She regarded him with dark eyes, simple and serious and interested as the eyes with which as a child she had regarded him above her flower dolls. He was not hungry and haggard and fear-ridden as then, nor was he as he had been the night of the Socialist meeting, somewhat embarrassed and stumbling, strong, but piteous, too.... He was a little thin and worn, and looked as though he had been ill, she noted, but he was quiet, at ease, and assured. There needed no elaborate process in telling her things; to intuition she added a considerable knowledge of the world and of ways and means; to heart, intellect. One could do much in nine years; she knew that from personal experience. This man had added to native strength education, experience, poise, and significance. She might have said culture, only she had grown to dislike the word. He had not, evidently, attained to wealth as wealth is counted. In a region where the male visitor, though he might arrive in winter garments, promptly sloughed them off for fine white flannels, he had not followed custom. It was true that he was not wearing a winter suit, but what was probably a last summer's one. It was not white--only a grey, light-weight business suit, ready-made and somewhat worn. His straw hat looked new. He was clean-shaven. His face was at once the face of the boy in the thicket, and the face of the workman talking out of bitter experience to other workmen, and a new face, too,--a judging face, ascetic rather than not, with eyes that carried a passion for something vaster than the flesh. "And you?" asked Hagar again. But he had fallen into a brown study. "_Hagar Ashendyne_--You can't be--do you mean that you are--Hagar Ashendyne, the writer?" "Yes, Hagar Ashendyne, the writer." She smiled. "It never occurred to me that you might read what I have written. Have you?" "Yes, I have read what you have written--read it and cared for it greatly.... Well, all life's a strange encounter!" "And that's true enough. And now will you tell me about yourself?" His eyes smiled back at her. "Let me see--what is there to tell? That night in New York.... Well, after that night ... I was fortunate in the work I got, and I rose from grade to grade. I studied hard, every moment I could get. I read and read and read. I became secretary to a certain Socialist organization. I have been for some years a Socialist organizer, lecturer, and occasional writer. In the summer I am to take the editorship of a Socialist paper. Behold the short and simple annals of the poor!" "How long are you going to be in Nassau?" "A whole month. These last two years have been years of exacting, constant work, and there's a prospect of the same continuing. I thought I'd got my second wind--and then I came down suddenly. The doctor said that if I wanted to do the paper justice--and I do--I'd have to give it an editor who could sleep. So he and Rose packed me off." "Rose?" "My wife--Rose Darragh."