women count
with me! But I am not sure. And I do not take it lightly, for my
woman must be more to me than most women mean to most men. Well, it
is on the knees of the gods."

I stole a covert glance at him as he walked beside me. It seemed to
me he had never been so beautiful. But his beauty hurt me. I felt
old, very, very old, and sad, and tired. The salt taste of tears was
in my mouth. My feet dragged.

We entered that strip of land which on a time old Sophronisba
barb-wired and barricaded against her neighbors, and which touched
the Jelnik grounds in the rear. We were to cut through his garden
and enter mine by the gap in the hedge behind the spring-house
and I hoped to get into the house and up-stairs to my own room
unperceived.

The gray cottage lay dark and silent, but there were lights in Hynds
House although the night was upon the verge of morning. A gray
light, upon which was stealing a primrose tinge, was already in the
sky. It was, in fact, four o'clock. I was so mortally tired that for
a moment I sat down on his steps.

"It's been pretty rough on you, Sophy. One woman in a thousand
could have gone through this night's experience without going to
pieces," said Mr. Jelnik, with feeling. And then:

"Sophy!" cried a frightened and hysterical voice. "Oh, is that you,
at last, Sophy?" And turning a corner of the gray cottage, Alicia,
Doctor Geddes, and The Author confronted us. They were still in
costume, and the Mephistophelian effect of The Author was such as
would turn any actor green with envy. Ensued a pregnant pause. It
was a lovely situation! It reduced me, for one, to idiocy.

"Sophy! Jelnik!" exploded Doctor Geddes, with a gesture of rage and
astonishment.

"Yes. It is I. What is the matter? Why aren't you home and in bed?
What are you doing here, at this hour?" I asked, stupidly.

Here The Author, all in red tights, cape, and doublet, snatched his
red cap with the cock's feather in it off his head, and bowed
diabolically:

"Let us ask you that same question: Why aren't _you_ home and in
bed? What are _you_ doing here at this hour?"

"After everybody had gone home, I ran up to your room,
Sophy--and--and you were gone. You weren't in the house. I looked
everywhere; and you'd disappeared, as if the earth had opened and
swallowed you." Alicia's voice was trembling.

"Oh, Sophy, I was so frightened, so horribly frightened! I kept
thinking every minute you must come. I kept looking and waitin