you think, David? I am to sign
an engagement for the Metropolitan! Tsheretshewski is going abroad this
winter to play in Spain and England, and so I shall be, for the whole
winter, here in New York, and--and I hope you won't neglect me."

I assured her that I would call every day, and left her, after I had
inspected Baby Paul, who deigned to let me kiss him and favored my
moustache with a powerful tug. He is a stunning infant. She was standing
at the outer door of her apartment, her dear sweet smile speaking of her
friendship and regard. The temptation came on me again, the awful
longing for a touch of those lips, but I held myself within bounds, as
bravely as I could, and touched the elevator signal. She waited until
the cage had shot up and waved her hand at me. Her "Good-by, Dave" held
all the charm of her song and the tenderness of her heart, I thought,
and I answered it with a catch in my throat.

"You will never be anything but a big over-grown kid, David," Frieda had
told me, a few days before. Ay! I realized it! I would never cease
crying for that radiant moon. Sometimes, in silly dreams, I have seen
myself standing before her, with her two hands in mine, with her lips
near, with her heart ready to come into my keeping. But, when I waken, I
remember the words she said last year, when Gordon made her so unhappy.
How could love be left in her heart? she had asked. Was there ever a
night when she didn't kneel and pray for the poor soul of the man buried
somewhere in France, in those dreadful fields, with, perhaps, never a
cross over him nor a flower to bear to him a little of the love she had
given? Let well enough alone, David, my boy! You can have her song
whenever you care to beg for it, and her friendship and her smiles.
Would you forfeit these things because you must come forth and beg for
more, ay, for more than she can give you? Would you force her dear eyes
to shed tears of sorrow for you, and hear her soft voice breaking with
the pain it would give her to refuse?

A few days later she met me at her door, excitedly, and told me that
Baby Paul had a slight cold and that Dr. Porter had advised her not to
take him away with her.

"And, Dave, I just have to go! It would be too hard on some of the
others, if I broke faith and didn't appear. I must leave to-night, and
it just breaks my heart to be compelled to start when my Baby Paul isn't
well. Dr. Porter has promised to call every day and see him during my