But Vitoria shook her head. "There," she said, "is another confession and the last. I was the more ready to leave Paris when I ran away from you, because I was disheartened: the master had told me that I could never learn, and so I was afraid to face you." "Then _I'll_ never paint again," vowed Cartaret. "Pictures? I was successful only when I painted pictures of you, and why should I paint them when I have you?" She looked at him gravely. "I am glad," she said, "that you are rich, but I am also glad that we have both been poor--together. Oh,"--she looked about the familiar room,--"it needs but one thing more: if only the street-organ were playing that Scotch song that it used to play!" "If it only were!" he agreed. "However, we can't have everything, can we?" But lovers, if they only want it enough, can have everything, and, somehow, the hurdy-gurdy did, just at that moment, begin to play "Annie Laurie" as it used to do, out in the rue du Val-de-Grâce. Cartaret led her toward the darkened window, but stopped half-way across the room. "I will try to deserve you," he said. "I _will_ make myself what you want me to be." "You _are_ that," she answered, her face raised toward his. "All that I ask is to have you with me always as you are now." The clear contralto of her voice ran like a refrain to the simple air of the ballad. "I want you with me when you are unhappy, so that I may comfort you; when you are ill, so that I may nurse you; when you are glad, so that I may be glad because you are. I want to know you in every mood: I want to belong to you." High over the gleaming roofs, the moon, a disk of yellow glass, swung out upon the indigo sky and peeped in at that window. One silver beam enveloped her. It bathed her lithe, firm figure; it touched her pure face, her scarlet lips; it made a refulgent glory of her hair, and, out of it, the splendor of her wonderful eyes was for him. "Soon," he whispered, "in the chapel of Ste. Jeanne D'Arc at the church of St. Germain des Prés." "Good-night," she said.... "Good-night, my love." She raised her white hands to him and drew one step nearer. Then she yielded herself to his arms and, as they closed, strong and tight, about her, her own arms circled his neck. The scent of the Azure Rose returned with her lips: a vision of mountain-peaks and sunlight upon crests of snow, a perfume sweeter than the scent of any rose in any garden, a poem in a language that Cartaret at last could understand. Her lips met his.... "Oh," he whispered, "sweetheart, is it really, really you?" "Yes," said the lady of the Rose, "it--is _me_!" THE END. _ENVOI: THE SON OF JOEL._ The poet is a beggar blind That sits beside a city gate, The while the busy people wind Their daily way, less fortunate. The many pass with slavish speed; The few remember this or that; Some hear and jeer, some stop to heed-- And some drop pennies in his hat....