"You've dreamed the same dream--?"

"Twice over," she repeated. "The very same."

This did somehow a little speak to him, as it also gratified him. "You
dream about me at that rate?"

"Ah about _him_!" she smiled.

His eyes again sounded her. "Then you know all about him." And as she
said nothing more: "What's the wretch like?"

She hesitated, and it was as if he were pressing her so hard that,
resisting for reasons of her own, she had to turn away. "I'll tell you
some other time!"




CHAPTER II


It was after this that there was most of a virtue for him, most of a
cultivated charm, most of a preposterous secret thrill, in the particular
form of surrender to his obsession and of address to what he more and
more believed to be his privilege. It was what in these weeks he was
living for--since he really felt life to begin but after Mrs. Muldoon had
retired from the scene and, visiting the ample house from attic to
cellar, making sure he was alone, he knew himself in safe possession and,