He put down the paper and leaned toward her. He felt nearer to her, in a street car, than in his own home. “Don’t you worry about coal, Rosalind! We shall not freeze--nor starve.” She stared a little. “Of course, we shall not freeze, Eldridge!” “I mean there is plenty--to be comfortable with. You are not to worry and pinch.” A quick look flooded out at him--a look of the Rosalind within. “You mean we can _afford_ not to worry?” He saw the prig Eldridge Walcott, walking in serene knowledge of a comfortable income while the little lines had gathered in her face. He longed to kick the respectable Mr. Eldridge Walcott from behind. “There is quite enough money,” he said. “I am doing better than I have--and I shall do better yet.” She looked down at the bundles. “I might have got a better quality,” she said. “Take them all back,” said Eldridge. “I’ll take them--” But she shook her head. “No, they need them to-morrow--and these will do--” She smiled at them. “It’s really more the feeling that you _can_ get better ones, isn’t it? You don’t mind wearing old things--if you know you could have better ones--if you wanted to--” She broke off vaguely. He saw the box in the attic--all the filmy softness--and he saw the ill-fitting, cheap gloves resting in her lap--That was what had saved her--the real Rosalind. Some one had seen that her soul should be in its own clothes, now and then, and happy and free. You could not quite be jealous of a man who had done that for you--who had clothed Rosalind’s soul, could you? He could not think of the man who had clothed Rosalind’s soul--who had kept alive something that was precious. He could not hate the man. But there was no place in his thoughts for him. Suppose, after all, Rosalind belonged to the man who saw her soul and clothed it? Suppose Rosalind belonged to him!... Very well--_he should not have her!_ He helped her from the car with her bundles, and as he fitted the key in the door the wind struck them fiercely; they were almost blown in with the force of it as the door opened. They stood in the hall, laughing, safe--the wind shut out----There was a quick color in her face, and it lifted to him, laughing freshly, like a girl’s. They were together. She had not looked at him like that for years. He pondered on the look as she went about getting supper. He watched her come and go and wondered awkwardly whether he might not offer to go out and help. He went at last into the kitchen; she was putting coal on the fire and he took the hod from her, throwing on the coal. She looked at him, puzzled. “Are you in a hurry for supper, Eldridge?” “Oh--No.” He went back to the living-room, and talked a little with the children, amusing them quietly. He had a home sense, a feeling that the room was a kind of presence; the wind howling outside could not touch them..