Eight days: and the sun of Alison, that once he had thought to be the light of all the world, had set; while in the evening sky the star of Eleanor was rising and blazing ever more brightly.... Now when a man begins to think about himself and his heart in such poetic imagery, the need for human intercourse grows imperative on his understanding; he must talk or--suffer severely. Staff turned upon his defenseless companion. "Iff," said he, "when a man's the sort of a man who can fall out of love and in again--with another woman, of course--inside a week--what do you call him?" "Human," announced Iff after mature consideration of the problem. This was unsatisfactory; Staff yearned to be called fickle. "Human? How's that?" he insisted. "I mean that the human man hasn't got much to say about falling in or out of love. The women take care of all that for him. Look at your Miss Landis--yours as was.... You don't mind my buttin' in?" "Go on," said Staff grimly. "Anybody with half an eye, always excepting you, could see she'd made up her mind to hook that Arkroyd pinhead on account of his money. She was just waiting for a fair chance to give you the office--preferably, of course, after she'd nailed that play of yours." "Well," said Staff, "she's lost that, too." "Serves you both right." There was a pause wherein Staff sought to fathom the meaning of this last utterance of Mr. Iff's. "I take it," resumed the latter with a sidelong look--"pardon a father's feelings of delicacy--I take it, you're meaning Nelly?" "How did you guess that?" demanded Staff, startled. "Right, eh?" "Yes--no--I don't know--" "Well, if you don't know the answer any better 'n that, take a word of advice from an old bird: you get her to tell you. She's known it ever since she laid eyes on you." "You mean she--I--" Staff stammered eagerly. "I mean nobody knows anything about a woman's heart but herself; but she knows it backwards and all the time." "Then you don't think I've got any show?" "Oh, Lord!" complained Iff. "Honest, you gimme a pain. Go on and do your own thinking." Staff subsided, imagining a vain thing: that the mantle of dignity in which he wrapped himself successfully cloaked his sense of injury. Iff smiled a meaningless smile up at the inscrutable skies. And the moonlit miles slipped beneath the wheels like a torrent of moulten silver.