"I remember. . . . Yes. That was the spring that Miss—what was her name? I remember seeing you, often, on Park Street with her."
"Miss Richardson!"
She did not appear to notice his surprise. She seemed indifferently interested in the toe of her shoe, which she was prodding with the point of her parasol. "What became of her?"
"She's in Germany—studying music. Did you know her?"
"No. I knew the family she was stopping with—next door to your aunt's. ... Is she going to be abroad long?"
"I—I don't know. I suppose so. If they can stay. I think they've been rather unfortunate—about money."
She said gently: "She seemed such a sweet girl."
She raised to him again that penetrating and watchful scrutiny. He was unaware of it, gazing out at the water. Her tone, as if speaking only of the past—"She was such a sweet girl"—had recalled to him all the dear tremors of those days that seemed so far away, that were so hopelessly ended. In a flash of thought, he saw himself, now, drifting in a life that promised him no future, a "super," earning 75 cents a night, without any prospect of advancement and resigned to his failure in this city that had no work for him. The interval that had passed since he had left her, had not brought them nearer together; it had separated them by every unsuccessful effort that he had made to earn the right to love her. He saw her as the impossible prize of a contest in which he had been a loser. He saw
