Then Annie broke down, and contrition overcame him. He took her in his arms where she cuddled like a little kitten. "I'm no one for you," he whispered, while a fierce sigh rent him. But convinced that he suffered by the arrangement more than she did, he cherished a grudge against her because she interfered with him. Fearing to disquiet his mother, he allowed several months to pass before he wrote to her of his marriage. Viewing it coldly, he felt much cause for shame in the situation. Quarrels were constant, and as the sight of Annie disquieted him, he shut himself off from her more and more. He worked, slept and ate in his shop, and Annie inhabited her lonely little room, weeping and staring out over the house-tops in acute disgust. As Emil had said, devotion to an abstract ideal was impossible to her and she was jealous now of his work as of a rival, so that they had no topic about which they could talk when together. Everything furnished a subject for dispute, even Ding Dong and his pet. Ding Dong disgusted her by his outlandish appearance, and the monkey, she declared, made her nervous. The day following her meeting with Rachel, Annie spoke of the encounter. "I met someone you know yesterday," she said; "a girl from Maine." Wrinkling up his brow, Emil paused in his work. Something in his expression excited and angered his wife. "Well," she cried sharply, "do you remember her? What's her name?" But Emil, despite his desire to know more, resumed his work without answering, and the eyes he cast down held the look of a child that dimly perceives in its suffering the result of its own act. CHAPTER VI DESPAIR AND DESOLATION As she stood in the attic room with its sloping roof and dormer windows, her little dark head almost touched the ceiling. Old David surveyed her with pride; then cast a glance at Simon Hart. The driving rain had modelled the stuff of her dress to her arms and shoulders in winding folds. As she lifted her hands to remove her hat, from which drooped the straight lines of a veil, she resembled a Tanagra figurine. But there was no antique serenity in her expression. Convinced that she was disconcerted by his presence, Simon Hart began to explain that he had brought her another order for candle shades. Then, as her lack of sophistication grew upon him, he ended by inviting her and her grandfather to dine with him. But Rachel looked at him with vague, unseeing eyes, until David nudged her elbow. "We'll like to go very much, won't we, Rachel?" he said in a voice which quavered with delight. Then she understood and forced a smile to her lips. "But don't ye forgit to say something to Miss Short, will ye?" the old man reminded her. "You see," he added, turning to the visitor, "Miss Short expected to go somewhere with us to-night for a little celebration, because of that order--the first one you got, Rachel--and it's most kind of you, too, to take such an interest."