“It’s a good story, isn’t it? Especially since we have our own opinions concerning him. No king of lovers, no Romeo, no schoolboy, could have told such a tale of first love as Eric told me. Spilled it out. Words tumbling over each other. “In one look, in one half hour, it seemed, he had turned over all the principles upon which we live here in New York. The primal had taken him--and her, too. She was not afraid; not frightened at what she must have seen in him. “‘And why, when he turned you out, did you come in here?’ he asked finally. “He had never before listened for an answer as he listened for that one. “‘I came because you were here,’ she said. “Well, people--I began to see then what he was up against in the way of intoxication. He had not touched her; it had been all very aloof, but when she told him why she had come, he said he would have been wooden if he had not gathered her close and held her tight. “Then, through the slackening rainfall, he heard footsteps outside their shelter, heard them on the soft ground close by, saw a stooped figure straighten under their tipped roof. It was one of the all-alike, brown-gray men with jammed-shut mouth and slashes down from it; with hate-filled eyes. “This man levelled his finger at Eric. ‘Now ye kin have her,’ he said harshly. ‘Ye kin take her along o’ ye. There’s no door open in this town for such as her. They’re shut against her for ever. This is no place for her ever again. We’re done. All o’ us.’ “She sprang forward. ‘Father!’ she cried. “He struck her with his open hand straight across the mouth. “‘Harlot! Plaything o’ strange men!’ he accused, scornfully. “Eric said that he reached for the man, but that she spread her arms between them. “‘No!’ she exclaimed. ‘He believes it! He cannot help it. No, no!’ “The man did not speak again. He stooped under the slanting boards and went away. “And now comes what Eric says was the strangest part of it--the way he took it. Back of the glamour of the girl’s lovely face; back of the pull of her, standing there in the slackening rain holding her wet skirts about her, her neck bare; back of the wonder of her, there rose a bank of his sane self--that self indifferent to all else. There towered a steeple of his future as he had planned it; of his ambitions; of his wealth and fame which were just beginning and for which he had worked hard. They grew--these steeples--and pushed closer. The girl watched him. “She had not spoken to him since her father had gone away; she had stood aside while Eric got the car out upon the road; she had followed him to it and stood there clasping her bare elbows--lips parted like the Raphael girl-child, he said. She was oblivious to watchers behind drawn curtains. “‘Now what shall you do?’ he asked her. ‘Does he mean it?” “‘Yes, he means it. I shall walk to the next town. There will be something for me to do there.’ “‘I’m sorry----’ he began, all the steeples crowding around him.