“Will you say next month, Nina?” he said.  “It shall be the last day of it if you wish.  But—­next month.”

His tone was inexorable.  He meant to win this point, and she knew it.

Her breath came quickly, unevenly; but in face of his mastery she made a great effort to control her agitation.

“Very well,” she said, and she spoke more steadily than she had spoken at all during the interview.  “I will marry you next month.”

“Will you fix the day?” he asked.

She uttered a sudden, breathless laugh—­the reckless laugh of the loser.

“Surely that cannot matter!” she said.  “The first day or the last—­as you say, what difference does it make?”

“You leave the choice tome?” he asked, without the smallest change of countenance.

“Certainly!” she said coldly.

“Then I choose the first,” he rejoined.

And at the words she gave a great start as if already she repented the moment of recklessness.

The notes of a piano struck suddenly through the almost tragic silence that covered up the protest she had not dared to utter.  A few quiet chords; and then a woman’s voice began to sing.  Slowly, with deep, hidden pathos, the words floated out into the night; and, involuntarily almost, the man and the girl stood still to listen: 

    Shadows and mist and night,
      Darkness around the way,
    Here a cloud and there a star,
      Afterwards, Day!

    Sorrow and grief and tears,
      Eyes vainly raised above,
    Here a thorn and there a rose;
      Afterwards, Love!

The voice was glorious, the rendering sublime.  The spell of the singer was felt in the utter silence that followed.

Wingarde’s eyes never left his companion’s face.  But the girl had turned from him.  She was listening, rapt and eager.  She had forgotten his very presence at her side.  As the last passionate note thrilled into silence she drew a long breath.  Her eyes were full of tears.

Suddenly she came to earth—­to the consciousness of his watching eyes—­and her expression froze into contemptuous indifference.  She turned her head and faced him, scorning the tears she could not hide.

In her look were bitter dislike, fierce resistance, outraged pride.

“Some people,” she said, with a little, icy smile, “would prefer to say ‘Afterwards, Death!’ I am one of them.”

Wingarde looked back at her with complete composure.  He also seemed faintly contemptuous.

“You probably know as much of the one as of the other,” he coolly responded.

FOOTNOTES: 

[Footnote 1:  I desire to acknowledge my indebtedness to the Author—­I regret to say unknown to me—­of the little poem which I have quoted in this story.]

II

A RING OF VALUE