Women were hard to understand. They seemed to do things that had no meaning; to use words not to convey but to conceal thought; and they spoke half their speeches in riddles. However, John reflected that when he had been with women more, he would know them better. And in the meantime he supplemented his professional contacts with Marien by thinking of her constantly, even to the point where his absorbing interest led him to follow her home at night after the play,—keeping always at a safe distance behind,—and to stand across the street and watch till the light went on in that third-story bay-window on Turk Street near Mason; and then still to stand, trying to interpret the meaning of shadows moving across the window for uncounted hours, till the light went out, sometimes at two and sometimes later, or until a policeman bade him move on. If any one had told John that he was falling in love with Marien Dounay, he would have indignantly rejected the idea. She held a fascinating interest for him,—that was all. Something basic in him was attracted by something basic in her, and he yielded to it wonderingly, experimentally almost, and that was all it amounted to. But on the night that Miss Dounay completed her engagement at the People’s, for her tiff with Mowrey was over in just four weeks, the opportunity came to John to submit his feelings to more searching experimentation. It had been his custom to wait in the shadowy wings each night to see the object of his solicitous interest depart, supposing himself always to be unobserved. But on this last night Marien surprised him into nervous thrills by walking over into the shadow with the cool assurance of an autocrat, and saying: "Come home to supper with me, John." At the same time Miss Dounay took the big man’s arm as comfortably as if the matter had been arranged the week before last, and John walked out as if on air, but hurriedly. That soft touch upon his arm made him hungry with indescribable anticipations. Moreover, he was stirred by an itching curiosity concerning the whole of the intimate personal life of Marien Dounay. Who was she? What was she? _How_ was she? Yet on the very threshold of the little apartment, his sense of what was conventional in the world out of which he had come halted him. "Should I?" he asked huskily, as the door stood open. "Would it be—proper?" "Most particularly proper, innocent!" laughed Marien. "At the theater Julie is my maid; at home she is my housekeeper, my social secretary, my companion, and chaperone." While the light of reassurance kindled on John’s face, Marien gently drew him inside. "Behold!" she exclaimed with a stage gesture, when the door was closed behind him. "My temporary home; my balcony window overlooking the street, my alcove wherein I sleep, the kitchenette in which we cook; behind that the bath, and back of that Julie’s own room. Isn’t it dear?"