But the lady was looking Noel in the eyes, and her own seemed strangely large, but as if covering a spiritual rather than a physical space, settled in melancholy, full of clouds, moving lights and dusky distances. “I was waiting for him because he ordered me. I'm so afraid of him,” she said, shrinking with the words. “He likes me to be here and afraid of him.” “Tell me what I am to do?” he said eagerly. “I suppose you are not to do anything.” Noel caught the thread of his fluency. He drew a ten-cent piece from his pocket, tossed it on the table, gestured toward it with one hand and swung the other over the back of his chair with an air of polished recklessness. “But your case seems desperate to you. Is it more than mine? You have followed this thing about to 'the end of the passage,' and there is my last coin. My luck might change to-morrow. Who knows? Perhaps tonight. I would take it without question and full of hope. Will you experiment with fortune and--and me?” The dark eyes neither consented nor refused. They looked at him gravely. “It is a black, cold night. The snow is thick in the air and deep on the street Put it so at the worst, but fortune and wit will go far.” “Your wit goes farther than your fortune, doesn't it?” she said, smiling. “I don't conceal.” “You don't conceal either of them, do you? You spread them both out,” and she laughed a pleasant little ripple of sound. Noel rose with distinction and bent toward her across the table. “My fortune is this ten-cent piece. As you see, on the front of it is stamped a throned woman.” “Oh, how clever.” She laughed, and Noel flushed with the applause. “Shall we trust fortune and spin the coin? Heads, the throned woman, I shall presently worship you, an earthly divinity. Tails, a barren wreath and the denomination of a money value, meaning I take my fortunes away, and you,” pointing in turn to the sleeper and the jewels, “put up with yours as you can.” She seemed to shiver as he pointed. “No,” she said, “I couldn't do that. A woman never likes to spin a coin seriously.” “Will you go, then?” The sleeper grunted and turned over. She turned pale, put her hand to her throat, said hurriedly, “Wait here,” and left the room, lifting and drawing her skirt aside as she passed the sleeper. She opened the door at last and came again, wrapped in a fur mantle, carrying a travelling case, and stood looking down at the sleeper as if with some struggle of the soul, some reluctant surrender. They went out, shutting the door behind them. The snow was falling still on Tenth Street, out of the crowding night. He held her hand on his arm close to him. She glided beside him noiselessly. The express office was at the corner, a little dingy, gas-lit room. “Carriage? Get it in a minute,” said the sleepy clerk. “It's just round the corner.” They stood together by a window, half opaque with dust. Her face was turned away, and he watched the slant of her white cheek.