“If you want me for a friend why did you call me muck just now?”

“I don’t want the others to know that we are friends.  I want them to think—­what they always think.”

“How do I know you trust me?”

“Lock the street door,” he said; “you’re younger than I. It’s easier for you to move about.”

She locked the door and returned.

“Are you staying,” he asked, “through curiosity or friendship?”

“Look here,” she said, “it’s neither, Can’t you guess what ails me?”

“Tell me.”

She took his strong, wicked face between her young hands, and bending over kissed him on the forehead.  Then she drew back, flaming.

The legless man was touched.  “Why?” he asked.

“I don’t know.  It just came to me,” she said.  “God knows I didn’t want it to.  I guess that’s all”

Rose found it hard to control her jumping nerves.  A curious thing had happened to her.  Having at last wormed her way into the master’s confidence, and brought a long piece of play-acting to a successful conclusion, a certain candor and frankness which were natural to her made the thought of divulging what she had already found out, and whatever he might confide to her in the future, exceedingly repugnant.  And she acknowledged with a shiver of revolt that the creature’s fascination for her was not altogether a matter of make-believe.  She was going to find it very hard to keep a proper perspective and point of view; to continue to regard him as just another “case” and all in the day’s work.

“In my house,” he said, “you shall do as you please.  You’re a dear girl, Rose,”

“I feel at home in your house,” she said, “and happy.”

A cloud gathered in Blizzard’s face.  “Happiness!” he exclaimed.  “There is no such thing—­neither for you, nor for me.  The world is a torture-chamber, and remember, Rose, we are to be allies; we are to have no secrets from each other.”

She shrugged her shoulders.  “That was what you said,” she complained.  “But have you really shown me any confidence?”

He smiled as upon a wayward child.  “You shall know everything that there is to know—­when the time comes.”

She pouted.

“And what, by the way,” he went on, “have you told me?”

“I have told you,” she answered with dignity, “my one secret.”

“The way you feel about me?”

She nodded and blushed.  It was going to be a hard lie to keep telling.

“And you’ve no other secret?  Nothing else that you ought to tell me?”

There was more meaning in his voice than in his words, so that for a moment Rose was startled.  Was it possible that the man suspected her, and was playing with her as a cat plays with a mouse?

“What else could I possibly have to tell you of any importance?”

“I was joking,” said the beggar.