wove a web in and around the heart of Gerome Meadows--his rejected, torn
and dejected heart. I gently soothed him into not quite a forgetfulness,
yet a strong and healthful calm. He was grateful. Reactions are always
dangerous; he wondered why he had not known me before as he knew me
then. And while he wondered I charmed him into a new love fever. It was
almost a touch of real passion. It was a skillful drawing together of
the scattered ligaments of that other and violently broken love. I had
labored hard, and not altogether in vain. He was mine for the taking.
Would I take him?

We stood together late one afternoon in a rich oriel window which
overhung the street. We were silent. The rustle of the light summer
drapery filled the air with a faint but melodiously tender undertone.
We looked out of the broad open window down the street. It was near the
close of a superb summer's day. I was in a mood to yield. My old nature
seemed to rise out of its former self. It was the one golden opportunity
for the man by my side. The old tender leaning toward him came back
again, stronger, more subtle than ever before. It was--for the
while--love, or something very like unto love. My nature, my soul was at
its utmost flow, but no one touched the flood-gates. Gerome was passive,
silent. One word, a hand-touch, and I would have loved him and bound
myself to him for weal or woe! Little things are every thing in a
woman's life. Robert Fairfield passed by beneath the window; he briefly
paused, politely looked up, lifted his hat, _smiled_, and--innocent
of what he had done--went on his way. He had simply done what was the
proper and usual thing, but his conventional smile had come into my life
at a strangely opportune moment--or, was it opportune? My heart had been
laid bare, the flood-gates had been touched, and they had slowly opened
beneath the magic influence of a _smile_. Gerome Meadows had been
silent. He had lost his one golden opportunity. I told him so, and sent