"Well," she said charitably, "jump into your bath, quick, dear. Breakfast is ready, and you'll be late at the office again if you don't hurry." She closed the door softly upon him. It was seldom that she intruded thus upon the mystery of his morning hygienics. It was with a clothed Charles-Norton that she had first fallen in love; and like most women (who, being practical, realize that, since it is dressed, after all, that men go through the world, it is dressed that they must be judged) Dolly appreciated her handsome young husband best in his broad-shouldered sack-coat and well-creased trousers. Charles-Norton, still rather abashed, dropped into the cold green tub, splashed, rubbed down, dressed, and sat down to breakfast. As he ate his waffles, though, out of the blue breakfast set which Dolly's charming, puzzle-browed economy had managed to extort from the recalcitrant family budget, his usual glowing loquacity of after-the-bath was lacking. His eyes wandered furtively about the little encumbered room; thoughts, visibly, rolled within his head which did not find his lips. And when he bade Dolly good-by, on the fifth-story landing, she missed in his kiss the usual warm linger. CHAPTER II When Charles-Norton reached the street, a narrow side-street in which like a glacier the ice of the whole winter was still heaped, a whiff of soft air, perfumed with a suspicion of spring, struck him gently in the face. He drew it in deep within his lungs, and exhaled it in a long sigh. And then he stopped abruptly, and was standing very still, listening; listening to this sigh, to the echo of it still within his consciousness, as if testing it. He shook his head disapprovingly. "Gee," he said; "hope I'm not getting discontented again!" As if in response, another gentle gust came down the street; he caught it as it came and drew it deep within him. His chest swelled, his eyes brightened. And then suddenly he tensed; he rose a-tip-toe, heels close together, his head went back; his hands stole to his armpits, and his elbows began to wave up and down. "Good Lord!" he ejaculated, catching himself up sharply; "here goes that darned flapping again!" He looked up and down the street, assuming a negligent attitude. His forehead was red. "Nope," he said. No one had seen him. "_She_ saw me this morning," he thought, and the red of his forehead came down to his cheeks. "It's getting worse; a regular habit. Let me see--two, three; it began three weeks ago----" He shook his head perplexedly and resumed his way toward the Elevated station. "It may have been all right when I was a boy," he said to himself as he swung along. "But now! "Let me see. I was fourteen, the first time."