This he evidently repudiated, for she pouted and smiled up at him. "Well, then, I'll excuse you this time, but you needn't be running after her. She won't----" I did not hear the rest. I was thinking of the girl before me. He was looking over the heads of the people before him, and the next moment was elbowing his way to overtake my young lady. Close to him in the crowd, as he came on, stood Mrs. Starling's daughter, painted, and in her best finery, and I saw her imploring eyes fastened on him eagerly. He glanced at her and she bowed with a gratified light dawning in her face. I saw his face harden. He cut her dead. Poor girl! I saw her pain and the look of disappointment as she furtively followed him with her eyes. He pushed on after my young lady. But I was ahead of him. Just before he reached her, I slipped in, and when he attempted to push by I stood firm before him. "Beg pardon," he said, trying to put me aside to step ahead of me. I turned my head and over my shoulder looked him in the face. "I beg _your_ pardon." "Oh!" he said. "How do? Let me by." "To ply your old trade?" I asked, looking into his eyes, over my shoulder. "Ah!" I saw the rage come into his face and he swore some foreign oath. He put his hand on my shoulder to push me aside; but I half turned and looked him straight in the eyes and his grasp relaxed. He had felt my grip once--and he knew I was not afraid of him, and thought I was a fool. And his hand fell. I walked in front of him and kept him back until the party with my young lady in it had passed quite out of the door, and then I let him by. For that evening, at least, I had protected her. I walked to my lodging with a feeling of more content than I had had in a long time. My heart had a home though I had none. It was as if the shell in which I had been cramped so long were broken and I should at last step out into a new world. I had a definite aim, and one higher than I ever had had before. I was in love with that girl and I made up my mind to win her. As I walked along through the gradually emptying streets my old professor's words came to me. They had been verified. I reviewed my past life and saw as clearly as if in a mirror my failures and false steps. I had moped and sulked with the world; I had sat in my cubby-hole of an office with all my talents as deeply buried as if I had been under the mounds of Troy, and had expected men to unearth me as though I had been treasure.