He had lost count of days in the swiftness of happenings. As he drove uptown to fetch her, he wondered why the streets were so quiet. He pulled out his watch; it was past eight. Not so extraordinarily early! His watch might be wrong. His eye caught a clock; it wasn’t Then the knowledge dawned on him that the emptiness of the streets and his sense of earliness were due to the leisure which betokens Sunday morning.

New York had a look of the rural. Now that few people were about, trees claimed more attention and spread abroad their branches. Grass-plots in squares showed conspicuously. It almost seemed that on these islands of greenness, lapped by sun-scorched pavement, one ought to see rabbits hopping.

When he reached the apartment, she wasn’t ready. From somewhere down the passage she called to him: “Good-morning, Meester Deek. You’re early.” Then he heard her tripping footsteps crossing and recrossing a room, and the busy rustling of packing.

He leant out of the window, drinking in the sunny stillness. A breeze ruffled the Hudson. The Palisades shone fortress-like. Far below, dwarfed by distance beneath trees of the Drive, horsemen moved sluggishly like wound-up toys. A steamer, heavily loaded with holidaymakers, churned its way up-river; he caught the faint cheerfulness of brazen music. The tension of endeavor was relaxed; a spirit of peace and gayety was in the air. His thoughts went back to Eden Row, lying blinking and quaint in the Sabbath calm. In this city of giant energies he smiled a little wistfully at the remembrance.

He listened. The sounds of packing hadn’t stopped. Time grew short; it wasn’t for him to hurry her. Secretly he hoped she would lose her train; they might steal an extra day together.

She entered radiant and laughing. “You’ll think I always keep you waiting. Come on. We’ve got to rush for it.”

“But let me have a look at you.”

“Time for that on the way to the station.”

When he had seen the luggage put on, he jumped in beside her—really beside her, for she sat well out of the corner.

“Almost like a honeymoon,” he laughed, “with all the bags.”

“A spoilt honeymoon.” As they made a sharp turn into Broadway she was thrown against him. “Poor old you, not to be coming!”

“Hulloa!” He looked at her intently.

“A discovery?”

“The beauty-patch has wandered. It’s at the corner of your mouth to-day.”

“Observing person! There’s a reason.” She leant nearer to whisper. “It’s a sleep-walker.”

In the midst of her high spirits she became serious. “It’s mean of me to leave you. If I’d known that it was only to see me that you’d sailed—— I couldn’t believe it—not even when you’d cabled. I ought to feel flattered. I shouldn’t think—shouldn’t think it’s often happened that a man came so far on ’spec.’”

“Perhaps never,” he said. “There was never a Desire——”

Then they felt that they had gone far enough with words, and sat catching each other’s smile in silence.

“You don’t want to go?” he asked.

“I oughtn’t to say that.” She frowned thoughtfully. “It would be ungracious to Fluffy. But I don’t want to go much.” Then, letting her hand rest on his for a second: “It’ll make our good times that are coming all the better.”

All the way to the station, like shy children, without owning to it, they were doing their best to comfort each other.

“I’m glad I had that photograph taken.”

“Was that why? Because——”

“Meester Deek, I didn’t know you so well then. It didn’t seem so terrible to leave you. But—it was partly.”

The tiffs and aloofness of yesterday seemed as distant as a life-time.

“We were stupid to quarrel.” His tone invited her indorsement.

“We’ll do it again,” she laughed.

They swung into the Grand Central. She let him look to her luggage as though it were his right. It was nearly as good as being married to her.

“Shall I take your ticket?”

“Let’s get it together.”

When they came to the window, she opened her bag and handed him the money.

“Where to?” he asked. Then he remembered: “Why, you haven’t given me your address.”

“To Springfield. Here, I’ll scribble out the address while you get the change. You’d better write your first letter to the theatre in care of Fluffy. I’ll send you the names of the other towns later.”

At the barrier they met with an unexpected setback; the gateman refused to let him see her off. “Not allowed. You ought to have a pass.”

