One evening he told her that he must go South the following week and remain several months. His dialect was growing rusty, and the public would expect another novel from him in the coming spring. He hated to say good-bye to her, but his muse claimed his first and highest duty. Hermia felt as one who comes out of a room full of smoke—she wanted to draw a long breath and throw back her head. She replied very politely, however—they were always very polite—that she should miss him and look forward to his return. Neither would avow that this was the end of the matter, but each was devoutly thankful that the other was not a fool. Cryder looked melancholy and handsome when he came to say good-bye. He had on extremely becoming traveling clothes, and his skin and eyes had their accustomed clearness. He bade Hermia a tender farewell, and his eyes looked resigned and sad. Then an abstracted gaze passed into them, as if his spirit had floated upward to a plane far removed from common affection. Hermia had much ado to keep her mouth from curling. She remembered what Quintard had once said of him: that he always wanted to throw him on a table to see if he would ring. Bah! what a _poseur_ he was! Then she mentally shrugged her shoulders. His egoism had its value; he had never noticed the friendship which existed between her and Quintard. Had he been a jealous man he would have been insufferable. After he had gone he seemed to glide out of her life—out of the past as of the present. She found herself barely able to recall him, his features, his characteristics. For a long time she never thought of him unless some one mentioned his name, and then she wondered if he had not been the hero of a written sketch rather than of an actual episode. Whether it was owing to Cryder’s removal or to Quintard’s influence, she could not tell, but she found herself becoming less blasé. Her spirits were lighter, people interested her more, life seemed less prosaic. She asked Quintard once what it meant, and he told her, with his usual frankness, that it was the spring. This offended her, and she did not speak for ten minutes. On another occasion he roused her to wrath. He told her one day that on the night he met her he had been impressed with a sense of unreality about her; and, acting on a sudden impulse, she told him the history of her starved and beautiless girlhood. When she finished she expected many comments, but Quintard merely put another log of wood on the fire and remarked: “That is all very interesting, but I am warned that the dinner-hour approaches. Farewell, I will see you at Mrs. Dykman’s this evening.” Hermia looked at the fire for some time after he had gone. She was thankful that fate had arranged matters in such wise that she was not to spend her life with Quintard. He could be, at times, the most disagreeable man she had ever known, and there was not a grain of sympathy in his nature. And, yes, he _was_ prosaic!