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They walked to the very doors of the Berger House in silence. But at the foot of the stairs that led to the parlor floor he stopped, and looked into Emma McChesney’s face. His own was rather white and tense.

“Look here,” he said. “I’ve got to thank you. That sounds idiotic, but I guess you know what I mean. And I won’t ask you to forgive a hound like me. I haven’t been so ashamed of myself since I was a kid. Why, if you knew Bess–if you knew–“

“I guess I know Bess, all right. I used to be a Bess, myself. Just because I’m a traveling man it doesn’t follow that I’ve forgotten the Bess feeling. As far as that goes, I don’t mind telling you that I’ve got neuralgia from sitting in that park with my feet in the damp grass. I can feel it in my back teeth, and by eleven o’clock it will be camping over my left eye, with its little brothers doing a war dance up the side of my face. And, boy, I’d give last week’s commissions if there was some one to whom I had the right to say: ‘Henry, will you get up and get me a hot-water bag for my neuralgia? It’s something awful. And just open the left-hand lower drawer of the chiffonier and get out one of those gauze vests and then get me a safety pin from the tray on my dresser. I’m going to pin it around my head.'”