children," those airs of Gluck that she liked so well, were works of
art, sculpture, such as he did. Yet she had never thought of them as
important, important as oatmeal or delicate soap. She made up her
mind to ask him about it, when she saw that they had reached the
Eighties; she was almost home.

"I am going away to-morrow," he told her, "for the winter, to South
America. When I come back we'll see each other. If you should change
address send me a line to the Harvard Club." The carriage had
stopped before the great arched entrance to the apartment-house,
towering in its entire block. He got out and lifted her to the
pavement as if she had been no more than a flower in his hands. Then
he walked with her into the darkness of the garden.

The fountains were cased in boards; the hedged borders, the bushes and
grass, were dead. High above them on the dark wall a window was bright.
Linda's heart began to pound loudly, she was trembling ... from the
cold. There was a faint sound in the air--the elevated trains, or
stirring wings? It was nothing, then, to be lifted into heaven. There
was the door to the hall and elevator. She turned, to thank Dodge
Pleydon for all his goodness to her, when he lifted her--was it
toward heaven?--and kissed her mouth.

She was still in his arms, with her eyes closed. "Linda Condon?" he
said, in a tone of inquiry.

At the same breath in which she realized a kiss was of no importance
a sharp icy pain cut at her heart. It hurt her so that she gasped.
Then, and this was strange, she realized that--as a kiss--it hadn't
annoyed her. Suddenly she felt that it wasn't just that, but