Arnold had been talking with a man of his own age, and hearing things that were very pleasant to hear about his latest work, and yet, as he leaned back in his chair and looked across at Katharine Normaine, whose own expression was a little pensive, he sighed. It was a great deal--he told himself it was nearly everything--to have what he had now in the line of effort which he loved and had chosen. It was not so good as the work itself, of course, but the recognition was grateful. And as his eyes dwelt again upon the distinction of Miss Normaine's profile, with the knot of blonde hair at the back of her well-held head, he sighed again, as he rose and went over to her. She looked up at him, and her eyes were not quite so calm as usual. "I am sitting," she said, "among the ruins." "Indeed?" he said. "Is there room upon a fallen column or a broken plinth for me?" "Oh, yes," she answered, "but it is not for a successful man like you, whose name is upon the public lips, to gaze with me upon demolished theories." "I have taken my time in gazing upon them before now," he observed. "Everybody is talking about your book," she said. "Oh, no, only a very few people. But about your theories--which of them has proved itself unable to bear the weight of experience?" "You may remember I dwelt somewhat at length upon the indifference of happy youth to the stings of outrageous fortune when supported by some one else?" "I remember. I regard it as the lesson for the day." "It's early to mention it, but I am obliged to give you the evidence of my error--honor demands it--and Alice will not mind, even if she sees fit to contradict it to-morrow;" and she told him what had just been told her. He smiled as she concluded her statement, and she, meeting his glance in all seriousness, broke down into a moment's laughter. "'She does not know anything but that her side is beating,'" he quoted meditatively. "I thought my generosity in confession might at least forestall sarcasm," she said severely. "It ought to do so," he admitted. There was a moment's pause. "Has youth itself changed with the times, I wonder?" he speculated. "Certainly you did not sympathize overmuch with defeat at Alice's age." She did not answer, and she was looking away from him through the glass, beyond which the darkness was pierced now and then by a shaft of illumination. The pensiveness that had rested on her face, when he had looked across the car at her, had deepened almost into sadness. "And now," he went on, "you have called me successful--which shuts me out from your more mature sympathy." Still she did not answer. He bent a little nearer to her. "Believe me, Katharine," he said, "my success is not so very intoxicating after all. I need sympathy of a certain kind as much as I did twenty years ago." She glanced at him. "Is that all you want?" she asked with a swift smile.