“I told my Russian to draw on me for half the funds, and to find another fellow-traveler. But she was too young to marry, they said. We must wait a year. I said I would wait. When the year was half gone, I was in London—because the face was there.” Still looking through the wall he groped for the cup. Hildegarde rose, and put it in his hands. Oh poor, poor hands! No need to turn shuddering away. They were softly wrapped from her sight in a mist of pitiful tears. He gave her back the cup. “We had been to a skating party,” he said. Something grotesque conjured by the contrast of that light phrase wafted out of a butterfly world to fall in such a place at such an hour made for the unreality, not of far-off London, nor of parties where pretty ladies play at being in a world of ice—the conjuration merely lifted the dim hut and its wild occupant into the realm of the phantasmagoric. The girl saw all in a wavering dimness, shot dazzlingly with splinters of sunshine. But the man went on in that level tone: “I remember her saying it was the first party given in London on artificial ice—an absurd affair. But she said: ‘Wasn’t it nice of me to get you an invitation, too? It will seem quite like going to your horrid North Pole.’” How plain Bella’s voice sounded in the room. That was why he was smiling. Bella could always bring that look into the eyes of men. “I said, ‘quite like the North Pole.’ And I went and skated with her. Afterward, at the door, I had just seen her and her mother into the carriage, when my eye fell on the orange-colored bill of the ‘Pall Mall Gazette.’ And three words printed there blared out like trumpets. ‘NEWS FROM NANSEN.’ ‘He’s found it!’ I said to myself—‘Nansen’s found the Pole!’ and I could have flung up my hat and cried hurrah in the sober street. As I called to the newsboy I was ashamed of my voice. I thought people would notice how it shook. When I pulled my hand out of my pocket it trembled so I dropped the coin and it rolled away into the street. The boy ran after it, and I damned him for his pains. ‘Never mind! Give me a paper!’ I called out. But the boy ran on. As I stood there waiting for him to disentangle himself from the traffic and come back, I seemed to live a lifetime. How had he done it, that splendid fellow, Nansen? What had it been like? Well, soon I should know. The knowledge that had cost so much, soon I should have it in my hand—for a penny! The awful majesty of the upper regions fell away.” With a growing excitement painfully the sick man lifted himself up. “It was then,” he said, “then—a queer thing happened.” He seemed to wait for something. Turning to the girl, “You see, this was the moment I’d been living for in a way.” “Of course; of course.”