You said to me graciously, when we separated at your door, “I shall be very happy, Dr. Hartzmann, if you will come to see me.” I flushed with pleasure, for I felt it was not a privilege you gave to many. But even as I hesitated for words with which to express my gratitude, I realized that I had no moral right to gain your hospitality by means of my false name; and when I spoke it was to respond, “I thank you for the favor most deeply, Miss Walton, but I am too busy a man for social calls.” Oh, my darling, if you had known what those few words cost me, and the struggle it was to keep my voice steady as I spoke them! For I knew you could only take them to mean that I declined your friendship. Hide my shame as I might try to do, I could not escape its pains. God keep you from such suffering, Maizie, and good-night. XIV _March 5._ Though I committed the rudeness of refusing to call, you never in our subsequent intercourse varied your manner by the slightest shade, treating me always with a courtesy I ill deserved. After such a rebuff, it is true, you were too self-respecting to offer me again any favor tending to a better acquaintance, but otherwise you bore yourself towards me as you did towards the thousand other men whom you were obliged to meet. Your life as a social favorite, and mine as a literary hack, gave little opportunity for our seeing each other, yet we met far more frequently than would have seemed possible. Occasionally I found you at the Blodgetts’, though not as often as our informal footing in that household had led me to hope; for you were in such social demand that your morning hours were the time you usually took to run in upon them. But now and then we lunched or dined there, and Mrs. Blodgett little dreamed how willingly I obeyed her positive command that I was to come to every one of her afternoons when Agnes told me that you were to receive or pour tea. Little I had of your attention, for you were a magnet to many, but I could stand near you and could watch and listen, and that was happiness. A cause of meeting more discordant to me was furnished by my employer. I wrote for him an editorial on the folk-leid basis of the Wagner trilogy, which I suppose he sent or read to you; for it resulted in a box-party to attend the series, and I was asked to be one of the guests. “Nothing like having your books of reference under your arm,” was Mr. Whitely’s way of telling me for what purpose I was wanted; and I presume that was, in truth, the light in which he viewed me. Though I scorned such service, the mere fact that you were to be there was enough to make me accept. How low love can bring a man if his spirit is once mastered by it!