ster?"

"Yes, Hester," she said, smiling up at him.

He grasped both her hands, stammering for words that wanted to come
quicker than he could articulate.

"Hester!" he kept repeating. "Hester!"

"To think you knew me, Gerald!"

"Know you! I'd know you blindfolded. And how--I--You're beautiful,
Hester! I think you've grown five years younger."

"You've got on, Gerald. You look it."

"Yes; I'm general manager now at Finley's."

"I'm so glad. Married?"

"Not while there's a Hester Bevins on earth."

She started at her own name.

"How do you know I'm not married?"

"I--I know--" he said, reddening up.

"Isn't there some place we can talk, Gerald? I've thirty minutes before
my friends call for me."

"'Thirty minutes?'"

"Your rooms? Haven't you rooms or a room where we could go and sit
down?"

"Why--why, no, Hester," he said, still red. "I'd rather you didn't
go there. But here. Let's stop in at the St. James Hotel. There's a
parlor."

To her surprise, she felt herself color up and was pleasantly conscious
of her finger tips.

"You darling!" She smiled up at him.

They were seated presently in the unaired plush-and-cherry,
Nottingham-and-Axminster parlor of a small-town hotel.

"Hester," he said, "you're like a vision come to earth."

"I'm a bad durl," she said, challenging his eyes for what he knew.

"You're a little saint walked down and leaving an empty pedestal in my
dreams."

She placed her forefinger over his mouth.

"Sh-h!" she said. "I'm not a saint, Gerald; you know that."

"Yes," he said, with a great deal of boyishness in his defiance, "I do
know it, Hester, but it is those who have been through the fire who can
sometimes come out--new. It was your early environment."

"My aunt died on the town, Gerald, I heard. I could have saved her all
that if I had only known. She was cheap, aunt was. Poor soul! She never
looked ahead."

"It was your early environment, Hester. I've explained that often enough
to them here. I'd bank on you, Hester--swear by you."

She patted him.

"I'm a pretty bad egg, Gerald. According to the standards of a town
like this, I'm rotten, and they're about right. For five years, Gerald,
I've--"

"The real _you_ is ahead of--and not behind you, Hester."

"How wonderful," she said, "for you to feel that way, but--"

"Hester," he said, more and more the big boy, and his big blond head
nearing hers, "I don't care about anything that's past; I only know
th