It seemed hopeless. The man looked too righteous for bribery and too inhuman for argument. Desire leant forward: “Oh, please, won’t you let my brother——?”

Slowly and knowingly the man smiled. He glanced from the anxious little face, doing its best to appear tearful, to the no less anxious face of Teddy. He scented romance and signed to them to go forward. So Teddy had proof that others could become weak when she employed her powers of fascination.

He followed her into the train and sat down at her side.

“I wish I were coming.”

She gazed out of the window. He bent across to see her face.

“Why, Desire, you’re——”

“I’m silly,” she said quickly. “Parting with anybody makes me cry. Oh, dear, I wish I wasn’t going.”

“Then don’t.”

He covered her hand in his excitement. There was no time to lose. The conductor was calling for the last time; passengers were scurrying to get aboard.

She considered the worth of his suggestion. “I must There’s Fluffy. But why don’t you come? You can get back to-night.”

He wavered. She was always at her sweetest when saying good-by; if he went with her, she might get “tired” and become the praying girl again. He had almost made up his mind to accompany her when the train gave a preliminary jerk, as though the engine were testing its strength.

“Oh, well, you know best.” Her expression was annoyed and her tone disappointed. “Only two weeks, after all.”

“But two weeks without you.” He had not quite given up the idea of accompanying her.

“Hurry up,” she said, “or you won’t get off.”

It was no good going with her now. From the platform he watched her. As the train began to move, he ran beside her window. At the point of vanishing she smiled forgiveness and kissed the finger-tips of Miss Self-Reliance.

In passing out of the station it occurred to him to inquire how long it took to get to Springfield. He wanted to follow her in imagination and to picture her at the exact hour of arrival. He was surprised to find that it was such a short journey and that she might have gone by a later train. If she’d been so sorry, she needn’t have left him in such a hurry. When he came to reason things out, he saw that she could have gone just as well on Monday, since Fluffy’s company was evidently playing in Springfield another night. Perhaps she had a good reason for going. It was some comfort to remember that at the last train. If she’d been so sorry, she needn’t have left him in such a hurry. When he came to reason things out, he saw that she could have gone just as well on Monday, since Fluffy’s company was evidently playing in Springfield another night. Perhaps she had a good reason for going. It was some comfort to remember that at the last moment she had wanted to stay.

Then began the long days of waiting, from which all purpose in living seemed to have been banished. Ambitions, which had goaded him forward, were at a halt. Everything unconnected with her took on an air of unreality. His personality became distasteful to him because it seemed not to have attracted her sufficiently.

Things that once would have brought him happiness failed to stir him. A boom was being worked for him. He was on the crest of a wave. Interviewers were continually calling to get personal stories. Articles appeared in which he confided to the public: “How I Became Famous at Twenty-three,” “Why I Came to America,” “What I Think of New York,” “Why I Distrust Co-education.” There seemed to be no subject, however trivial, upon which his views were not of value to the hundred million inhabitants of America. He was continually finding his face in the papers. He sprang into an unexpected demand both as writer and artist.

The fun he derived from this fluster was in imagining the added worth it would give him in her eyes. He liked to think of her as dashing up to news-stands and showering on him the enthusiasm he had seen her shower on Fluffy. Success left him the more humble in proportion as it failed to rouse her comment. If success couldn’t make her proud of him, there must be some weakness in his character. He searched her letters for any hint that would betray her knowledge of what was happening. Perhaps her very omissions were a sign that she was feeling more than she expressed. At last he wrote and told her. She replied inadequately, “How very nice for you!” His hope had been that she would have included herself as a sharer in his good fortune.

Though he sat for long hours at a stretch, he accomplished laborious results. His attention refused to concentrate. He was always thinking of her: the men who might be with her in his absence; the things she had said and done; the things he had said to her, and which might have been said better; her tricks of gesture and shades of intonation. Her very faults endeared themselves in retrospect He coveted the least happy of the hours he had spent in her company.

For the first day he was consoled by the sight of her tin-type photograph on the desk before him. He glanced at it between sentence............