"Thank you again, Mr. Devant," he said at last haltingly; "I suppose all men as old as you are sincere when they try to help us younger chaps by knocking us senseless in an hour of danger. But it's better to let us see and know the danger; we'll recognize it the next time. All I can say is, that I have formed no plans for after to-morrow night! I've got to get out into the open if I can. I rather imagine my art must satisfy me in the future." Devant went over to a desk between two bookcases, opened it, and took something from a private drawer. "What do you think of this?" he asked, handing Thornly an old photograph. "I should say,"--the younger man looked keenly at the picture,--"I should say that it was an almost ideal face of a certain type." "Of a certain type, yes." Devant came closer and leaned over his companion's shoulder. "The coloring, of course, is lacking. I never saw such glorious hair and eyes. The eyes gave promise of a nobility the woman-nature utterly lacked. That girl, Dick, has wrecked my life!" Thornly handed the photograph to Devant. He felt as if he were in some way reading a private letter. "Your life does not seem a wrecked life," he said confusedly. In a vague way he wished to repress a confidence that he felt, once told, might wield an influence over his own acts, and this his independence resented. "You have always appeared a thoroughly contented, successful man." Devant laughed bitterly; then he idly placed the photograph in a book and closed the covers upon the exquisite face. Thornly hoped that would end the matter, but his companion was bent upon his course. He stretched his feet toward the fire and looked into the heart of the glow, with sad, brooding eyes. "Happy!" he ejaculated, "happy! It is only youth that estimates happiness by superficialities. A smile, a laugh, a full pocketbook! You think they mean happiness?" "They are often the outward expression." "Or counterfeits. Have you ever read 'Peer Gynt,' Dick?" "Yes. Ibsen has a gloomy charm for me. I read all he writes in about the same way a child reads goblin tales. I enjoy the shivers." "You remember the woman who gave Peer permission to marry the one pure love of his life but stipulated that _she_ should forever sit beside them?" "Yes!" Thornly smiled grimly. "That was a devilishly Ibsen-like idea." "It was a truer touch than the young can understand. Those ghostly women of an early folly often sit beside a man and the later, purer love of his life. Some men are able to ignore the gray spectres and get a deal of comfort from the saner reality of maturer years; I never could. That girl"--he touched the closed book as if it were the grave that concealed her--"has always come between me and later desires for a home and closer ties. Her wonderful eyes, that looked so much and meant so little, have held me by a power that death and years have never conquered."