"Mr. Hargrave is a young dramatist," said Miss Charters, finishing the document. "He’s coming to read some masterpiece to me. He wrote a one-act piece three years ago that was very clever, and now, of course, I can’t risk refusing to hear him—he might have a work of genius at last. This is my fourth trial." She put the paper from her impatiently. "I’m sorry." He was displeased also at this sudden recall of the other life in her, the world of the theater, which crowded the walls with its signed photographs. "I’ll telephone as soon as I know," he said, dissembling his irritation. She went to the door with him, annoyed also at the interruption. "I’m coming tomorrow," he said, and he held out his hand with a little defiance. She did not resent the assumption of right, still introspectively puzzled at the new moods into which she had fallen. And, still pensive, she said: "Come." Below, in the anteroom, he sent a look of antagonism and scorn at a young man, a little extravagantly dressed, who carried a portfolio under his arm with a sense, too, of irritation and pride. *CHAPTER XIII* When he had gone into the brisk air of the street, his mental vision returned with the crispness of the night. He was astonished at what he had said and done. "But I am not in love—not in the least," he repeated. "Then what was it?" He was quite perplexed at perceiving the astonishing difference her presence and her absence made in his attitude. He repeated to himself quite seriously with a little wonder that, if he were in danger of falling in love, he would be a prey to that disturbing emotion now, absent as well as present. "I am perfectly calm," he said, flourishing his cane. "Not in the least excited. It’s very queer." All the same, he returned to the interview, and recalled the incidents without illusion. He comprehended now what he had not comprehended then, the full significance of his offer of friendship—in fact, that it was not an approach to friendship but to something very different, and the relations which had now been established between them were those of confidence and intimacy that lay on the borderline of great emotions. "It’s very odd," he said, "I wish to be honest and open with her, and yet I said what I don’t feel—suggested what I have not the least thought of. I’ll be hanged if I understand it, unless she has the power to make me believe in emotions that don’t exist,—Emma Fornez was right, she is the type that provokes you. I must be very careful." But one thing he did not perceive—that the city no longer oppressed him with its bleak struggle and serried poverty, that he swung lightly over the crisp pavements, breathing the alert and joyous air, that in him the joy of living awakened, as the myriad lights awoke the city of the night, the city rising from the fatigue of labor with its avid zest for pleasure and excitement.