“That is foolishness,” he said.  “Nothing nor anybody can harm you now.”

Some note in his voice attracted her attention.  Strong and square, with hard, forceful face, he sat wholly at his ease among these unfamiliar surroundings, a very tower of refuge, she felt, to the weak.  His face was not strikingly intellectual—­she was not sure now about his mouth—­but one seemed to feel that dogged nature, the tireless pains by which he would pursue any aim dear to him.  The shadows passed away from her mind.  What was dead was gone!  It was not reasonable that she should be haunted all her days by the ghosts of other people’s sins.  The atmosphere of the place, the atmosphere of the last few hours, found its way again into her blood.  After all, she was young, the music was sweet, her pulses were throbbing to the tune of this new life.  She drank her wine and laughed, her head beating time to the music.

“We have been sad long enough,” she declared.  “You and I, my dear serious brother, will embark in earnest now upon the paths of frivolity.  Tell me, how did things go to-day?”

It flashed into his mind that he had great news, but that it was not for her.  About that matter there was still doubt in his mind, but he could not speak of it.

“I have had an offer,” he said guardedly.  “I cannot say much about it at present, for nothing is certain, but I am sure that I shall be able to raise the money somehow.”

His tone was calm and confident.  There was no self-assurance or bluster about it, and yet it was convincing.  She looked at him curiously.

“You are a very positive person, Leonard,” she remarked.  “You must have great faith in yourself, I think.”

He considered the question for a moment.

“Perhaps I have,” he admitted.  “I do not think that there is any other way to succeed.”

The atmosphere of the place was becoming now almost languorous.  The band had ceased to play; little parties of men and women were standing about, bidding one another goodnight.  The lamps had been lowered, and in the gloom the voices and laughter seemed to have become lower and more insinuating; the lights in the eyes of the women, as they passed down the room on their way out, softer and more irresistible.

“I suppose we must go,” she said reluctantly.

Tavernake paid his bill and they turned into the street.  She took his arm and they turned westward.  Even out here, the atmosphere of the restaurant appeared to have found its way.  The soberness of life, its harder and more practical side, was for the moment obscured.  It was not the daytime crowd, this, whose footsteps pressed the pavements.  The careworn faces of the money-seekers had vanished.  The men and women to whom life was something of a struggle had sought their homes—­resting, perhaps, before they took up their labors again.  Every moment taxicabs and motor-cars whirled by, flashing upon the night a momentary impression of men in evening dress, of women in soft garments with jewels in their hair.  The spirit of pleasure seemed to have crept into the atmosphere.  Even the poorer people whom they passed in the street, were laughing or singing.