When Nan's radiant figure appeared in the doorway, her bare arm extended, her lips parted in a tender smile, Stuart knew that his face was red. The fact that he knew it increased his confusion until the whole room became a blur. His feet refused to move, and he stood staring at the approaching vision as if in a trance. Her hand touched his. The shock was sobering; he remembered himself and smiled. "What a long, long time, Jim!" "A thousand years--I think, Nan," he stammered. "Nine hundred to be exact, sir, but better late than never. I began to think your stubbornness would postpone this call until the next world." "And we may not land at the same place on the other side?" "A compliment or an insult?" "I don't know, do you?" He was laughing quietly now, his nerves stronger by the tension of the challenge of her evident gaiety. She smiled a gracious forgiveness of his dubious answer. "Mr. Bivens was detained down town on business. I am awfully sorry he's not here to join in my welcome." "Well, I'm not." He was looking steadily at her with curious concentration. She answered with a flash from her dark eyes and critically looked him over. "Well?" he asked. "I'm awfully disappointed." "Why?" "My vanity is hurt. I expected to find you, after nine years, with deep lines of suffering written on your face. You are better looking than ever. The few gray hairs about your temples are extremely becoming. Your honours have given you a new repose, a dignity and reserve power I couldn't conceive when I saw you battered by that mob." "Allow me to return the compliment by saying that you are even a more startling disappointment to me. I was sure that I should find you broken." "And you don't?" Stuart smiled. "I'd as well confess it frankly. You are far more beautiful than ever." The woman softly laughed. "You see no change?" "The only changes I see merely add to your power: the worldly wisdom which marriage writes on every woman's face, a new strength, a warmth and fascination and a conscious joy at which I wonder and rage." "Why wonder and rage?" She drew him gently to a seat by her side, leaned forward and gazed smilingly at him. Stuart was silent a moment and turned suddenly on her. "Because Nan, when I look into your face to-night and see its joy, I can't help thinking such happiness is a crime. I saw joy like that once on the face of an Italian I defended and acquitted of murder. I believed him innocent but when he was free he confessed to me his guilt, confessed with such joy that I sprang on him and choked him into silence." "And you think of me as a murderess, Jim?" "No, no, my dear little playmate, but when I see you to-night in all this splendour so insolently happy----" Nan sprang to her feet laughing. "You are delicious to-night, Jim, and I'm so glad you are here. Come into the art gallery. It will take you days to see it; we'll just peep in to-night."