“Sorry to see me here, old chap?”

“Why in thunder should I be?” Raymond glared.

“No reason—­but then reason isn’t everything.  Nancy’s a bit off—­I’d hate to have her confront that mug of yours, Ken, if I can soften it up any.  I came to bring some medicine from Uncle David—­he’s worried about colds these days.  Nancy told me you were coming, she went upstairs to take her dose in private—­she told me to stay and give you the glad hand and explain.  Somehow you don’t look exactly appreciative.”

“Sorry!” Raymond found himself relaxing.  “Want me to kiss you?”

“Try it!  I’d like to have a fling at you.  What’s up, anyway, Ken?  See here, old man, you know there might be any one of twenty fellows here to-night—­you ought to be on your knees thanking heaven that it’s I—­not one of the twenty.”

“What the devil do you mean?” Raymond got up, tried to feel resentment but could not.

“Nothing, only I’m going and—­well, Ken, don’t be an ass.  It don’t pay.”

Raymond tried to think of something to say, but before the right thing occurred he heard Cameron’s cheerful whistle cut off by the closing of the heavy front door.

Then he sat down by the fire and did some thinking.  It was the kind of concentrated thought that separates the chaff and wheat; foregoes the glitter of romance and reaches out for the guiding, unfailing light of reality.

How long he sat alone Raymond never realized.  It seemed like years, then like a moment—­but it brought him to Nancy as she stood at the top of the flight of steps leading to the warm, fire-lighted room while the fountain splashed cheerfully and a restless, curious little bird twittered in its cage.

Nancy wore the faintest of blue gowns; a cloudlike scarf fell from her shoulders; her eyes held the full confession of her love as they met the groping in Raymond’s.

He opened his arms.

“My darling!” he said, “will you come?”

Slowly, radiantly, Nancy stepped down.

“It seems as if I’d always been coming,” she was saying.  “I—­I don’t want to hurry now that I—­I see you.”

“I—­I think I’ve always been coming, too,” Raymond would not take a step, “but I was walking in the dark.”

“And I——­” but Nancy did not finish her sentence—­she had found her heart’s desire.

“I’m not worthy,” murmured Raymond, pressing the light hair with his lips.

“Neither am I. We’ll grow worthy together.  It’s like finding a beautiful thing we both were seeking.  It isn’t you or I—­alone—­it is something outside us that we are going to make—­ours.”

Spiritually Raymond got upon his knees, humanly he pressed the girl close.

“It’s—­you—­the Thing is—­you” he whispered, and at that moment knew the last, definite difference between what he now felt and—­all that had gone before.

CHAPTER XXI