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Poor Jr. had taken a step toward her as she fell back; I could only see the two figures as two shadows upon shadow, while for them I had melted altogether and was forgotten.

“You think I have followed you,” he cried, “but you have no right to think it. It was an accident and you’ve got to believe me!”

“I believe you,” she answered gently. “Why should I not?”

“I suppose you want me to clear out again,” he went on, “and I will; but I don’t see why.”

Her voice answered him out of the shadow: “It is only you who make a reason why. I’d give anything to be friends with you; you’ve always known that.”

“Why can’t we be?” he said, sharply and loudly. “I’ve changed a great deal. I’m very sensible, and I’ll never bother you again — that other way. Why shouldn’t I see a little of you?”

I heard her laugh then–happily, it seemed to me,–and I thought I perceived her to extend her hand to him, and that he shook it briefly, in his fashion, as if it had been the hand of a man and not that of the beautiful lady.

“You know I should like nothing better in the world–since you tell me what you do,” she answered.

“And the other man?” he asked her, with the same hinting of sharpness in his tone. “Is that all settled?”

“Almost. Would you like me to tell you?”

“Only a little–please!”

His voice had dropped, and he spoke very quietly, which startlingly caused me to realize what I was doing. I went out of hearing then, very softly. Is it creible that I found myself trembling when I reached the twilit piazza? It is true, and I knew that never, for one moment, since that tragic, divine day of her pity, had I wholly despaired of beholding her again; that in my most sorrowful time there had always been a little, little morsel of certain knowledge that I should some day be near her once more.

And now, so much was easily revealed to me: it was to see her that the good Lambert R. Poor Jr., had come to Paris, preceding my patron; it was he who had passed with her on the last day of my shame, and whom she had addressed by his central name of Rufus, and it was to his hand that I had restored her parasol.

I was to look upon her face at last–I knew it–and to speak with her. Ah, yes, I did tremble! It was not because I feared she might recognize her poor slave of the painted head-top, nor that Poor Jr. would tell her. I knew him now too well to think he would do that, had I been even that other of whom he had spoken, for he was a brave, good boy, that Poor Jr. No, it was a trembling of another kind–something I do not know how to explain to those who have not trembled in the same way; and I came alone to my room in the hotel, still trembling a little and having strange quickness of breathing in my chest.

I did not make any light; I did not wish it, for the precious darkness of the Cathedral remained with me–magic darkness in which I beheld floating clouds made of the dust of gold and vanishing melodies. Any person who knows of these singular things comprehends how little of them can be told; but to those people who do not know of them, it may appear all great foolishness. Such people are either too young, and they must wait, or too old–they have forgotten!

It was an hour afterward, and Poor Jr. had knocked twice at my door, when I lighted the room and opened it to him. He came in, excitedly flushed, and, instead of taking a chair, began to walk quickly up and down the floor.

“I’m afraid I forgot all about you, Ansolini,” he said, “but that girl I ran into is a–a Miss Landry, whom I have known a long–“