me of youth and passion.

* * * * *

One Saturday afternoon Hedger was sitting in the window of Eden's music
room. They had been watching the pigeons come wheeling over the roofs
from their unknown feeding grounds.

"Why," said Eden suddenly, "don't we fix those big doors into your studio
so they will open? Then, if I want you, I won't have to go through the
hall. That illustrator is loafing about a good deal of late."

"I'll open them, if you wish. The bolt is on your side."

"Isn't there one on yours, too?"

"No. I believe a man lived there for years before I came in, and the
nurse used to have these rooms herself. Naturally, the lock was on
the lady's side."

Eden laughed and began to examine the bolt. "It's all stuck up with
paint." Looking about, her eye lighted upon a bronze Buddah which was
one of the nurse's treasures. Taking him by his head, she struck the bolt
a blow with his squatting posteriors. The two doors creaked, sagged, and
swung weakly inward a little way, as if they were too old for such
escapades. Eden tossed the heavy idol into a stuffed chair. "That's
better," she exclaimed exultantly. "So the bolts are always on the lady's
side? What a lot society takes for granted!"

Hedger laughed, sprang up and caught her arms roughly. "Whoever takes you
for granted--Did anybody, ever?"

"Everybody does. That's why I'm here. You are the only one who knows
anything about me. Now I'll have to dress if we're going out for dinner."

He lingered, keeping his hold on her. "But I won't always be the only
one, Eden Bower. I won't be the last."

"No, I suppose not," she said carelessly. "But what does that matter? You
are the first."

As a long, despairing whine broke in the warm stillness, they drew apart.
Caesar, lying on his bed in the dark corner, had lifted his head at this
invasion of sunlight, and realized that the side of his room was broken
open, and his whole world shattered by change. There stood his master and
this woman, laughing at him! The woman was pulling the long black hair of
this mightiest of men, who bowed his head and permitted it.

VI

In time they quarrelled, of course, and about an abstraction,--as young
people often do, as mature people almost never do. Eden came in late one
afternoon. She had been with some of her musical friends to lunch at
Burton Ives' studio, and she began telling Hedger about its splendours.
He listened a moment and then t