SAILING in the hansom down Fifth avenue, Loftus thought of that first interview with the girl, of the den in which it had occurred and of his subsequent visits there. Since the introduction he had seen her three times, seen, too, of course, that she was not up to Fanny, but he had seen also that she was less ambitious, more tractable in every way. Besides, one is not loved every afternoon. To him that was the main point, and of that point he was now tolerably sure.

Suddenly the hansom tacked, veered and landed him at the ex-first lady's door.

"Bonjour, mon beau seigneur," the woman began when, presently, he reached her lair. "The little one will not delay."

"And then?"

"Be tranquil. I have other cats to whip."Mme. Machin was hatted and gloved. Loftus stuck his hand in his pocket. Mme. Machin was too genteel to notice. From the pocket he drew a roll of yellow bills. Mme. Machin affected entire unconcern. The bills he put in her paw. Mme. Machin was so entirely unconscious of the liberty that she turned to the mantel, picked up a bag of bead, opened it, took from it a little puff with which she dusted her nose. Then the puff went back into the bag. With it went the bills.

"I run," she announced. She moved to the door. There, looking at Loftus over her shoulder, she stopped. "You come again?"

For reply Loftus made a gesture.

"Yes," said the woman. "Naturally. It depends. But let me know. It is more commodious. Pas de scandale, eh?"

To this Loftus made no reply whatever. But his expression was translatable into "what do you take me for?"

"Allez!" the ex-first lady resumed. "I have confidence."

She opened the door and through it vanished. Loftus removed his gloves, seated himself at the piano, ran his fingers over the keys, struck a note which suggested another and attacked the waltz from "Faust." The appropriateness of it appealed to him. As he played he hummed. Then, passing upward with the score, he reached the "Salve Dimora," Faust's salute to Marguerite's home. But in the den where he sat the aria did not fit. He went back again to the waltz. Then, precisely as on the stage Marguerite appears, Marie entered.

Loftus jumped up, went to her, took her hand. It was trembling. He led her to a sofa, seating himself at her side, her hand still in his.

He looked at her. She had the prettiness and timidity of a kitten, a kitten's grace as well. Like a kitten, she could not have been vulgar or awkward had she tried. But association and environment had wrapped about her one of the invisible yet obvious mantles that differentiate class from class. Loftus was quite aware of that. He was, though, equally aware that love is a famous costumer. There are few mantles that it cannot remove and remake. That the girl loved him he knew. The tremor of her hand assured him more surely than words.

None the less he asked her. It seemed to him only civil. But she did not answer. The dinginess of the den oppressed him. It occurred to him that it might be oppressing her. Again he inquired. Only the tremor of the hand replied."Tell me," he repeated.

The girl disengaged her hand. She looked down and away.

"Won't you?" he insisted.

"I ought not to," she said at last.

"But why?"

With her parasol the girl poked at the carpet. "Because it is not right. It is not right that I should." But at once, with a little convulsive intake of the breath, she added, "Yet I do."

Then it seemed to her that the room was turning around, that the walls had receded, that there was but blankness. His lips were on hers. In their contact everything ceased to be save the consciousness of something so poignant, so new, that to still the pain of the joy of it she struggled to be free.

Kissing her again Loftus let her go. Dizzily she got from the sofa. The parasol had fallen. Her hat was awry. To straighten it she moved to a mirror. Her face was scarlet. Instantly fear possessed her, fear not of him but of herself. With uncertain fingers she tried to adjust the hat.

"I must go."

But Loftus came to her. Bending a bit he whispered in her ear: "Don't go—don't go ever."

Do what she might she could not manage with her hat. In the glass it was no longer that which she saw, nor her face, but an abyss, suddenly precipitate, that had opened there.

"No, don't go," Loftus was saying. "I love you and you love me."

It was, though, not love that was emotionalizing her then. It was fear. A fear of that abyss and of the lower depths beneath.

"Don't go," Loftus reiterated. "Don't, that is, if you do love me; and if you do, tell me, will you be my wife?"

At this, before her, in abrupt enchantment, the abyss disappeared. Where its depths had been were parterres of gems, slopes of asphodel, the gleam and brilliance of the gates of paradise.

"Your wife!" The wonder of it was in her voice and marveling eyes.

"Come." Taking her hand, Loftus led her to their former seat.

"But——"

"But what?"

"How can I be your wife? I am nobody."

"You are perfect. There is only one thing I fear—" Loftus hesitated. Nervously the girl looked at him.

"Only one," he continued. "I am not and never shall be half good enough for you.""Oh!"

"Never half enough."

"Oh! How can you say that? It is not true. Could I care for you if it were?"

"And you do?"

"Don't you know it?"

"Then don't go, don't go from me ever."

"But——"

"Yes, I know. You are thinking of your father, of whom you have told me; perhaps, too, of my mother, of whom I told you. When she knows you and learns to love you, as she will, we can be married before all the world. We could now were I not dependent on her. Yet then, am I not dependent too on you? Come with me, and afterward——"

"I cannot," the girl cried; "it would kill my father."

"You have but to wire him that you have gone to be married, and it will be the truth."

"I cannot," the girl repeated. "Oh, what are you asking me to do?"

"I am asking you to be my wife. What is the ceremony to you? What are a few words mumbled by a hired priest? Love, love alone, is marriage."

"No, no. To you perhaps. But not to me."

"And the ceremony shall follow as soon as we can manage. Can you not trust me for that?""But——"

"Will you not trust me? If you are to put your whole life into my keeping you should at least begin by doing that."

The girl looked at the man and then away, at vistas he could not see, the winding slopes of asphodel, the sudden and precipitate abyss. Yet he spoke so fair, she told herself. Surely it was to the slopes he meant to take her, not to that blackening pit.

"Yet if you won't," Loftus continued, "it is best for both that we should part."

"For—for always?"

"Yes."

Just why he omitted to explain. But then there are explanations that explain nothing. Yet to her, for a moment, the threat was like a flash in darkness. For a moment she thought that she could not let him go. About her swarmed her dreams. Through them his kisses pierced. For a moment only. The flash had passed. She was in darkness again. Before her was the precipitate abyss. Shudderingly she drew from it.

But Loftus was very resolute. "If you will you have my promise."

For answer she looked at him, looked into his eyes, peered into them, deep down, striving to see what was there, trying to mirror her soul in his own."Before God and man I swear you shall be my wife."

At that, suddenly within her, fear melted away. If she had not seen his soul she had heard it. Where fear had been was faith. Dumb with the enchantment of a dream come true, she half arose. But his arms went about her and in them she lay like seaweed in the tide.