himself wondering.  And was he a product of these soft days, the rushing whirlwinds of Heaven stilled, the land drowsy with the humid heat of a slothful noonday?  He had never thought of these things before.  Even when he had thrilled to the vision of line upon line of his comrades marching away to the blood-soaked fields of France he had surrendered to a primitive emotion untouched by the poetry of deep understanding.  He thrilled not because he knew that these people were doing the magnificent, the decent thing ... but because he merely felt it.  He had his faiths, but he had not troubled to prove them ... he had not troubled even to doubt them.

His disquiet sharpened all of his perceptions.  He never remembered a time when the cool fragrance of the night had fallen upon his senses with such a personal caress.  He had come out into its starlit presence flushed with narrow, sordid indignation ... smarting under the trivial lashes which insolence and circumstance had rained upon his vanity.  His walk in the dusky silence had not stilled his restlessness, but it had given his impatience a larger scope ... and as he stood for one last backward glimpse at the twinkling magnificence of this February night he felt stirred by almost heroic rancors.  The city lay before him in crouched somnolence, ready to leap into life at the first flush of dawn, and, in the chilly breath of virgin spring, little truant warmths and provocative perfumes stirred the night with subtle prophecies of summer.

His exaltation persisted even after he had turned the key in his own door to find the light still blazing, betraying the fact of Helen’s wakeful presence.  He dallied over the triviality of hanging up his hat.

She was reading when he gained the threshold of the tiny living room.  At the sound of his footsteps she flung aside the magazine in her hand.  Her thick brows were drawn together in insolent impatience.

“Oh,” he exclaimed, inadequately, “I thought you’d be asleep!”

“Asleep?” she queried, in a voice that cut him with its swift stroke.  “You didn’t fancy that I could compose myself that quickly ... after everything that’s happened to-night ... did you?  I’ve been humiliated more than once in my life, but never quite so badly.  Uncalled for, too ... that’s the silly part of it.”

He stood motionless in the doorway.  “I’m sorry I forgot the money,” he returned, dully.  “But it’s all past and gone now.  And I think the Hilmers understood.”

“Yes ... they understood.  That’s another humiliating thing.”  She laughed tonelessly.  “It must be amusing to watch people like us attempting to be somebody and do something on an income that can’t be stretched far enough to pay a sloppy maid her wages.”

It was not so much what she said, but her manner that chilled him to sudden cold anger.  “Well ... you know our income, down to the last penny...  You know just how much I’ve overdrawn this month, too.  Why do you invite strangers to dinner under such conditions?”