Norman’s eyes were on the door.  His thoughts were reaching out to the distant and faint sound of a piano.  “Just what do you propose to search for?” inquired he.

He tried to listen, because it was necessary that he have some knowledge of Hallowell’s plans.  But he could not fix his attention.  After a few moments he glanced at his watch, interrupted with, “I think I understand enough for the present.  I’ve stayed longer than I intended.  I must go now.  When I come again I may perhaps have some plan to propose.”

“Plan?” exclaimed Hallowell, his eyes lighting up.

“I’m not sure—­not at all sure,” hastily added Norman.  “I don’t wish to give you false hopes.  The matter is extremely difficult.  But I’ll try.  I’ve small hope of success, but I’ll try.”

“My daughter didn’t explain to me,” said the scientist.  “She simply said one of the gentlemen for whom she worked was coming to look at my place.  I thought it was mere curiosity.”

“So it was, Mr. Hallowell,” said Norman.  “But I have been interested.  I don’t as yet see what can be done.  I’m only saying that I’ll think it over.”

“I understand,” said Hallowell.  He was trying to seem calm and indifferent.  But his voice had the tremulous note of excitement in it and his hands fumbled nervously, touching evidence of the agitated gropings of his mind in the faint, perhaps illusory, light of a new-sprung hope.  “Yes, I understand perfectly.  Still—­it is pleasant to think about such a thing, even if there’s no chance of it.  I am very fond of dreaming.  That has been my life, you know.”

Norman colored, moved uneasily.  The fineness of this man’s character made him uncomfortable.  He could pity Hallowell as a misguided failure.  He could dilate himself as prosperous, successful, much the more imposing and important figure in the contrast.  Yet there was somehow a point of view at which, if one looked carefully, his own sort of man shriveled and the Hallowell sort towered.

“I must be going,” Norman said.  “No—­don’t come with me.  I know the way.  I’ve interrupted you long enough.”  And he put out his hand and, by those little clevernesses of manner which he understood so well, made it impossible for Hallowell to go with him to Dorothy.

He was glad when he shut the door between him and her father.  He paused in the hall to dispel the vague, self-debasing discomfort—­and listening to her voice as she sang helped wonderfully.  There is no more trying test of a personality than to be estimated by the voice alone.  That test produces many strange and startling results.  Again and again it completely reverses our judgment of the personality, either destroys or enhances its charm.  The voice of this girl, floating out upon the quiet of the cottage—­the voice, soft and sweet, full of the virginal passion of dreams unmarred by experience—­It was while listening to her voice, as he stood there in the dimly lighted hall,