In the wall opposite the elevator, and the width of the rather wide room from it, was a long mirror. No man could well have been freer from physical vanity than this big, self-conscious Roger Wade. Beyond his human duty of making himself inoffensive to the eye in the matter of clothing, he did nothing whatever toward personal adornment. Yet as Beatrice advanced he was primping industriously and unconsciously. To occupy his agitated mind he was standing before the mirror smoothing his hair, arranging his tie, fussing with the hang of the big, loose, dark-blue suit that gave his splendid figure an air of freedom. Their eyes met in the glass. He did not turn, but gazed at her--and who would not have been charmed by a creature so redolent of springtime freshness, from the yellow roses in her hat, looking as if they were just from the garden, to the scrupulously neat effect of stockings and ties? She stood beside him, her yellow roses nodding in line with his ear. And they made a delightful picture--a rare harmony of contrasts and symmetries. She laughed radiantly. “Chang!” she cried. He was straightway so disconcerted that her amusement could not but increase. “Through primping?” mocked she. “I think so,” he replied. “I see you attended to all that thoroughly before you came down.” “Yes,” said she with the air of half-serious, half-jesting complacency she could carry off so well. “I’m ready to the last button. Let’s sit over there--by the window.” Then, as they sat opposite each other: “Why are you so solemn?” Again Roger had to struggle to keep himself in hand. “Why do you avoid looking at me?” laughed she. And so glad was she to see him again that she had less difficulty than she had feared in hiding her anxiety, her feeling that she was playing her last stake in the game that seemed to her to mean lifelong happiness or lifelong wretchedness. He colored, but contrived to smile and to look at her. It was an unsteady gaze, a grave smile. “I’ve come,” said he, “because I wish to urge you to go back home. Your father and I----” “Yes, I know,” interrupted she. “Father has been here.” “And you’re going back?” “No--no, indeed. I’ve made the first step toward being independent. I’m going to keep on. Father’s a dear, but he’s not to be trusted. If he controls he tyrannizes. He might try not to do it, but he could not help himself. So--I’m to be a dressmaker.” “What nonsense, Rix!” exclaimed he. “There’s nothing so detestable as an independent woman--a masculine woman.” “One that has a will of her own and proposes to the man if she happens to feel like it?” suggested she, with dancing eyes. “Well--yes--if you insist on putting it that way.” “Woman, the weak, the foolish, the clinging--that’s your ideal?” said she. He nodded emphatically. “Isn’t it strange,” said she absently, “that we never fall in love with our ideals?” Roger stirred about in his chair, much embarrassed.