play, had disappeared upstairs. The inimical lad alone was
inspired for the ungrateful role of duenna.

He sat upon the topmost of the porch steps with the air of being
permanently implanted; leaning forward, elbows on knees, cheeks on
palms, in a treacherous affectation of profound reverie; and his
back (all of him that was plainly visible in the hall light)
tauntingly close to a delicate foot which would, God wot!
willingly have launched him into the darkness beyond. It was his
dreadful pleasure to understand wholly the itching of that shapely
silk and satin foot.

The gas-light from the hall laid a broad orange path to the
steps--Cora and her companion sat just beyond it, his whiteness
gray, and she a pale ethereality in the shadow. She wore an
evening gown that revealed a vague lilac through white, and
shimmered upon her like a vapour. She was very quiet; and there
was a wan sweetness about her, an exhalation of wistfulness. Cora,
in the evening, was more like a rose than ever. She was fragrant
in the dusk. The spell she cast was an Undine's: it was not to be
thought so exquisite a thing as she could last. And who may know
how she managed to say what she did in the silence and darkness?
For it was said--without words, without touch, even without a
look--as plainly as if she had spoken or written the message: "If
I am a rose, I am one to be worn and borne away. Are you the man?"

With the fall of night, the street they faced had become still,
save for an infrequent squawk of irritation on the part of one of
the passing automobiles, gadding for the most part silently, like
fireflies. But after a time a strolling trio of negroes came