They would whisper into the firelit gloom which invites reckless confidences, as I am whispering, “Eve, Eve, you want your Paradise, don’t you?” I do solemnly believe that soon or late this moment comes to every woman; I do solemnly believe that she can no more escape this dominant reaching out of her heart, this dominant yearning for that other one in the world of two outside of which the rest of humanity is excluded. Since when have you believed this, Caroline Howard? Honest now. Face Dicky’s letter—aren’t you the daughter of a soldier? This time it’s a big, blond young German—a baron. A slight accident to his hand brought about the acquaintance. Always, Dicky “did” his hand for him. The acquaintance progressed to the point that he knew her afternoon off. “Of course,” Dicky writes, “it flattered me to find him waiting outside the hospital—and with a taxi.” It seems they had the gayest of drives, but when they turned in at the Pennsylvania Station Dicky demanded the meaning of it. The baron was ready with an answer. He told her that they were going away to an ideal life where they would always be together and always alone. Dicky objected. Her protest was smothered in the depths of the baron’s hat, flung quick as magic over her face. “How I ever emerged from the embrace of that hat with a smiling face I don’t know. I must thank a year’s training at the hospital for that. I came out game—cool on the outside, at any rate. I said: ‘We can’t go away together without baggage—think of the scandal of it.’ From the depths of the cab he produced a big black bag. But I said, ‘That won’t help me.’ It didn’t work. He said in Washington we would buy enough clothes to last me forever. I fell in gayly with his plans. Inside the station he bought tickets to Washington. I tried to get near the ticket window, but he flanked the move. There seemed to be no people in the station. The few that were there were miles apart in isolated little groups. Just before our train was called, standing together as alone as if we were already on the desert to which he said we would go when we left Washington, a stream of incoming people surged up from the left wing of the station. I felt sure one of the men was Bobby Haralson—he or his double. I asked the baron to let me say good-bye to an old friend, as we were never coming back. He agreed. “‘Aren’t you Mr. Haralson?’ I gasped. ‘If you are, don’t you remember the little gypsy girl who answered your ad?’