nly in public did she meet Walter. He showed
his resentment by inviting her out less and less, by telling her less
and less frankly his ambitions and his daily dabs at becoming a great
man. Apparently he was rather interested in a flour-faced actress at
his boarding-house.

Never, now, did he speak of marriage. The one time when he had spoken of
it, Una had been so sure of their happiness that she had thought no more
of that formality than had his reckless self. But now she yearned to
have him "propose," in the most stupid, conventional, pink-romance
fashion. "Why can't we be married?" she fancied herself saying to him,
but she never dared say it aloud.

Often he was abstracted when he was with her, in the office or out.
Always he was kindly, but the kindliness seemed artificial. She could
not read his thoughts, now that she had no hand-clasp to guide her.

On a hot, quivering afternoon of early July, Walter came to her desk at
closing-hour and said, abruptly: "Look. You've simply _got_ to come out
with me this evening. We'll dine at a little place at the foot of the
Palisades. I can't stand seeing you so little. I won't ask you again!
You aren't fair."

"Oh, I don't mean to be unfair--"

"Will you come? Will you?"

His voice glared. Regardless of the office folk about them, he put his
hand over hers. She was sure that Miss Moynihan was bulkily watching
them. She dared not take time to think.

"Yes," she said, "I will go."

Sec. 4

It was a beer-garden frequented by yachtless German yachtsmen in
shirt-sleeves, boating-caps, and mustaches like muffs, but to Una it was
Europe and the banks of the Rhine, that restaurant below the Palisades
where she dined with Walter.

A placid hour it was, as dusk grew deeper and more fragrant, and they
leaned over the terrace rail to meditate on the lights springing out
like laughing jests incarnate--reflected lights of steamers paddling
with singing excursionists up the Hudson to the storied hills of Rip Van
Winkle; imperial sweeps of fire that outlined the mighty city across the
river.

Walter was at peace. He spared her his swart intensity; he shyly quoted
Tennyson, and bounced with cynicisms about "Sherbert Souse" and "the
_Gas-bag_." He brought happiness to her, instead of the agitation of his
kisses.

She was not an office machine now, but one with the village lovers of
poetry, as her job-exhaustion found relief in the magic of the hour, in
the ancient music of t