"Why, it's half past ten," he cried, looking at the clock on the shelf above the stove. "I must go, for we both have to work to-morrow." He ventured this at a hazard, but she did not contradict him. "Your coat is quite dry," she answered, feeling it as she came to take it from the hook where it hung. They stood in the narrow hallway and as he swung the coat upon his high shoulders he was a little awkward and brushed against her arm. She laughed away his apology, but he felt this slight contact as something tender, exquisite. As he opened the door he could only mutter an embarrassed good-evening. "Thank you for coming out in the rain," she said, "and you mustn't take cold or I shall think you ought not to have risked it." "I'm tough." He moved out onto the stair. Wasn't she going to ask him to come again? "By the way," he called out, "I've read _Sherlock Holmes_. It's great!" "I'm glad you liked it," she replied, "and I'll try to find another good story for you next Saturday evening." He went away rapturously happy in having won the chance to know so beautiful a southern girl. Whether she lived as a worker in a tenement or as a companion in an old family mansion, she was the most refined person he had ever met and he planned great days when they should be together. The rain fell unheeded. Despite the bright light from the electric lamp, he walked into a deep puddle, drenching his feet and ankles and splashing his best clothes with dirty water. Oblivious of such trivial happenings, dreaming of the future, counting the evenings to Saturday night, he reached his home, where, lying down to sleep, the lady of his heart followed him in his dreams.