that wonderful boy."

The sculptor commanded his voice by a powerful effort.

"They are both well," he answered. "The boy is a wonderful little
fellow, although perhaps I am not an unprejudiced judge. Ninitta is
crazy to show him to you. She has pretty nearly effaced herself since
he came, and only lives for his benefit."

"She is a happy woman," Helen said, assuming that air of cheerfulness
which is one of the first accomplishments that women are forced by life
to learn. "I should know she would be devoted to her children."

There were a few moments of silence. Both cast down their eyes, and
then each raised them to study whatever changes time might have made in
the years that lay between them. Helen's heart was beating painfully,
but she was determined not to lose her self-control. She knew of old
how completely she could rule the mood of her companion, and she felt
that upon her calmness depended his. She had been schooling herself for
this interview from the moment she began to consider whether she might
return to America, and she was therefore less unprepared than was
Herman for the trying situation in which she now found herself; yet it
required all her strength of mind and of will not to give way to the
tide of love and emotion which surged within her breast.

Herman fixed his eyes resolutely on an ungainly group in pinkish clay
which represented an American commercial sculptor's idea of Romeo and
Juliet at the moment when the Nurse separates them with a message from
Lady Capulet. With artistic instinct he noted the stupidity of the
composition, the vulgarity of the lines, the cheap ugliness of the