The lights flashed past. Dick's eyes were fixed on a picture. A pleasant room--an artist's room--prints, sketches, green curtains, the sparkle of old china, fire and candle light. A girl in a long straight dress; he could see the little line where it would catch against her knee as she came forward to meet him with both hands outstretched. Would it be both hands? He decided that it would--to-night. He was right, even to the little line in the sea-blue gown. Both hands; such long, thin, magnetic hands. "You _are_ good," she said at once. "Oh--you must let me thank you. Tom's told me who it was that got him that splendid berth. Oh--what a friend you are! And lending him the money and everything. I can't tell you--It's too much--You are--" "Don't," he said; "it's nothing at all." "It's everything," said she. "Tom's told me quite all about it, mind! I know we owe everything to you." "My dear Miss Harcourt," he began. But she interrupted him. "Why not Harry?" she asked. "I thought--" "Yes. Thank you. But it was nothing. You see I couldn't let poor old Tom go on breaking his heart in silence, when just writing a letter or two would put him in a position to speak." She had held his hands, or he hers, or both, all this time. Now she moved away to the fire. "Come and sit down and be comfortable," she said. "This is the chair you like. And I've got some cigarettes, your very own kind, from the Stores." She remembered a time when she had thought that it was he, Dick, who might break his heart for her. The remembrance of that vain thought was a constant pin-prick to her vanity, a constant affront to her modesty. She had tried to snub him in those days--to show him that his hopes were vain. And after all he hadn't had any hopes: he'd only been anxious about Tom! In the desolation of her parting from Tom she had longed for sympathy. Dick had given it, and she had been kinder to him than she had ever been to any man but her lover--first, because he was her lover's friend, and, secondly, because she wanted to pretend to herself that she had never fancied that there was any reason for not being kind to him. She sat down in the chair opposite to his. "Now," she said, "I won't thank you any more, if you hate it so; but you are good, and neither of us will ever forget it." He sat silent for a moment. He had played for this--for this he had delayed to answer the letter wherein Tom announced his intention of telling Harriet the whole fair tale of his friend's goodness. He had won the trick. Yet for an instant he hesitated to turn it over. Then he shrugged his shoulders--I will not mention this again, but it was a tiresome way he had when the devil or the guardian angel were working that curtain I told you of--and said-- "Dear little lady--you make me wish that I _were_ good."