It was one of those mornings of coolness after cloying heat when even the crowded, reeking, frowzy metropolis wakes with a breath of freshness in its nostrils. Independent of sleep as ever, Banneker was up and footing it briskly for the station before eight o'clock, for Camilla Van Arsdale was returning to Manzanita, having been ordered back to her seclusion with medical science's well-considered verdict wrapped up in tactful words to bear her company on the long journey. When she would be ordered on a longer journey by a mightier Authority, medical science forbore to specify; but in the higher interests of American music it was urgently pressed upon her that she be abstemious in diet, niggardly of work, careful about fatigue and excitement, and in general comport herself in such manner as to deprive the lease of life remaining to her of most of its savor and worth. She had told Ban that the physicians thought her condition favorable.

Invalidism was certainly not suggested in her erect bearing and serene face as she moved about her stateroom setting in order the books, magazines, flowers, and candy, with which Banneker had sought to fortify her against the tedium of the trip. As the time for departure drew near, they fell into and effortfully maintained that meaningless, banal, and jerky talk which is the inevitable concomitant of long partings between people who, really caring for each other, can find nothing but commonplaces wherewith to ease their stress of mind. Miss Van Arsdale's common sense came to the rescue.

"Go away, my dear," she said, with her understanding smile. "Don't think that you're obliged to cling to the dragging minutes. It's an ungraceful posture.... Ban! What makes you look like that?"

"I thought--I heard--"

A clear voice outside said, "Then it must be this one." There was a decisive tap on the door. "May I come in?"..."Come in," responded Miss Van Arsdale. "Bring them here, porter," directed the voice outside, and Io entered followed by an attendant almost hidden in a huge armful of such roses as are unpurchasable even in the most luxurious of stores.

"I've looted our conservatory," said she. "Papa will slay me. They'll last to Chicago."

After an almost imperceptible hesitation she kissed the older woman. She gave her hand to Banneker. "I knew I should find you here."

"Any other woman of my acquaintance would have said, 'Who would have expected to find you here!'" commented Miss Van Arsdale.

"Yes? I suppose so. But we've never been on that footing, Ban and I." Io's tone was casual; almost careless.

"I thought that you were in the country," said Banneker.

"So we are. I drove up this morning to bid Miss Van Arsdale _bon voyage_, and all the luck in the world. I suppose we three shall meet again one of these days."

"You prophesy in the most matter-of-fact tone a gross improbability," observed Miss Van Arsdale.

"Oh, our first meeting was the gross improbability," retorted the girl lightly. "After that anything might be logical. _Au revoir_."

"Go with her, Ban," said Miss Camilla.

"It isn't leaving time yet," he protested. "There's five whole minutes."

"Yes; come with me, Ban," said Io tranquilly.

Camilla Van Arsdale kissed his cheek, gave him a little, half-motherly pat, said, "Keep on making me proud of you," in her even, confident tones, and pushed him out of the door.

Ban and Io walked down the long platform in a thoughtful silence which disconcerted neither of them. Io led the way out of it.

"At half-past four," she stated, "I had a glass of milk and one cracker."

"Where do you want to breakfast?"

"Thanking you humbly, sir, for your kind invitation, the nearer the better. Why not here?"

They found a table in the well-appointed railroad restaurant and ordered. Over her honey-dew melon Io asked musingly:

"What do you suppose she thinks of us?"

"Miss Camilla? What should she think?"

"What, indeed? What do we think, ourselves?"

"Has it any importance?" he asked gloomily.

"And that's rather rude," she chided. "Anything that I think should, by courtesy, be regarded as important.... Ban, how often have we seen each other?"

"Since I came to New York, you mean?"

"Yes."

"Nine times."

"So many? And how much have we talked together? All told; in time, I mean."

"Possibly a solid hour. Not more."

"It hasn't made any difference, has it? There's been no interruption. We've never let the thread drop. We've never lost touch. Not really."

"No. We've never lost touch."

"You needn't repeat it as if it were a matter for mourning and repentance. I think it rather wonderful.... Take our return from the train, all the way down without a word. Were you sulking, Ban?"

"No. You know I wasn't."

"Of course I know it. It was simply that we didn't need to talk. There's no one else in the world like that.... How long is it? Three years--four--more than four years.

'We twain once well in sunder
What will the mad gods do
For hate with me, I wond--'"

"My God, Io! Don't!"

"Oh, Ban; I'm sorry! Have I hurt you? I was dreaming back into the old world."

"And I've been trying all these years not to."

"Is the reality really better? No; don't answer that! I don't want you to. Answer me something else. About Betty Raleigh."

"What about her?"

"If I were a man I should find her an irresistible sort of person. Entirely aside from her art. Are you going to marry her, Ban?"

"No."

"Tell me why not."

"For one reason because she doesn't want to marry me."

"Have you asked her? It's none of my business. But I don't believe you have. Tell me this; would you have asked her, if it hadn't been for--if Number Three had never been wrecked in the cut? You see the old railroad terms you taught me still cling. Would you?"

"How do I know? If the world hadn't changed under my feet, and the sky over my head--"

"Is it so changed? Do the big things, the real things, ever change?... Don't answer that, either. Ban, if I'll go out of your life now, and stay out, _honestly_, will you marry Betty Raleigh and--and live happy ever after?"

"Would you want me to?"

"Yes. Truly. And I'd hate you both forever."

"Betty Raleigh is going to marry some one else."

"No! I thought--people said--Are you sorry, Ban?"

"Not for myself. I think he's the wrong man for her."

"Yes; that would be a change of the earth underfoot and the sky overhead, if one cared," she mused. "And I said they didn't change."

"Don't they!" retorted Banneker bitterly. "You are married."

"I have been married," she corrected, with an air of amiable rectification. "It was a wise thing to do. Everybody said so. It didn't last. Nobody thought it would. I didn't really think so myself."

"Then why in Heaven's name--"

"Oh, let's not talk about it now. Some other time, perhaps. Say next time we meet; five or six months from now.... No; I won't tease you any more, Ban. It won't be that. It won't be long. I'll tell you the truth: I'd heard a lot about you and Betty Raleigh, and I got to know her and I hoped it would be a go. I did; truly, Ban. I owed you that chance of happiness. I took mine, you see; only it wasn't happiness that I gambled for. Something else. Safety. The stakes are usually different for men and women. So now you know.... Well, if you don't, you've grown stupid. And I don't want to talk about it any more. I want to talk about--about The Patriot. I read it this morning while I was waiting; your editorial. Ban"--she drew a derisive mouth--"I was shocked."

"What was it? Politics?" asked Banneker, who, turning out his editorials several at a time, seldom bothered to recall on what particular day any one was published. "You wouldn't be expected to like our politics."

"Not politics. It is about Harvey Wheelwright."

Banneker was amused. "The immortally popular Wheelwright. We're serializing his new novel, 'Satiated with............