As they crossed Twenty-third on Fifth Avenue she took his arm. He squeezed her hand. Suddenly the world was all young and beautiful and wonderful. It was the first time in his life that he had ever walked thus, with the arm of a girl for whom he cared cuddled in his. He glanced down at her cheap white furs. Snowflakes, tremulous on the fur, were turned into diamond dust in the light from a street-lamp which showed as well a tiny place where her collar had been torn and mended ever so carefully. Then, in a millionth of a second, he who had been a wanderer in the lonely gray regions of a detached man’s heart knew the pity of love, all its emotion, and the infinite care for the beloved that makes a man of a rusty sales-clerk. He lifted a face of adoration to the misty wonder of the bare trees, whose tracery of twigs filled Madison Square; to the Metropolitan Tower, with its vast upward stretch toward the ruddy sky of the city’s winter night. All these mysteries he knew and sang. What he _said_ was: “Gee, those trees look like a reg’lar picture!… The Tower just kind of fades away. Don’t it?” “Yes, it is pretty,” she said, doubtfully, but with a pressure of his arm. Then they talked like a summer-time brook, planning that he was to buy a Christmas bough of evergreen, which she would smuggle to breakfast in the morning. Through their chatter persisted the new intimacy which had been born in the pain of their misunderstanding. On January 10th the manuscript of “The Millionaire’s Daughter” was returned by play-brokers Wendelbaum & Schirtz with this letter: DEAR SIR,—We regret to say that we do not find play available. We inclose our reader’s report on the same. Also inclose bill for ten dollars for reading-fee, which kindly remit at early convenience. He stood in the hall at Mrs. Arty’s just before dinner. He reread the letter and slowly opened the reader’s report, which announced: “Millionaire’s Daughter.” One-act vlle. Utterly impos. Amateurish to the limit. Dialogue sounds like burlesque of Laura Jean Libbey. Can it. Nelly was coming down-stairs. He handed her the letter and report, then tried to stick out his jaw. She read them. Her hand slipped into his. He went quickly toward the basement and made himself read the letter—though not the report—to the tableful. He burned the manuscript of his play before going to bed. The next morning he waded into The Job as he never had before. He was gloomily certain that he would never get away from The Job. But he thought of Nelly a hundred times a day and hoped that sometime, some spring night of a burning moon, he might dare the great adventure and kiss her. Istra— Theoretically, he remembered her as a great experience. But what nebulous bodies these theories are!