He stared wide-eyed in sudden reverie, his eyes wistful, his freckled face softened with something that contrasted oddly enough with his ordinary reckless, devil-may-care attitude toward the world. His better side was uppermost; somehow this girl could always summon it. But now, as she watched him mutely, a swift shadow darkened his face. "Yes," he told her, "perhaps I ought to be encouraged by the way I feel about it, and get busy. I could if I was built right, but I'm not, Maisie. I can't get settled and I haven't any balance wheel. It's 'off again, on again, gone again' with me. I can't get fairly into a place before the old itch to keep moving bothers me, and with the other, the combination keeps me shifting. Why, I seem to be a whole bunch of fellows mixed up in a free-for-all, sometimes," he added, with a forlorn smile. "Other fellows can get down to a steady grind and climb; I can't. God knows I want to, sometimes." He gave her a queer look; she did not seem to notice. "And then," he pursued, "I've never had a home, you know, not since the poor little mother died. Of course, that wasn't much of a home to look at, but she was there, and I've never had one since. Oh, it's been so lonesome sometimes; you don't know. It's the man who goes jumping over the world alone, here today and there tomorrow, that knows what lonesomeness is. It's that, I tell you, that's raised the devil with me. Perhaps I'm wrong, but it seems to me that if it had been with me like it is with others I'd have been different. I've known fellows inclined the same way as I am, but they settled down and got homes, and now--why, they've got me beat out of sight." "Well," she queried eagerly, "why don't you--" and stopped suddenly, her cheeks crimsoning, for Micky's disturbed face had with her unthinking words grown suddenly tense with purpose. A flash of realization had revealed to him his great need, the influence to anchor him and hold him fast against the restless, turbid tide that sought to sweep him away. Why, he needed--her! On the word of this slip of a girl hung his opportunity for a new and better world; a world for two, two who might work, one for the other,--and climb; a world in which dreams might come true. In a moment it would have all been poured forth in broken, incoherent phrase, the sum of Micky's illumining dream and his desire. But the girl, with the unerring instinct of her sex, divined the situation and in quick alarm frustrated O'Byrn's intention, though very gently. "Well," she said, smiling at him brightly, "we've had a good talk, haven't we? I'm glad you told me about--everything. I know you'll win, it's in you. And now--I know you won't mind--but it's gettin' late, and I have to get up early, you know."