brooding spirit of the place from out of the snow.  Deep in her eyes, though they sparkled, was the reflection of some mystic vision; her cheeks were flushed.  And in her delight, vicariously his own, he rejoiced; in his trembling hope of more delight to come, which this mentorship would enhance,—­despite the fast deepening snow he drove her up one side of Commonwealth Avenue and down the other, encircling the Common and the Public Garden; stopping at the top of Park Street that she might gaze up at the State House, whose golden dome, seen through the veil, was tinged with blue.  Boston!  Why not Russia?  Janet was speechless for sheer lack of words to describe what she felt....

At length he brought the car to a halt opposite an imposing doorway in front of which a glass roof extended over the pavement, and Janet demanded where they were.

“Well, we’ve got to eat, haven’t we?” Ditmar replied.  She noticed that he was shivering.

“Are you cold?” she inquired with concern.

“I guess I am, a little,” he replied.  “I don’t know why I should be, in a fur coat.  But I’ll be warm soon enough, now.”

A man in blue livery hurried toward them across the sidewalk, helping them to alight.  And Ditmar, after driving the car a few paces beyond the entrance, led her through the revolving doors into a long corridor, paved with marble and lighted by bulbs glowing from the ceiling, where benches were set against the wall, overspread by the leaves of potted plants set in the intervals between them.

“Sit down a moment,” he said to her.  “I must telephone to have somebody take that car, or it’ll stay there the rest of the winter.”

She sat down on one of the benches.  The soft light, the warmth, the exotic odour of the plants, the well-dressed people who trod softly the strip of carpet set on the marble with the air of being at home—­all contributed to an excitement, intense yet benumbing.  She could not think.  She didn’t want to think—­only to feel, to enjoy, to wring the utmost flavour of enchantment from these new surroundings; and her face wore the expression of one in a dream.  Presently she saw Ditmar returning followed by a boy in a blue uniform.

“All right,” he said.  At the end of the corridor was an elevator in which they were shot to one of the upper floors; and the boy, inserting a key in a heavy mahogany door, revealed a sitting-room.  Between its windows was a table covered with a long, white cloth reaching to the floor, on which, amidst the silverware and glass, was set a tall vase filled with dusky roses.  Janet, drawing in a deep breath of their fragrance, glanced around the room.  The hangings, the wall-paper, the carpet, the velvet upholstery of the mahogany chairs, of the wide lounge in the corner were of a deep and restful green; the marble mantelpiece, with its English coal grate, was copied—­had she known it—­from a mansion of the Georgian period.  The hands of a delicate Georgian clock pointed to one.  And in the large mirror behind the clock she beheld an image she supposed, dreamily, to be herself.  The bell boy was taking off her coat, which he hung, with Ditmar’s, on a rack in a corner.