around the little bed
on which she had striven to rest, and moved toward the door. She turned
the handle softly.

"Who is that?" she asked.

John almost pushed his way past her. She closed the door with nerveless
fingers. Her eyes sought his face, her lips were parted. She clung to
the back of the chair.

"You have seen Louise?" she exclaimed breathlessly.

"I have seen Louise," he answered. "It is all over!"

She looked a little helplessly around her. Then she selected the one
chair in the tiny apartment that was likely to hold him, and led him to
it.

"Please sit down," she begged, "and tell me about it. You mustn't
despair like this all at once. I wonder if I could help!"

"No one can help," he told her grimly. "It is all finished and done
with. I would rather not talk any more about it. I didn't come here to
talk about it. I came to see you. So this is where you live!"

He looked around him, and for a moment he almost forgot the pain which
was gnawing at his heart. It was such a simple, plainly furnished little
room, so clean, so neat, so pathetically eloquent of poverty. She drew
closer together the curtains which concealed her little chintz-covered
bed, and came and sat down by his side.

"You know, you are rather a silly person," she whispered soothingly.
"Wait for a time and perhaps things will look different. I know that
Louise cares. Isn't that the great thing, after all?"

"I would like not to talk about it any more," said John. "Just now I
cannot put what I feel into words. What remains is just this: I have
been a fool, a sort of _Don Quixote_, building castles in Spain and
believing that real men and women could live in them. I have expected
the impossible in life. It is perhaps a good thing that I can see the
truth now. I am going to climb down!"

She clasped her hands tighter around his arm. Her eyes sought his
anxiously.

"But you mustn't climb down, John," she insisted. "You are so much nicer
where you are, so much too good for the silly, ugly things. You must
fight this in your own way, fight it according to your own standards.
You are too good to come down--"

"Am I too good for you, Sophy?"

She looked at him, and her whole face seemed to soften. The light in her
blue eyes was sweet and wistful. A bewildering little smile curled her
lips.

"Don't be stupid!" she begged. "A few minutes ago I was looking out of
my window and thinking what a poor little morsel of humanity I am, and