Night was tremulous with the beat of wings. The first snow of the season was falling, giving to familiar streets a theatric look of enchanted strangeness. Large flakes sailed confidently as descending doves; little ones came in flurries like a storm of petals. Perhaps boy-angels in heavenly orchards were shaking the blossoms with their romping. Teddy glanced at the girl beside him; it seemed that an all-wise providence had sent the snow especially as a background for her.

They were returning from the final performance of October. They had been behind the scenes with Fluffy, where friends had been drugging her melancholy with the assurance that, whatever might be said of the play, her acting had scored a triumph.

The illusion of the footlights followed them. Streets were a new stage-setting in which they had become the dominant personalities. The shrieking of motor-horns above the din of traffic seemed the agonized cry of defeated lovers, divided in a chaos of misunderstandings.

As they drove up Broadway Desire crouched with her cheek against the pane. She was trying to make out the hoardings on which the name of Janice Audrey was featured in large letters. While she performed her ritual at each vanishing shrine, Teddy sat unheeded.

Her saint-like hands were clasped against her breast. Her face hung palely meditative, a shadow cast upon the dusk. She filled the night with fragrance. The falling flakes outside seemed to kiss her hair in passing.

He could only imagine the old-rose shade of the velvet opera-cloak that hid her from him. Her white-fox furs lay across her shoulders like drifted snow. He ached intolerably to take her in his arms.

Her eyes were turned away. He could only see the faint outline of her cheek and the slender curve of her girlish neck. She threw out remarks as they traveled—remarks which called for no answer and expected none.

“Horace’ll have to own now that she was wise in cultivating other friendships. Poor old Horace!—And all those bills will be covered up to-morrow with some new great success. Such is fame!—Fluffy’s so discouraged.”

“Do you think that was true?”

“What?” Her question was asked lazily, more out of politeness than curiosity.

“That October was her autobiography?”

“Partly. Artistic people like to think themselves tragic. You do. I’ve noticed.”

“I think it was.” He refused to be diverted. “I think it was real tragedy. She’s given up so much for fame; it’s brought her nothing.”

Desire laughed quietly. “The old subject. I knew where you were going the minute you started. It’s like a hat that you want to get rid of; you hang it on every peg you come to. No, I’m not meaning to be unkind; but you do amuse me, Meester Deek.—Fluffy’s very much to be envied.”

“Why?”

“She’s beautiful.”

“So are you. But being beautiful isn’t everything. Being loved is the thing that satisfies.”

“Does it? And loving too, I expect. But you see I don’t know: I’ve never loved.”

“You won’t let yourself love.” He spoke the words almost inaudibly.

They both fell silent. She still bent forward, her head and shoulders silhouetted against the pane. Her lack of response made his passion seem foolishness.

During the weeks of enforced friendship the physical bond between them had been growing more compelling.

It was only in crowded places that her actions acknowledged it; when they were by themselves her reticence announced plainly, “Trespassers will be prosecuted.” Then she became forbidding; but her sudden gusts of coldness, her very inaccessibility, only added the more to her attraction. He told himself that women who left men nothing to conquer were not valued. He found himself filled with overpowering longings to defy her attempts to thwart him. His mind seethed with pictures of what might happen. He saw himself pressing those hands against his lips, kissing her eyes or her slender neck, where the false curl danced and beckoned. Would this pain of expectancy never end? Did she also suffer beneath her pale aloofness?

With the high-strung sensitiveness of the lover, he began to suspect that his procrastination piqued her. Sometimes he fancied that even Vashti criticized his delay in announcing his intentions. He dreaded lest Desire should think that he was flirting. But why didn’t she help him? Did girls ever help their lovers? She increased his difficulties at every opportunity. Shyness, perhaps! Time and again when he had nerved himself to the point of proposing, she had struck him dumb with a languid triviality or flippancy of gesture.

But to-night it would be different The enchantment of the snow tingled in his blood. The warning of the woman who had procrastinated so long that she had lost her sincerity, spurred him to confession. Surely to-night, if ever——

His hand set out on a voyage of discovery. It slipped into her muff and found her fingers.

