He crushed her to him, then held her away at the hint of something unsaid.  “You mean you’ve begun to love me?” he inquired, gladly.

“Perhaps.  I don’t know.  Something has changed—­tremendously.”  Under his bewildered gaze the blood rose, warming her cheeks; her eyes swam, but not with tears; her bosom was tremulous with the knowledge that clamored for freedom, and yet refused to come.

“Don’t you understand, stupid?” she said, seeing him still mystified.  She hid her face, then whispered in his ear, whereupon he fell to trembling, and the fervor of his embrace relaxed.  He held her gently, tenderly, as if he suddenly found her to be a fragile thing.

“My dear!—­my—­dear!” And then he too hid his face as if blinded by a pitiless light.  When he raised it tears glistened on his lashes and a happiness that was like pain pierced him.  “Oh!  If I had only known—­” he choked.  “Kid, what a fool I’ve been, never to think that this might come!  I—­can’t believe it.”

“It’s true,” she smiled, and her cheeks were still dyed with that virginal flush.  “Perhaps that’s why I’ve changed toward you—­ something has happened, Bob, and you mustn’t leave me now.  I couldn’t bear to do without you.”

“You may forgive me,” he cried, “but I’ll never forgive myself.  To think that I should learn of this right now—­after what I did.  Well, I’m through making new promises; I’m going to keep some of the old ones.”

“I think it’s about time we both came to earth.”

“No need for you—­you’re the sensible one.  If I can’t straighten up on my own account and on yours, surely I can and will for—­ this.”

An hour later Adoree tiptoed back to the piano after a surreptitious peek into the back room, whence nothing but the faintest murmurs issued.  Her face was radiant.

“You’ve played some high-priced divorce lawyer out of a good case, Mr. Cricket,” she beamed on Campbell.  “She’s in his lap.”  Pope’s rippling fingers paused, his hands dropped, and he sighed.

“I could have set them quarreling just as well, but the role of cupid suits me to-night.”  His shoulders drooped wearily; the feverish brightness of his eyes and the pallor of his thin face indicated that he had indeed spent all his nervous force.

“Cupid in a sweater!” Adoree exclaimed.  “Well, I believe it, for your playing made me positively mushy.  I’ve been hugging a sofa-cushion and dreaming of heroes for ever so long.  Why, at this moment I’d marry the janitor.”

With the eager shyness of a boy he inquired:  “Do you really like to hear me play?  Can I come and play for you again?”

“Not without a chaperon,” she told him, positively; “wool tickles my cheek.”

Pope rose hastily and in some embarrassment.  He could write about love with a cynic’s pen, but he could not bear to talk about it even in a joking way.  He eyed the speaker with the frightened fascination of a charmed rabbit, until she laughed in mischievous enjoyment of his perturbation.