"Luxury!" she began, with a sweep of her hand which was full of
majesty and despair. "Why have I chosen you out of all the thousands?
Why should I believe that my story would interest you? Well, little as
I have seen of the world, I have learned that woman does not go to
woman in cases such as mine is." And then pathetically: "I know no
woman to whom I might go. Women are like daws; their sympathy comes
but to peck. Do you know what it is to be alone in a city? The desert
is not loneliness; it is only solitude. True loneliness is to be found
only in great communities. To be without a single friend or confidant,
when thousand of beings move about you; to pour your sorrows into
cold, unfeeling ears; to seek sympathy in blind eyes--that is
loneliness. That is the loneliness that causes the heart to break."

Warrington's eyes never left hers; he was fascinated.

"Luxury!" she repeated bitterly. "Surrounding me with all a woman
might desire--paintings that charm the eye, books that charm the mind,
music that charms the ear. Money!"

"Philosophy in a girl!" thought Warrington. His hat became motionless.

"It is all a lie, a lie!" The girl struck her hands together, impotent
in her wrath.

It was done so naturally that Warrington, always the dramatist, made a
mental note of the gesture.

"I was educated in Paris and Berlin; my musical education was
completed in Dresden. Like all young girls with music-loving souls, I
was something of a poet. I saw the beautiful in everything; sometimes