She shuddered. It was as though a chill had struck her. “What are you doing? You’re queer to-night. Funny.”

He had no words in which to tell her. He was terribly in earnest. Hammers were pounding in his temples. His face was twitching. The darkness choked him.

He drooped closer. His lips brushed her furs. She sat breathless. His lips crept higher and touched her hair.

“No, please.” Her voice was shaky and childish. “Not now. I—I don’t feel like it.”

He drew back. Though she had denied him, their hands clung together. Hers lay motionless, like the beating heart of a spent bird that has lost the strength to save itself. The power that he knew he had over her at that moment made him feel like a ruffian who had lain in ambush and taken her unaware.

“Shall I let it go?” he whispered.

For answer the slim fingers nestled closer.

“Meester Deek, you were never in love before, were you?”

“Never.”

“Very wonderful. I thought not. You don’t act like it.”

“And you, Princess?”

“Ah!” She smiled mysteriously. “There was a boy who asked permission to marry me once. It was just after I’d put up my hair. I was only fifteen, but I looked just as old as I do now. He told mother that he’d saved fifty dollars, and that he wanted to start early so as to raise a large family. Very sweet and domestic of him, wasn’t it?”

“But that wasn’t serious.”

“No, not serious, you poor Meester Deek; but it makes you jealous.—And there were others.”

“How many?”

“Oh, dozens. I’ve always had some one in love with me, ever since I can remember. That’s why I gave names to my hands.”

“Then no one ever held them before?”

“I shouldn’t say that. But almost no one. I used to let Tom hold them when he wouldn’t stop drizzling. Tom was different; he was a kind of brother.”

“And what am I?”

“I’ve often wondered.” Her brows drew together. “You’re a kind of friend, and yet you’re not.”

“More than a friend?”

They were halting. She freed her hand and stroked his face daringly. “You’re Meester Deck. Isn’t that enough? Some one whom I love and trust.”

She threw the door open. On the point of jumping out, she hesitated. “The pavement’s so slushy. Whatever shall I do with my thin shoes and all?”

“Let me carry you.”

As his arms enfolded her, she stiffened. For a moment there was a rebellious struggle. Then her arm went about his neck and her face sank against his shoulder.

How light she was! How little! How unchanged from the child-Desire of the woodland!

“D’you remember the last time?” he whispered. “It’s years since I’ve done it.”

“Not your fault,” she laughed. “You’d have done it often and often, if I’d allowed you. I guess you wish it was always snowing.”

The distance was all too short. He would have carried her across the lighted foyer, into the elevator, up to the apartment. He didn’t mind who stared at him. He would have gone on holding her thus forever. As they reached the steps she slipped from his arms.

“Oh, you big, strong man!” Her gray eyes were dancing; a faint flush spread across her forehead. “I do hope nobody saw us.” He was stealing his arm into hers. She turned him back. “Forgetful! You haven’t paid the taxi.”

After he had paid, he searched round for her. She had gone. It was the first time she had done it; she always waited for him. So she knew what was coming! By her flight she was lengthening by a few more minutes their long uncertainty. In the quiet of the dim-lit room, with the snow gliding past the window, each separate flake tiptoeing like a faery, he would tell her. But would he need to tell her? She would be waiting for him, her face drooping against her shoulder, looking sweet and weary. She would be like a tired child, its mischief forgotten, ready to stretch out its arms and snuggle in his breast. All that need be said would come in broken phrases—phrases which no one but themselves could understand. And then, after that—— She might cry a little. When they were married, perhaps Hal——

He waited till the elevator had descended before he tapped. Probably she was listening for him, fearing and yet hoping for the pressure of his arms and all the newness that they would begin together. He would read in her eyes the writing of surrender—the same writing that he had read on the dusty panes of childhood, “I love you. I love you.”

He tapped; he tapped more loudly. The door was opened ty Mr. Dak. “Hulloa! Come in.”

“Where’s Desire?”

“In her room getting ready.”

“Ready? For what?”

They entered the dim-lit room where the most splendid moment of life should have been happening.

“Didn’t you know?” Mr. Dak appeared not to notice his emotion. “Everybody else knew. Th............