The man had been a derelict then, as now.  But he was nine years older than Harriet Field.  He had had the same delightful voice, the same penetrating eyes.  He had brought poetry, music, art, into the sordid little parlour of the Watertown apartment; he had helped Harriet to tame and house those soaring ambitions.  Seated on Linda’s stiff little fringed sofa, they had drunk deep of Keats and Shelley and Browning, and Harriet’s eyes had widened at what Royal called “world ethics.”  To live—­that was the gift of the gods!  Not to be afraid—­not to be bound!

Reaching this point in her recollections, the girl recalled herself with a start.  She was safe in luxurious Crownlands, it had all been years ago.  But again the abyss seemed to yawn at her feet.  She felt again those kisses that had waked the little-girl heart into passionate womanhood; she shut her eyes and pressed her hand tight against them.  So young—­so happy—­so confident!—­ plunging headlong into that searing blackness.

And now Royal Blondin was back again, and she was not ready for him.  She could not score now.  But he could hurt her irreparably if he would.  Isabelle was an indifferent mother, and an incorrigible flirt, but at the first word, at the first hint—­ah, there would be no arguing, no weighing of the old blame and responsibility!  If there was the faintest cloud of doubt, that would be enough!  Better the driest and fussiest old Frenchwoman for Nina, the dullest and least responsive of Englishwomen.  But by all means settle accounts at once with Miss Field, and pay her railway fare, and wish her well.

Harriet had shaken back her mane of hair, had hammered furious fists together up on the dark balcony.  It wasn’t fair—­it wasn’t fair—­just now, when she was so secure and happy!  She had flung her arms across the railing, and buried her hot face on them, and had wept desperate and angry tears into the silken and golden tangle that shone dully in the starlight.

The stars were paling, and the garden stirred with the first languid breath of the hot day to come, when she suddenly rose and bound up the loosened hair, and went in.  Harriet was not yet twenty-seven, and every fibre of her being cried out for sleep.  Cold water on the tear-stained face, and the childish prayer she never forgot, and she had crept gratefully into the soft covers, and had had perhaps four hours of such rest as only comes to youth.

So that the morning brought courage.  Her heart was heavy and fearful, but she knew that Royal would seek her, and she hoped much for the talk that they were to have now.  She did not refuse him her hand when he came to the tea table, or her eyes, and there was friendliness, or the semblance of it, in the voice with which she said his name.  That he was waiting, perhaps as fearfully as she, for his cue, was evidenced by the quick relief with which he echoed the old familiarity.

“Harriet!  I find you again.  I’ve been waiting all this time to find you!  I’d heard Ward speak of ‘Miss Field’, of course!  But it never meant you, to me.  I’ve been thinking of you all night.”