had looked an hour before when they had boarded the train. Her cheeks were smoothly rounded, her lips rather full, her lashes very long. He could not look up without looking directly at her, for her chair, which had not been moved since Avery left it, was at an angle with his own. A faint, sweet fragrance from her hair and clothing came to him and made him recollect how long it was—five years—since he had talked with, or even been near, such a girl as this; and the sudden tumult of his pulses which her nearness caused warned him to keep watch of what he said until he had learned why she had sought him out. 

 To avoid the appearance of studying her too openly, he turned slightly, so that his gaze went past her to the white turmoil outside the windows. 

 "It's wonderful," she said, "isn't it?" 

 "You mean the storm?"  A twinkle of amusement came to Eaton's eyes. "It would be more interesting if it allowed a little more to be seen. At present there is nothing visible but snow." 

 "Is that the only way it affects you?"  She turned to him, apparently a trifle disappointed. 

 "I don't exactly understand." 

 "Why, it must affect every man most as it touches his own interests. An artist would think of it as a background for contrasts—a thing to sketch or paint; a writer as something to be written down in words." 

 Eaton understood. She could not more plainly have asked him what he was. 

 "And an engineer, I suppose," he said, easily, "would think of it only as an element to be included in his formulas—an x, or an a, or a b, to be put in somewhere and square-rooted or squared so that the roof-truss he was figuring should not buckle under its weight." 

 "Oh—so that is the way you were thinking of it?" 

 "You mean," Eaton challenged her directly, "am I an engineer?" 

 "Are you?" 

 "Oh, no; I was only talking in pure generalities, just as you were." 

 "Let us go on, then," she said gayly.  "I see I can't conceal from you that I am doing you the honor to wonder what you are. A lawyer would think of it in the light of damage it might create and the subsequent possibilities of litigation."  She made a little pause.  "A business man would take it into 

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