Many of these conversations took place towards midnight, after he had seen her home from dinners or theatres. Usually they were carried on in whispers so as not to waken Vashti, who left her bedroom door ajar when she knew that Desire was to be late in returning. As a rule, Desire was in evening-dress; he was sensitively conscious of her mist of hair, and of the long sweet slope of her white arms and shoulders. After taking Twinkles for a final outing, he always accompanied her up to the apartment Once she had had to press him to do so; now she often pretended that she had expected him to say good-night in the public foyer. Saying good-night was a lengthy process, packed with the day’s omitted tendernesses and made poignant by a touch of dread. After he had risen reluctantly from the couch, they would linger in the hall, lasting out the seconds. There were few words uttered. When a man has said, “I love you,” many times, there is no room for further eloquence. She would stand with her back against the wall, eyeing him luringly and a little compassionately. Presently her hand would creep up to the latch and he would seize the opportunity to slip his arm about her. Wouldn’t she appoint a place of meeting for to-morrow? She would shake her head and whisper evasively, “Phone me in the morning.” Gazing at each other in quivering excitement, they would droop nearer together. She knew that soon he would draw her to his breast. At the first movement on his part she would turn the latch and her free hand would fly up to shield her mouth. He would attempt to coax it away with kisses. “I’ve only kissed your lips once. And you’ve never kissed me yet. Won’t you kiss me, Desire?” The tenacious little hand would remain obdurate. “Meester Deek, you mustn’t. The door’s open. If anybody saw us----” If he tried to pull it away, she would call softly so that nobody could hear her, “Help, Meester Deek is kissing me.” If he went on trying, she would gradually call louder. By degrees she would get him to the elevator; but unless she rang the bell, he preferred to descend by the stairs for the joy of seeing her leaning over the rail and raining down kisses to him. The further he descended the more willing she seemed to be accessible. If he turned to go back to her, her face would vanish and he would hear her door shutting. These farewells embodied for him the ghostly acme of romance. They were the balcony scene from _Romeo and Juliet_ enacted on the stairway of a New York apartment-house. From such frail materials till the new day brought promise, he constructed the palace of his hopes and ecstasies. It was the ghost of happiness that he had found; happiness itself escaped him. He longed for her to love him. CHAPTER XVII--THE TEST