So that is why, near morning, I got up again, went to my desk, opened a little secret drawer, and took out a picture. The picture was the one I had bought in New York after I had seen Robert Dwinnell at the theatre in the afternoon. Of course it is silly and very absurd for a girl of my years to treasure a picture of an actor in a secret drawer in her desk. I can't help it. That picture had been my ideal for almost five years now. It wasn't the actor that I liked so much (for of course I have been told that actors aren't nice); it wasn't Robert Dwinnell himself I admired. It was simply the jolly look in his eyes and the way he had--I remembered it so well--of striding across the stage, sitting carelessly on the edge of a table and swinging one foot. It had just about torn the heart out of me to watch that man make love. He had a kind of lingering way with his hands, and with his eyes too, every time the heroine was in his presence. Even before he had proposed to her, I knew he adored her and afterward--oh, really I think Robert Dwinnell must have loved that actress off the stage as well as on. Dr. Maynard's hands had never lingered about my shoulders when he helped me on with a coat; he had never gazed at me eloquently across a crowded room; and even after I had promised to marry him he hadn't crushed me to him in any mad wave of joy. I gazed for a whole half-minute at Robert Dwinnell's picture. I forgot all my problems for a little while--I forgot everything in the memory of that man's image. Call it absurd if you want to, ridiculous and impossible, but when I raised my eyes at last and rose, clear as the day that was just breaking, bright as a new-born vision, I knew--I _knew_ I couldn't marry just everyday, kind Dr. Maynard. It was just as if Robert Dwinnell had gotten up from out of that picture, walked over to me, taken my hand and said, "You must wait for some one like me." And I looked up and knew that I must. It was like a miracle, and I shall never forget the sudden trembling assurance in my heart, as I found my way to my desk and in the light of that lovely new morning, drew out a sheet of paper and wrote to Edith Campbell and told her I was ready to be friends. For suddenly, brought face to face with the thrilling image of the man of my dreams, I was ready to live with twenty Edith Campbells. Of course, _of course_, I couldn't marry Dr. Maynard, and with a little pang of regret or something like it in my heart, I finally wrote him this note: "_Dear Dr. Maynard_, The refugee has thought it all over very carefully and has decided to gather the pieces of her house together and rebuild on the same spot, like San Francisco." Then I added, dropping all play and with something I knew to be pain: "I can't do it, Dr. Maynard, I've tried and I can't. But you'll always be the very kindest man I know. "LUCY CHENERY VARS."