Taller than Seff by half a head, superbly fit in comparison, John stood as if stricken by sudden inability. His eyes were upon the scandalized throng that had crowded into the room, rather than his opponent. He protected himself in a confused, inadequate way from a succession of attacks. The while he was considering a plan to spare the girl odium and involve her tormentor. Evidently elated by the success of his tactics, Seff paused for emphasis. “What d’you mean butting into my affairs?” he demanded. “This,” answered John. With the word, he sent his right fist to a particular spot in the aesthetic’s neck. The effect was startling. Seff’s head lopped, his eyes rolled, his body wavered and stretched its length upon the floor. Fright-cries rose from the crush about the door; above them, a shrill demand in Catherine’s voice. “John, are you mad?” The first person to reach the prone figure was, however, without utterance. An equivocal look of dread and triumph was on Mary Hutton’s face as she knelt beside the man who was her employer and more; raised his head to her knee; held a bottle of smelling salts to his nose. John Cabot’s attention returned to the cause of the bout. She had wrapped the negligee closely around her and stood awaiting developments with dilated eyes--the model. On her cheek the mark of teeth showed redder than before. At his glance, she took a forward step, as if to thank him, then, embarrassed by the press of people around the door, stopped. Without words, they two regarded only each other. Quite still they stood, looking. And as they looked, comrade spirits seemed to become visible in the glow of an incipient understanding. Beside her--faded in until to John it became as plain as her body--appeared a vision of loveliness and lure. Shy, yet unafraid, this vision beckoned him. From eyes bluer than the troubled deeps of the girl’s gaze, it smiled on him. With hair golden as the dreams of a child and tenuous as woman’s wiles, it awoke in him a thrill like that on seeing the home-land banner in foreign climes. The while, in imagination, he heard the _Spring Song_ of Mendelssohn, vaguely passionate, played by the pure-yearning notes of a flute. The fragrance that accompanies the aspirations of youth filled his nostrils. A thought of apple-blossoms hurt his mind with midsummer weariness. From his heart, as if aroused by its increasing beat, uprose response to the vision. Not as if born of the moment--rather as if long protected from impious eyes--an emotion new to him seemed to take form. He felt that the girl, as well as he, must see and recognize. Cruel with tenderness, eager with fear, the emotion that had arisen from his heart-beats passed, like a gallant shape, from him to her. In command that was, in truth, but a prayer, it faced the comrade soul of her.