cities, the expansion, broadening of mind he had felt for a time as its result.  More than all, the delight of the people whom he had met, the unused experience of being understood at once, of light touch and easy flexibility, possible, as he had not known before, with good and serious qualities.  One man, above all, he had never forgotten.  It had been a pleasant memory always to have known him, to have been friends with him even, for he had felt to his own surprise and joy that something in him attracted this man of men.  He had followed the other’s career, a career full of success unabused, of power grandly used, of responsibility lifted with a will.  He stood over thousands and ruled rightly—­a true prince among men.  Somewhat too broad, too free in his thinking—­the old clergyman deplored that fault—­yet a man might not be perfect.  It was pleasant to know that this strong and good soul was in the world and was happy; he had seen him once with his son, and the boy’s fine, sensitive face, his honest eyes, and pretty deference of manner, his pride, too, in his distinguished father, were surely a guaranty of happiness.  The old man felt a sudden generous gladness that if some lives must be wasted, yet some might be, like this man’s whom he had once known, full of beauty and service.  It would be good if he might add a drop to the cup of happiness which meant happiness to so many—­and then he smiled at his foolish thought.  That he should think of helping that other—­a man of so little importance to help a man of so much!  And suddenly again he felt tears that welled up hotly.

He put his gray head, with its scanty, carefully brushed hair, back against the support of the worn armchair, and shut his eyes to keep them back.  He would try not to be cowardly.  Then, with the closing of the soul-windows, mental and physical fatigue brought their own gentle healing, and in the cold, little study, bare, even, of many books, with the fire smoldering cheerlessly before him, he fell asleep.

* * * * *

A few miles away, in a suburb of the same great city, in a large library peopled with books, luxurious with pictures and soft-toned rugs and carved dark furniture, a man sat staring into the fire.  The six-foot logs crackled and roared up the chimney, and the blaze lighted the wide, dignified room.  From the high chimney-piece, that had been the feature of a great hall in Florence two centuries before, grotesque heads of black oak looked down with a gaze which seemed weighted with age-old wisdom and cynicism, at the man’s sad face.  The glow of the lamp, shining like a huge gray-green jewel, lighted unobtrusively the generous sweep of table at his right hand, and on it were books whose presence meant the thought of a scholar and the broad interests of a man of affairs.  Each detail of the great room, if there had been an observer of its quiet perfection, had an importance of its own, yet each exquisite belonging fell swiftly