was David Courtlaw, whose ways, too, had never been very different
from the ways of other men as regards her sex.

"You see, it comes after all," she continued, "from certain original
convictions which have become my religion. Rather a magniloquent term,
perhaps, but what else am I to say? One of these is that the most
absolutely selfish thing in the world is to give way to depression, to
think of one's troubles at all except of how to overcome them. I spend
many delightful hours thinking of the pleasant and beautiful things of
life. I decline to waste a single second even in considering the ugly
ones. Do you know that this becomes a habit?"

"If you would only teach us all," he murmured, "how to acquire it."

"I suppose people would say that it is a matter of temperament," she
continued. "With me I believe that it is more. It has become a part of
the order of my life. Whatever may happen to-morrow I shall be none
the better for anticipating its miseries to-day."

"I wonder," he said, a trifle irrelevantly, "what the future has in
store for you."

She shrugged her shoulders.

"Is that not rather a profitless speculation, my friend?"

He seemed deaf to her interruption. His grey eyes burned under his
shaggy eyebrows. He leaned towards her as though anxious to see more
of her face than that faint delicate profile gleaming like marble in
the uncertain light.

"You were born for great things," he said huskily. "For great
passions, for great ac