Erebus-haired angel, how you do test my love!''

Hilda was almost in tears--it was all intensely real to her. She
felt that he was superfine, that he suffered more than ordinary
folk, like herself and her people. ``I'll do the best I can,''
she pleaded.

``It would be best for you to introduce them to me at once and
let ME speak.''

``No--no,'' she protested earnestly, terror in her voice and her
hand trembling in his. ``That would spoil everything. You
wouldn't understand them, or they you. I'll speak--and see you
Monday night.''

``Let it be so,'' he conceded. ``But I must depart. I am
studying a new role.'' He had an engagement to take supper with
several of his intimates at the Irving Place cafe, where he could
throw aside the heaviest parts of his pose and give way to his
appetite for beer and Schweizerkase sandwiches. ``How happy we
shall be!'' he murmured tenderly, kissing her cheek and thinking
how hard it was to be practical and keep remote benefits in mind
when she was so beautiful and so tempting and so trustful. He
said aloud: ``I am impatient, soul's delight! Is it strange?''
And he bowed like a stage courtier to a stage queen and left her.

She joined Sophie and Heilig and walked along in silence, Sophie
between Otto and her. He caught glimpses of her face, and it
made his heart ache and his courage faint to see the love-light
in her eyes--and she as far away from him as Heaven from hell,