"Very well," she said, letting her hand fall once more softly into his, "I think that I am very foolish. I think that yours has come already, dear, and I am worse than foolish, I am selfish, because I once hoped that they might come together; that you and I might sit here, Arnold, hand in hand, and watch them with great red sails, and piles and piles of gold and beautiful things, with our names written on so big that we could read them even here from the window." She burst into a peal of laughter. "Oh, those children's days! What an escape they, were for us in the black times! Do you know that we once actually told one another fairy stories?" "Not only that but we believed in them," he insisted. "I am perfectly certain that the night you found my star, and it seemed to us to keep on getting bigger and bigger while we looked at it, that from that night things have been getting better with me." "At least," she declared, abruptly, "I am not going to spoil your dinner by keeping you here talking nonsense. Carry me back, please, Arnold. You must hurry up now and change your clothes. And, dear, you had better not come in and wish me good-night. Isaac went out this morning in one of his savage tempers, and he may be back at any moment. Carry me back now, and have a beautiful evening. To-morrow you must tell me all about it." He obeyed her. She was really only a trifle to lift, as light as air. She clung to him longingly, even to the last minute. "And now, please, you are to kiss my forehead," she said, "and run away." "Your forehead only?" he asked, bending over her. "My forehead only, please," she begged gravely. "The other doesn't go with our fairy stories, dear. I want to go on believing in the fairy stories...." Arnold had little enough time to dress, and he descended the stone steps towards the street at something like a run. Half-way down, however, he pulled up abruptly to avoid running into two men. One was Isaac. His worn, white face, with hooked nose and jet-black eyes, made him a noticeable figure even in the twilight. The other man was so muffled up as to be unrecognizable. Arnold stopped short. "Glad you're home, Isaac," he said pleasantly. "I have just been talking to Ruth. I thought she seemed rather queer." Isaac looked at him coldly from head to foot. Arnold was wearing his only and ordinary overcoat, but his varnished shoes and white tie betrayed him. "So you're wearing your cursed livery again!" he sneered. "You're going to beg your bone from the rich man's plate." Arnold laughed at him. "Always the same, Isaac," he declared. "Never mind about me. You look after your niece and take her out, if you can, somewhere. I am going to give her a drive on Saturday." "Are you?" Isaac said calmly. "I doubt it. Drives and carriages are not for the like of us poor scum." His companion nudged him impatiently. Isaac moved away. Arnold turned after him.