"It's nip and tuck," he breathed, stifling an impulse to laugh. "Nip and tuck!" Pressing the match's diminished head firmly against the wood, he drew it downward vigorously and long. There was a faint crackle, a little splutter, and--glory of glories!--a tiny flame faltered out into the darkness. "Oh--_be careful_!" Varney cupped his hand about the little flare, and for a moment ceased to breathe. Then it caught more fully, and it was evident to both that the victory was won. He had meant to look instantly about for lamp or candle to light; but if all his future happiness had hinged upon it, it seemed to him that he could not have helped one glance at the lady who shared that shelter and that match with him. She stood a few feet away, regarding him breathlessly, hatted, gloved, all in white, one hand resting lightly on the center-table, one folded about the crook of a dainty draggled parasol. The match threw a small and ghostly light, but he saw her, and she wore no veil. "Why--why--I--" "Oh, quick! There's a lamp just behind you." He caught himself with a start. By incredible luck a lamp was at his very elbow; as it was the match died on the wick. He put back the chimney and shade, turned up the wick, and the room was bathed in golden light. It was a good-sized room, evidently newly furnished and as neat as a bandbox. The empty book-case on which the lamp rested was of handsome quartered oak, which transiently struck him as curious. But in the next instant he turned away and forgot all about it. The lady stood where she had risen and was regarding him without a word. The lamplight fell full upon her. He came nearer, and his waning assurance shook him like a pennant in the wind and was suddenly gone. The sense of _camaraderie_ which the dark had given faded; his easy friendliness left him; and he was an embarrassed young man face to face with a girl whose sudden beauty seemed to overwhelm him with the knowledge that he did not so much as know her name. "None of my thumbnail sketches," he faltered, "made you look like this." She had rested her wet parasol against the table, where a slow pool gathered at the ferrule, and was pulling on more trimly her long white gloves. Now she looked at him rather quizzically, though her young eyes reflected something of his own unsteadying embarrassment. "No," she said, "I shall not be sixty-two for--for some time yet. But of course it was a game--a pastime--where I had a--little the advantage. Do you know, I--I am not entirely surprised, after all." "Oh, aren't you?" he said, completely mystified, but as charmed by her smile as he was by the subtle change in her manner which had come with the lighting of that match. "And it _was_ nice of you to tell me that polite story at the beginning," she said. "And quick--and clever. When I heard the front door burst open, the first thing I thought of, really, was that it must be you."