r shadows; her mouth of gracious lips
unsmiling, a little triste. Compunctions smote him; with his crude and
clumsy banter he had contrived to tune her thoughts to sadness. He
would have given worlds to undo that blunder; to show her that he had
meant neither a rudeness nor a wish to desecrate her reticence, but
only an indirect assurance of gratitude to her for suffering him and
willingness to serve her within the compass of his poverty-stricken
powers. For in retrospect his invitation assumed the proportions of an
importunity, an egregious piece of presumption: so that he could have
groaned to contemplate it.

He didn't groan, save inwardly; but respected her silence, and held
his own in humility and mortification of spirit until they were near
the dooryard of their boarding-house. And even then it was the girl
who loosed his tongue.

"Why--where are they?" she asked in surprise.

Startled out of the deeps of self-contempt, P. Sybarite discovered
that she meant Violet and George, who were nowhere visible.

"Violet said something about a little supper in her room," explained
the girl.

"I know," he replied: "crackers and cheese, beer and badinage: our
humble pleasures. You'll be bored to extinction--but you'll come,
won't you?"

"Why, of course! I counted on it. But--"

"They must have hurried on to make things ready--Violet to set her
room to rights, George to tote the wash-pitcher to the corner for the
beer. And very likely, pending our arrival, they're lingering at the
head of the stairs for a kiss or two."

The girl paused at the gate. "Then we needn't hurry," she suggested,
smiling.

"We needn't delay," he countered amiably. "If somebody doesn't
interrupt 'em before long, George will be too late to get the pitcher
filled. This town shuts up tight at midnight, Saturdays--if you want
to believe everything you hear. So there's no need of being too
indulgent with our infatuated fellow-inmates."

"But--just a minute, Mr. Sybarite," she insisted.

"As many as you wish," he laughed. "As a matter of fact, I loathe
draught beer."

"Do be serious," she begged. "I want to thank you."

He was aware of a proffered hand, slender and fine in a shabby glove;
and took it in his own, uneasily conscious of a curious disturbance in
his bosom, of a strange and not unpleasant sense of commingled
expectancy, pleasure, and diffidence (as far as he was able to analyse
it--or cared to--at that instant).

"It was kind of