The carriage rolled on through the darkened downtown streets,
towards the North Side, where the Dearborns lived. They could hear
the horses plashing through the layer of slush--mud, half-melted
snow and rain--that encumbered the pavement. In the gloom the girls'
wraps glowed pallid and diaphanous. The rain left long, slanting
parallels on the carriage windows. They passed on down Wabash
Avenue, and crossed over to State Street and Clarke Street, dark,
deserted.

Laura, after a while, lost in thought, spoke but little. It had been
a great evening--because of other things than mere music. Corthell
had again asked her to marry him, and she, carried away by the
excitement of the moment, had answered him encouragingly. On the
heels of this she had had that little talk with the capitalist
Jadwin, and somehow since then she had been steadied, calmed. The
cold air and the rain in her face had cooled her flaming cheeks and
hot temples. She asked herself now if she did really, honestly love
the artist. No, she did not; really and honestly she did not; and
now as the carriage rolled on through the deserted streets of the
business districts, she knew very well that she did not want to
marry him. She had done him an injustice; but in the matter of
righting herself with him, correcting his false impression, she was
willing to procrastinate. She wanted him to love her, to pay her all
those innumerable little attentions which he managed with such
faultless delicacy. To say: "No, Mr. Corthell, I do not love you, I
will never be your wife," would--this time--be final. He would go
away, and she had no intention of allowing him to do that.

But abruptly her reflections were interrupted. While she thought it
all over she had been looking out of the carriage window through a