His eyes had been steadily upon hers with an under-current of consciousness for what he would have called the "queerness" of her look, a baffling look that hinted of many things--of sympathy, consternation, rejoicing, even of embarrassment, and yet it had not distinctly been any one of these, so quick had been the play of light in her eyes to the moment they fell before his. She released her breath with a sound like a sigh, as if she had been holding it, and there was another look in her eyes when she at last raised them to his, one that he could not read, save that it was wholly serious and, he felt, peculiarly a woman's look. "I am sure," she began, "that no one--no one you consider in this way, could think less of you for a failure. You ought to know that. I want you to know it." She rose from her chair and stepped to the table with a little shrug, turning over the leaves of a magazine, her back toward him. At last she turned her head only, looking at him over one shoulder and speaking with a laughing, reckless impatience. "Oh, fail--fail--fail as often as you like--fail a hundred times and then--fail." He felt his cheeks burning under her vehemence. She turned about, facing him squarely. "Have I said enough? Do you know what I think of failures now?" He rose and stood before her. "You don't know what you've done for me. You don't know--" Again came that crude impulse to take her in his arms. It left him feeling like a criminal. As if she had discerned this she resumed her seat, speaking quickly. "Go back to that studio and do things. Do them your own way. It's a better way for you than any they can teach you, and the next time----" "The next time I have a hell----" "--a hell of doubt--don't wait--come to me." She rose from her chair. "You don't know all this has meant to me," he said feelingly as she gave him her hand. "Good night!" And though the gray eyes were hidden from his, there was the look in them of one who knows more than she is thought to know. As Ewing went out the man was admitting the younger Teevan, who asked for Mrs. Laithe. Ewing wished it had been the father. He had much of good to tell the little man now. Neither Mrs. Laithe nor Teevan spoke of Ewing after their greeting, though each was so busy in thought of him that their talk was scant and aimless for the first five minutes. Alden Teevan was brought back to her at length by noticing the drawn, tired look of her face, for the sparkle that Ewing had left there was gone. "Nell, you look done up. I'm no alarmist, but you really need to be frightened. What is it you're doing to take you down so--the same old round? Is it a visiting guild now, or the Comforters of the Worthy Poor, or just amateur nursing of sin, sickness, and death?" She smiled wanly. "The same old round, Alden. I can't keep away from it when I am here. I know it so well. No one could keep away who knew it well." "Futile, futile, futile! Are you equal to a revolution?"