heir cheeks pink with pride. Now and then they exchanged
glances. "Our baby!" these glances seemed to say, and then turned back to
Mary with such love and admiration that finally the object of this
pantomime could stand it no longer, but had to kiss them both till their
cheeks turned pinker than ever and they gasped for breath.

That night, when Mary went to her room and stood at the window, looking
out at the world below and the sky above, she threw out her arms and,
turning her face to the moonlight, she felt that world-old wish to
express the inexpressible, to put immortal yearnings into mortal words.

Life--thankfulness for life--a joy so deep that it wasn't far from
pain--hoping--longing-yearning ... for what? Mary herself could not have
told you--perhaps to be one with the starlight and the scent of
flowers--to have the freedom of infinity--to express the inexpressible--

For a long time she stood at the window, the moon looking down upon her
and bathing her face in its radiance.... Insensibly then the earth
recalled her and her thoughts began to return to the events of the day.

"Oh, yes," she suddenly said to herself, "I knew there was something....
I wonder why the accountants stared at Burdon so...."

CHAPTER XXVIII

Far away, that same moon was watching another scene--a ship on the
Southern sea throbbing its way to New York.

It was a steamer just out of Rio, its drawing rooms and upper decks
filled with tourists doubly happy because they were going home.

On the steerage deck below, in the apron of a kitchen worker, a man was
standing with his elbows on the rail--an uncertain figure in the
moonlight. Once when he turned to look at the deck above, a lamp shone
upon him. If you had been there you would have seen that while a beard
covered much of his face, his cheeks were wasted and his eyes looked as
though he needed rest.

He turned his glance out over the sea again, looking now to the north
star and now to the roadway of ripples that led to the moon.

"I wonder if Rosa's asleep," he thought. "Eleven o'clock. She ought to
be. It's a good school. She's lucky. So was I, that the old gentleman
didn't get my letter...."

On the deck above, a violin and harp were accompanying a piano.

"That's where I ought to be--up there," he thought, "not peeling potatoes
and scouring pans down here. All I have to do is to go up and announce
myself...." He smiled--a grim affair. "Yes, all I have to do is to