A little sob, which she could not have explained to herself, welled up to her throat. Much as she gloried in her own self-reliance, she suddenly and unexpectedly found herself exulting in a quality heretofore unknown to her--that quality which had compelled an almost total stranger to take her part. Then the man himself! How straight and strong and handsome he was as he stood looking at Judson, and then the uplifted arm, the quick spring, and, best of all, the calm, graceful way in which he had handed her the chair! She could not get the picture out of her mind. Last, she remembered with a keen sense of pleasure the chivalrous look in his face when he held out his hand to the man who a moment before had received its full weight about his throat. She had not regained mastery of herself even when she leaned across her drawing-board, pretending to be absorbed in her work. The curves of the Milo seemed in some strange way to have melted into the semblance of the outlines of other visions sunk deep in her soul since the days of her childhood--visions which for years past had been covered over by the ice of a cold, hard puritanical training, that had prevented any bubbles of sentiment from ever rising to the surface of her heart. As remembrances of these visions rushed through her mind the half-draped woman, with the face of the Madonna and the soul of the Universal Mother shining through every line of her beautiful body, no longer stood before her. It was a knight in glittering armor now, with drawn sword and visor up, beneath which looked out the face of a beautiful youth aflame with the fire of a holy zeal. She caught the flash of the sun on his breastplate of silver, and the sweep of his blade, and heard his clarion voice sing out. And then again, as she closed her eyes, this calm, lifeless cast became a gallant, blue-eyed prince, who knelt beside her and kissed her finger-tips, his doffed plumes trailing at her feet. When the band of students were leaving the rooms that night, Margaret called Oliver to her side, and extending her hand, said, with a direct simplicity that carried conviction in every tone of her voice and in which no trace of her former emotions were visible: "I hope you'll forgive me, Mr. Horn. I'm all alone here in this city and I have grown so accustomed to depending on myself that, perhaps, I failed to understand how you felt about it. I am very grateful to you. Good-night." She had turned away before he could do more than express his regret over the occurrence. He wanted to follow her; to render her some assistance; to comfort her in some way. It hurt him to see her go out alone into the night. He wished he might offer his arm, escort her home, make some atonement for the pain he had caused her. But there was a certain proud poise of the head and swift glance of the eye which held him back.