"Not the Follies," I answered. "I'm neither a drummer nor a rural Sunday-school superintendent. Gilbert and Sullivan sounds good, and I've never heard 'Patience.'" We found our places in the Casino just as the curtain was going up, and I saw "Patience" for the first time. I was glad it was for the first time, because she was with me, to share my delight. As incomparable tune after tune floated out to us the absurdest of absurd words, her eyes twinkled into mine, and our shoulders leaned together, and finally, between the seats, I squeezed her fingers with unrestrainable delight. "Nice Gilbert and Sullivan," she whispered. "It's a masterpiece; it's a masterpiece!" I whispered back. "It's as perfect in its way as--as your sundial! Oh, I'm so glad you are with me!" "Is it worth coming way to New York for?" "Under the conditions, around the world for," said I. She coloured rosy, and looked back at the stage. After the performance she would not let me get a cab. "You've not that many peas on the place," she said. So we walked downtown to her lodgings, through the hot, dusty, half-deserted streets, into the older section of the city below Fourteenth Street. I said little, save to answer her volley of eager questions about the farm. At the steps of an ancient house near Washington Square she paused. "Here is where I live," she said. "I've had a lovely evening. Shall I see you again before you go back?" I smiled, took the latchkey from her hand, opened the door, and stepped behind her, to her evident surprise, into the large, silent, musty-smelling hall. She darted a quick look about, but I ignored it, taking her hand and leading her quickly into the parlour, where, by the faint light from the hall, I could see an array of mid-Victorian plush. The house was silent. Still holding her hand, I drew her to me. "I am not going back--alone," I whispered. "You are going with me. Stella, I cannot live without you. Twin Fires is crying for its mistress. You are going back, too, away from the heat and dust and the town, into a house where the sweet air wanders, into the pines where the hermit sings and the pool is thirsty for your feet." I heard in the stillness a strange sob, and suddenly her head was on my breast and her tears were flowing. My arms closed about her. Presently she lifted her face, and our lips met. She put up her hands and held my face within them. "So that was what the thrush said, after all," she whispered, with a hint of a happy smile. "To me, yes," said I. "I didn't dream it was to you. _Was_ it to you?" "That you'll never know," she answered, "and you'll always be too stupid to guess." "Stupid! You called me that once before about the painters. Why were you angry about choosing the dining-room paint?"