ard the tiny jets of gas in the grate; her face propped in
her hands she sat staring into the depths of the flame. She scarcely
seemed to breathe, even when she spoke.

"Yes, I meant it," she repeated patiently.

For a long time there was silence,--long enough with the man for the mood
to pass, the mood of terror, and in reaction its antithesis, reckless
abandon, to come in its stead. For come it did, as was inevitable; and
heralding its approach sounded a laugh,--a sudden mirthless, sarcastic
laugh.

"So this is the end of my day," he said. He laughed again. "I might have
known it was too good to last. What a fool I was to imagine that just
because one thing had come my way everything else was going to follow
suit. What a poor, blithering fool!"

"Steve!" No lethargy in the girl's figure now, in the face of a sudden
turned toward him appealingly. "Don't take it that way or say such
things. Nothing has changed in the least. I'm still your friend, as I've
always been; so is Harry Randall--and the rest. You're still a successful
writer; you've proved it to-day, and you'll prove it further with the new
book you're working on now. I repeat, nothing has altered in the least.
Don't talk that way. It hurts me."

In his chair, erect now, Armstrong merely smiled. But his color was
higher than normal and the blue eyes were unnaturally bright.

"No, nothing has changed, I suppose," he said evenly. "You're right
there. I've simply been in a trance--that's all--and I've inadvertently
come to. I seem to have the habit of doing that." He smiled again,
hopelessly cruel in his egotism. "Of course I have friendship, oceans of
it, yours particularly, as I've had all the time. And success; it
monopolizes the sky, fairly blots out the stars, and obscures the sun
like an eclipse. There's no end to the success I have. It's infinite.
And still further, incentive: to be and to do and to fight." The smile
vanished. He could not mock in the face of that thought even yet.
"Incentive! What a travesty. Elice, you've killed the last trace of
incentive I had just now."

"Steve!" The girl's hands lifted imperiously. "Stop. Have you no pity?"
She shook the swift-gathering flood from her eyes rebelliously and faced
him fair. "You'll be very sorry you said such things after you've had
time to think," she went on. "Don't add regret to the rest to-night.
Please don't."

"Sorry, perhaps," echoed the man, "and regret--possibly. Anyway, what
does it