“No. Good Lord, Harmony, don't ask me what's wrong! I don't know myself.” He got up almost violently and set the little chair back against the wall. Hurt and astonished, Harmony went back to the table. The kitchen was entirely dark, save for the firelight, which gleamed on the bare floor and the red legs of the table. She was fumbling with a match and the candle when she realized that Peter was just behind her, very close. “Dearest,” he said huskily. The next moment he had caught her to him, was kissing her lips, her hair. Harmony's heart beat wildly. There was no use struggling against him. The gates of his self-control were down: all his loneliness, his starved senses rushed forth in tardy assertion. After a moment Peter kissed her eyelids very gently and let her go. Harmony was trembling, but with shock and alarm only. The storm that had torn him root and branch from his firm ground of self-restraint left her only shaken. He was still very close to her; she could hear him breathing. He did not attempt to speak. With every atom of strength that was left in him he was fighting a mad desire to take her in his arms again and keep her there. That was the moment when Harmony became a woman. She lighted the candle with the match she still held. Then she turned and faced him. “That sort of thing is not for you and me, Peter,” she said quietly. “Why not?” “There isn't any question about it.” He was still reckless, even argumentative; the crying need of her still obsessed him. “Why not? Why should I not take you in my arms? If there is a moment of happiness to be had in this grind of work and loneliness--” “It has not made me happy.” Perhaps nothing else she could have said would have been so effectual. Love demands reciprocation; he could read no passion in her voice. He knew then that he had left her unstirred. He dropped his outstretched arms. “I'm sorry. I didn't mean to do it.” “I would rather not talk about it, please.” The banging of a door far off told them that Anna Gates had arrived and was taking off her galoshes in the entry. Peter drew a long breath, and, after his habit, shook himself. “Very well, we'll not talk of it. But, for Heaven's sake, Harmony, don't avoid me. I'm not a cad. I'll let you alone.” There was only time for a glance of understanding between them, of promise from Peter, of acceptance from the girl. When Anna Gates entered the kitchen she found Harmony peeling potatoes and Peter filling up an already overfed stove. That night, during that darkest hour before the dawn when the thrifty city fathers of the old town had shut off the street lights because two hours later the sun would rise and furnish light that cost the taxpayers nothing, the Portier's wife awakened.