Wash as I might, I could not remove a faint blackness that clung to the edges of my eyes.  This made my eyes glow and seem larger than they were.  On such an extraneous and whimsical exterior circumstance hinged the young widow’s interest in me.

And I decided that I’d stay a little longer at the Eos Studios ... all winter, if she stayed all winter.  And I no longer asked for an easier job.  For I wanted my eyes to remain large-seeming, since, half in jest, she admired their present appearance.

She manifested a close and affectionate friendship for me, and all day long all I thought of, as I kept the furnace going, was the evening after dinner, when I could sit close by her reading poetry in a low voice to her.

I leaned over her on every pretext to smell her hair,—­her body, through her low-necked dress—­to breathe in giddily that delicate fragrance that emanates from the bodies of beautiful women, as perfume from flowers.

Once, in spite of my timidity, I dared place my arm about her shoulders, there in the dark.  There was a lecture on over in the “chapel” and mostly everybody had gone to it.  Spalton, in passing through where we sat together, asked her if she was coming.  “No, she was too tired.”  She remained sitting by me.  Spalton shot me a glance of scarcely concealed resentment and went on.  We were left alone.

She began telling me of her deceased husband ... of their devotion to each other ... she applied a dainty thing of lace to her eyes, pausing a moment....

“John? may I call you by your name, not by the odious name they have for you here?...”

She leaned her head against my shoulder.

“Johnnie, you are a fine, sensitive soul, and I know you’ll be a great poet some day ... but why don’t these people take you more seriously?

“I think it must be your childlikeness ... and your spirit of horse-play, that breaks through at the most inopportune moments, that encourages these fools to treat you with levity."...

“Dear woman,” I began, “dearest woman,” and my throat bunched queerly so that I could not speak further.

She stroked my hair....

“How old are you?”

“Twenty-three.”

“I am just a year younger.”

“May I kiss you?” I asked, stumblingly.

“Yes, Johnnie, you may kiss me"....

“Why, you dear child, you ... you kiss just like a small boy ...” in a lower voice, “can it be possible that you, with all your tramping, your knowledge of life in books, of people?—­”

I bent my head, ashamed, silently acknowledging my inexperience of women.

“No, it’s nothing to be ashamed of, dearest boy ...  I think you are a fine man—­to have gone through what you have—­and still—­”

Her voice trailed off.  She put her arm around my neck, drew me to her, and kissed me!

* * * * *

As we sat close together, a brooding silence.  Then, with a transition of thought to the practical, she remarked....