... Brandt’s was just as he had left it. The crowd increased; the quartette came. Bessie was lovely as ever; slightly different, since he had thought of her so much in the old hat. She did not see him, but her smile was like a flower of warmth and culture. A touch of the old excitement mounted in his breast, as they sang.... This was New York--among men--food and drink and warmth. This, too, was life; these were men who toil every day, who cannot take months to dream in, who cannot cross the sea and observe heroes and saints, but men who crowd and toil and fight, even expire, for their pleasures--such were the surgings of Bellair’s brain in the midst of the music. Bessie was the arch of it all--the arch of the old home, New York,--not this Bessie, but the Bessie that might be, the significant woman it was his work to make and mould. He was living his own thoughts, as much as listening. They vanished when the music stopped.... He sent a waiter to her with this written on a blank card: “Will you sing _Maying_ for an old friend?” ... The song choked the wanderer, and this was the new mystery of _Maying_--that it left him at the stone gate of a door-yard beyond windy Auckland.... * * * * * He sent forward a gift of flowers, and was in a daze when she came to him and sat down. “I have only a few minutes. We sing once more and then go. How dark and thin you look!” He wanted to see her after her work was done, but dared not ask until other things were said.... There were words that left no impress, until he heard himself saying: “I read the New York papers at sea----” “... The reporters came to me. I had told some one of seeing you. It was just after I had read the news. It was new to me to have reporters come--and somehow they got what they wanted----” “Oh, that didn’t matter. Only it was all unnecessary. My accounts there were never other than straight.” She said she was glad. He saw she was more glad to drop the subject, and didn’t exactly believe him. “And you’ve had luck away?” “Yes, in several ways--beside money.” It seemed necessary to add the last. He was struck with the shame and pity of it; yet it had to do with seeing her again. “Are you going to be in New York long?” “I don’t know. I’d like to talk with you to-night, after you are through. I might know better then--how long I am to stay.... Is it possible?” “Yes--yes, I think so.” “When?” “After the _Castle_” “Thank you.” “I’m going to be given a chance--in two weeks--a real chance,” she declared. “I’ll tell you later.” He tried to make himself believe that it was just as it had been; that Bessie was the same, the meaning of New York and the fortune that had come to him. How could she sing so, if it were not true?