Bedient liked that.

“I made it a bit hard for you,” he replied, “the way I told it—­as if you didn’t count at all with me—­only as something she wanted—­but you do, Jim——­”

“...We’ll come back, or I’ll come back,” Framtree said, and he turned away from the other’s eyes.

Bedient had looked upon him that moment, as if he would add his own soul’s strength to the strength of Framtree....  The hours that followed, to the moment of the Henlopen’s sailing, were hours of building.  Framtree found himself locked in the concentration of Bedient’s ideals—­matters of manhood fitted about him, that he had not aspired to.  And it was not easy to fall from them, when Bedient believed in him so truly.

And Miss Mallory lured back Bedient’s strength.  He ate, drank and slept at her bidding....  So little she said, so instant to understand, so strange and different she was, waiting upon his words as upon a master’s....  The last evening at the hacienda (the Henlopen had arrived in the harbor) he played for them upon the orchestrelle.  Music came forth new and of big import to his consciousness....  He had tried the soul-rousing heimweh from the slow movement of Dvorak’s New World Symphony, when Miss Mallory, looking over the rolls, discovered the Andante of Beethoven’s Fifth.

“Don’t you remember—­the orchestra—­that night?...  It’s wonderful and mysterious—­won’t you——?” But she saw the look that came into his face, and did not finish.  Instead, she put the roll away quickly, knowing she had touched a more vital association than a theatre fright.

“Don’t mind, and please forgive me——­”

...That night they stood together at the door of the little room, for she had refused to change.  Bedient said: 

“Every time I think of you I feel better, Adith Mallory....  I shall think of you often, always as if you were in the little room next to mine.”

They went aboard the following night, and sailed at dawn.  Bedient rode back to the hacienda during the morning....  How strange it will be—­alone, he thought; stranger still, he faced the prospect without dread....  A hush had fallen upon the hills, and upon his heart.  Some mysterious movement was stirring at the centres of his life....

A box of pictures had come on the Henlopen; also a letter from Torvin.  There were three canvases in the latest shipment, and seven had come to the hacienda while he was in New York.  He hung them all in a room where there was good North light, and kept the key with him.  And so there was a gallery for the Grey One in that house, as well as the little room next to his.  He smiled at the thought that a man’s life becomes a house of his friends....  Torvin reported that Miss Grey had disposed of several pictures direct from her studio; that he had marketed eight pictures beside the ones shipped to Equatoria, and that there was a sprightly demand for her work....