But the hands that were lifted from the keys suddenly took both of hers in an imperious grasp. The gaze that she tried desperately to avoid, compelled her to look at him, and after the confession of that look she knew no more, but that she was in his arms, and was glad and satisfied. The Story of an Old Soul The Story of an Old Soul All things considered, it was not strange that Clement Rhodes should have looked back upon his one year of marriage as a mere episode in his experience. His had been a life of more or less excited and turbulent episodes, all through, and perhaps that one--his marriage with an ignorant and pretty school-girl--was now among the vaguest of all the emotional impressions which were stamped upon his brain. He had been nearer to fifty than forty, and a conventional type of old beau, when he had chanced to be thrown familiarly into the society of this young girl. Young girls were somewhat rare in his experience, for the reason that all such who had any one to look out for them, were protected from the dangers of anything more than a very casual acquaintance with him. He was permitted to take them in to dinner, to dance with them, or to pay them any passing attention when they were fully chaperoned, but there the line was drawn. It was an unusual experience for him, therefore, when, during a visit to some friends in the country, he found himself frequently _tête-à-tête_ with a girl of eighteen, who had as little idea of protecting herself from a man like him, as her hostess had of protecting her. The fact was that this hostess had frankly declared to him her wish that he should marry this girl, saying that she was both too poor and too pretty to look out for herself. The idea, when first presented to Rhodes, seemed absurd in the extreme, for he was poor also, and lived in a hand-to-mouth fashion, which he had known better than to ask any woman to share. He had never entertained the possibility of marrying any but a rich woman, and now, as he had grown older, and his shiftless habits were more fixed upon him, he had begun to realize that his chance of doing this was very small. The idea of marrying a penniless girl, however, was more preposterous still, and it was therefore a great surprise to him when he found himself committed to this marriage. It had come about simply enough. He was a thoroughly initiated old flirt, and when he had tried some of his wiles upon this _ingénue_, and she had responded by an innocent revelation of her love for him, there proved to be one note in him sufficiently finely attuned to compel him to act honorably by this young girl who had trusted him. Without stopping to consider how it would hamper him for the future, he married her, and took her to as comfortable a little set of rooms as he could manage to secure.