admiration. Her child-like absorption, the way every emotion from
perplexity to satisfaction expressed itself in the poise of her head
and the pucker of her face, took him back over years emotionally
barren to the time when he too had those easily stirred enthusiasms
of youth. For the man at the next table was far from young now. His
mouth had never quite parted with boyishness, but there was more
white than black in his hair, and the lines about his mouth told
that time, as well as forces more aging than time, had laid heavy
hand upon him. But when he looked at the girl and told her with a
smile that it was time to stop work, it was a smile and a voice to
defy the most tell-tale face in all the world.

During her luncheon, as she watched the strange people coming and
going, she did much wondering. She wondered why it was that so many
of the men at the dictionary place were very old men; she wondered
if it would be a good dictionary--one that would be used in the
schools; she wondered if Dr. Bunting had made a great deal of money,
and most of all she wondered about the man at the next table whose
voice was like--like a dream which she did not know that she had
dreamed.

When she had returned to the straggling old building, had stumbled
down the narrow, dark hall and opened the door of the big bleak
room, she saw that the man at the next table was the only one who
had returned from luncheon. Something in his profile made her stand
there very still. He had not heard her come in, and he was looking
straight ahead, eyes half closed, mouth set--no unsurrendered
boyishness there now. Wholly unconsciously she took an impulsive
step forward. But she stopped, for she saw, and felt without really
understanding, that it was not just the moment's pain, but the