Charter and Reifferscheid regarded each other a trifle nervously in the latter's office, before they left for the ferry. Each, however, found in the eyes of the other a sudden grip on finer matters than obvious explanations, so that no adjustment of past affairs was required. To Charter, this moment of meeting with the editor became a singularly bright memory, like certain moments with Father Fontanel. Reifferscheid had put away all the flowerings of romance, and could not know that their imperishable lustre was in his eyes--for the deeper-seeing eyes of the woman. He was big enough to praise her happiness, big enough to burst into singing. It had been a hard moment for her, but he sprang high among the nobilities of her heart, and was sustained.... What if it were just a throat-singing? There was no discordant note. These are the men and the moments to clinch one's faith in the Great Good that Drives the World. Selma Cross had left the _Zoroaster_, and, with Stephen Cabot, was happily on the wing, between the city, shores and mountains. _The Thing_ was to open again in September at the _Herriot_, and the initial venture into the West was over. Had she wished, Paula was not given a chance to do without the old friendship.... The story of taking the Company down into Kentucky from Cincinnati and fulfilling the old promise to Calhoun Knox proved rare listening: "I won't soon forget that night in Cincinnati, when I parted from Stephen Cabot," she said, falling with the same old readiness into her disclosures. "'Stephen,' I told him, 'I am taking the Company down into Danube to play to-morrow night in my home. I don't want you to go....' I had seen the real man shine out through physical pain many times. It was so now, and he looked the master in the deeper hurt. He's a self-fighter--the champion. He asked me if I meant to stay long, as I took his cool, slim hand. I told him that I hoped not, but if it transpired that I must stay for a while, I should come back to Cincinnati--for one day--to tell him.... I saw he was the stronger. I was all woman that moment, all human, wanting nothing that crowds or art could give. I think my talk became a little flighty, as I watched his face, so brave and so white. "I knew his heart, knew that his thoughts that moment would have burned to the brute husk, coarser stuff than he was made of.... Here's a Stephen who could smile up from the ground as--as they stoned.... So I left him, standing by the window, in the upper-room of the hotel, watching the moving river-lights down on the Ohio.