“There’s a bureau cover I started when I was at Pratt’s,” she said, as she straightened it over her knees.  “It’s a copy of an expensive one.  I never had the patience to finish it, but one of the sales-ladies there, who was an expert, told me it was pretty good:  She taught me the stitch, and I had a notion at that time I might make a little money for dresses and the theatre.  I was always clever with my hands.”

“The very thing!” he said, with hopeful emphasis.  “I’m sure I can get you plenty of it to do.  And I’ll come back in the morning.”

He gave it back to her, and as she was folding it his glance fell on a photograph in the basket.

“I kept it, I don’t know why,” he heard her say; “I didn’t have the heart to burn it.”

He started recovered himself, and rose.

“I’ll go to see the agent the first thing to-morrow,” he said.  “And then—­you’ll be ready for me?  You trust me?”

“I’d do anything for you,” was her tremulous reply.

Her disquieting, submissive smile haunted him as he roped his way down the stairs to the street, and then the face in the photograph replaced it—­the laughing eyes, the wilful, pleasure—­loving mouth he had seen in the school and college pictures of Preston Parr.