“But—­seriously—­you’re not sure, are you, Mr. Sybarite?”

“Only, Miss Lessing,” he said soberly, “of my futile, my painfully futile good will.”

She seemed to start to speak, to think better of it, to fall silent in sudden, shy constraint.  He stole a side-long glance, troubled, wondering if perhaps he had ventured too impudently, pursuing his whim to the point of trespass upon the inviolable confines of her reserve.

She wore a sweet, grave face, en profile; her eyes veiled with long lashes, the haunts of tender shadows; her mouth of gracious lips unsmiling, a little triste.  Compunctions smote him; with his crude and clumsy banter he had contrived to tune her thoughts to sadness.  He would have given worlds to undo that blunder; to show her that he had meant neither a rudeness nor a wish to desecrate her reticence, but only an indirect assurance of gratitude to her for suffering him and willingness to serve her within the compass of his poverty-stricken powers.  For in retrospect his invitation assumed the proportions of an importunity, an egregious piece of presumption:  so that he could have groaned to contemplate it.

He didn’t groan, save inwardly; but respected her silence, and held his own in humility and mortification of spirit until they were near the dooryard of their boarding-house.  And even then it was the girl who loosed his tongue.

“Why—­where are they?” she asked in surprise.

Startled out of the deeps of self-contempt, P. Sybarite discovered that she meant Violet and George, who were nowhere visible.

“Violet said something about a little supper in her room,” explained the girl.

“I know,” he replied:  “crackers and cheese, beer and badinage:  our humble pleasures.  You’ll be bored to extinction—­but you’ll come, won’t you?”

“Why, of course!  I counted on it.  But—­”

“They must have hurried on to make things ready—­Violet to set her room to rights, George to tote the wash-pitcher to the corner for the beer.  And very likely, pending our arrival, they’re lingering at the head of the stairs for a kiss or two.”

The girl paused at the gate.  “Then we needn’t hurry,” she suggested, smiling.

“We needn’t delay,” he countered amiably.  “If somebody doesn’t interrupt ’em before long, George will be too late to get the pitcher filled.  This town shuts up tight at midnight, Saturdays—­if you want to believe everything you hear.  So there’s no need of being too indulgent with our infatuated fellow-inmates.”

“But—­just a minute, Mr. Sybarite,” she insisted.

“As many as you wish,” he laughed.  “As a matter of fact, I loathe draught beer.”

“Do be serious,” she begged.  “I want to thank you.”

He was aware of a proffered hand, slender and fine in a shabby glove; and took it in his own, uneasily conscious of a curious disturbance in his bosom, of a strange and not unpleasant sense of commingled expectancy, pleasure, and diffidence (as far as he was able to analyse it—­or cared to—­at that instant).