She turned in her chair.

“Do you think that I cannot tell?” she continued.  “Didn’t I see you turn the corner there, didn’t I hear your step three flights down?  Sometimes I have heard it come, and it sounds like something leaden beating time to the music of despair.  And to-night you tripped up like a boy home for the holidays.  You are going out to-night, Arnold.”

He nodded.

“A man whom I met the other night has asked me to dine with him,” he announced.

“A man!  You are not going to see her, then?”

He laughed gayly and placed his hand upon the fingers which had drawn him towards her.

“Silly girl!” he declared.  “No, I am going to dine alone with her brother, the Count Sabatini.  You see, I am private secretary now to a merchant prince, no longer a clerk in a wholesale provision merchant’s office.  We climb, my dear Ruth.  Soon I am going to ask for a holiday, and then we’ll make Isaac leave his beastly lecturing and scurrilous articles, and come away with us somewhere for a day or two.  You would like a few days in the country, Ruth?”

Her eyes met his gratefully.

“You know that I should love it, dear,” she said, “but, Arnie, do you think that when the time for the holiday comes you will want to take us?”

He sat on the arm of her chair and held her hand.

“Foolish little woman!” he exclaimed.  “Do you think that I am likely to forget?  Why, I must have shared your supper nearly every night for a month, while I was walking about trying to find something to do.  People don’t forget who have lived through that sort of times, Ruth.”

She sighed.  Strangely enough, her tone had in it something of vague regret.

“For your sake, dear, I am glad that they are over.”

“Things, too, will improve with you,” he declared.  “They shall improve.  If only Isaac would turn sensible!  He has brains and he is clever enough, if he weren’t stuffed full with that foolish socialism.”

She looked around the room and drew him a little closer to her.

“Arnold,” she whispered, “now that you have spoken of it, let me tell you this.  Sometimes I am afraid.  Isaac is so mysterious.  Do you know that he is away often for the whole day, and comes back white and exhausted, worn to a shadow, and sleeps for many hours?  Sometimes he is in his room all right, but awake.  I can hear him moving backwards and forwards, and hammering, tap, tap, tap, for hours.”

“What does he do?” Arnold asked quickly.

“He has some sort of a little printing press in his room,” she answered.  “He prints some awful sheet there which the police have stopped.  The night before last he had a message and everything was hidden.  He spent hours with his face to the window, watching.  I am so afraid that sometimes he goes outside the law.  Arnold, I am afraid of what might happen to him.  There are terrible things in his face if I ask him questions.  And he moves about and mutters like a man in a dream—­no, like a man in a nightmare!”