"Since I've finished up this Persian job, I've been thinking a lot about what to do next. I could go on with that kind of work very easily. But I want some more concrete kind of usefulness. You'll know what I mean. I want to make my life count at something more than dry scholarship. And the only thing I can think of that seems worth doing is to pitch in and help Isadore on this paper. We'd need you in the combine. And that means thinking about you. I've done a lot of it. Wondering what manner of person you had grown to be. I was sure we'd be able to work well together. But I did not expect to find you so wonderful. Less than four years ago you were only a girl. You've grown amazingly, Yetta, grown in wisdom and in beauty--beauty of soul and face. "I'm a lonely and rather battered old bachelor, Yetta. And no man really wants to be a bachelor. Sometimes, coming over on the boat, I thought about you--in that connection. But I couldn't help thinking of you as a young girl, lovable and very dear, but very young. And I'm getting old. My hair is turning gray, and many things turn gray inside, Yetta, before the hair turns. You don't seem so painfully young to me now, and the dream doesn't seem ludicrous. We're going to work together, Yetta, be partners and comrades. I've very little to offer you, but it would be a great thing for me if you would also be my wife." "I thought you were in love with Mabel," she said. The cool sound of her words startled her. With the heavens opening, could she speak in so commonplace a voice? They sounded so utterly inadequate that she would have given worlds to have them back, unsaid. It was a moment before he sat up and answered her. "I was." "I told you, Yetta," he went on in a moment, "that I'm a bit dilapidated, getting gray. "Yetta," he began again, forgetting that he was going to let her choose freely, "you believe in the reformation even of criminals. Isn't there any hope for me?" Her arms were about him, her sobs shook him, he could feel the moisture of her tears against his cheek. Except for the sharp rasp of her breath, they were very still. Suddenly he felt ashamed of himself. What did he have to give her in exchange for such vibrant love? But gradually the sense of contact, the pressure of her arms and her soft young body brushed aside this feeling that he was cheating her. Taking her face in his hands he turned it towards the moon and kissed her. When he held back her head so that the light fell on her face, its deep solemnity frightened him. "Can't you smile a little?" he asked. The tears welled up in her eyes again, but a smile such as he had never seen came, too. A laugh rippled up her throat and rang out into the night. "Oh, Walter, Walter, I'm such a little fool to cry. But if I hadn't cried, I'd have died."