He had not told her of his fortune, because he knew in his heart it would change everything. He helped in many small ways, and allowed her to believe what she chose. She had never identified him with large things, did not think the present arrangement could last, and made as much as possible of the convenience. They were together on the night before her try-out, though as usual it was but a matter of moments. Bellair used most of them in silence. The tension of hurry always stopped his throat. He longed for one full day with her, a ramble without the clock; yet what would he do with it--he, who dared not go to the water-front alone--to whom the night whistling of steamers in the harbour was like the call of the child of his heart? “You are at your best,” he said. “Your voice was never sweeter than to-night. You must go now and sleep. To-morrow, of course, you will win, and when may I come?” Her face clouded. Perhaps because he said the opposite, the thought of possible defeat came now with a clearness which had not before appealed to her unpracticed imagination. “You may come to my room at twelve--no, at one. I shall go there at once after the trial--and you shall be first.” It pleased him, and since she did not seem inclined to leave just then, Bellair found himself talking of the future. Perhaps he did not entirely cover his zeal to change a little her full-hearted giving of self to the foam. Bessie bore it. He had not spoken of the open boat, but something he said was related to it in her mind. “To-morrow will settle everything,” she declared.... “And I don’t like that other woman on the ship. She isn’t human. You think it amazing because she didn’t cry and scream. That isn’t everything.... She’d be lost and unheard of here in New York.” “Yes, that is probably true.” “It’s all right for people who don’t write or paint or sing--to talk about real life and what’s right work in the world, but artists see it differently. Anyway, it’s the only job we’ve got.” Bellair never forgot that, or rather what she had meant to say. “Singing is what drew me to you, Bessie. What I object to is what the world tries to do with its singers, and that so many singers fall for it.” “The world lets you more or less alone--until you make good. Plenty of time after that to answer back.” She yawned. It was as near reality as they had gotten, and Bellair, who asked so little, had a glimpse again of the loveliness he had first taken to sea--even to the kiss at the last. She also granted him this: “You’ve been good to me. I couldn’t have done without you----” He lay awake long. The house in which he lived was very silent, and it pressed so close to the sea. 9