He snatched his hands away and hid his face again, struggling to choke back his sobs. What would she think—what would she suppose? But it was no use fighting against the surge of joy and agony that caught him and shook him like a young tree in a spring gale. He stammered out: "I'm a fool… . You mustn't mind me… . I've been through hell lately… . Just let me sit here a little while without talking, till I get used to you again… ." and without a word she went back to her chair and sat there silently, the shaded lamplight on her quiet head.

Chapter 3

It was long past midnight when he cautiously pushed open his door on Mrs. Hubbard's third story. The light from a street lamp, shining through the shutterless window, showed him Laura Lou in bed, asleep or pretending to be; and he undressed as noiselessly as he could and lay down beside her. He was used to her ways now: he knew she would not begin questioning him till the next morning, and he lay there, his arms crossed under his head, staring up at the cracked and blotched ceiling, and reliving with feverish vividness the hours he had spent with Halo Tarrant. He did not mean to tell Laura Lou where he had been; to do so would only grieve her. Besides, she would never believe him when he told her that all those hours had been spent in talk: the absorbing, illuminating, inexhaustible exchange of confidences and ideas. Laura Lou could not imagine what anybody could have to say that would take that length of time… . And Vance himself could hardly believe that this woman, without whom life was so lame and incomplete a business, this woman whom he had so missed and longed for, and thought he hated, could have calmed his vehemence, cast a spell over his throbbing senses, and kept him with her, enriched and satisfied, by the mere magic of her attentive understanding… .