I shall never forget that night in my room at the Hotel de la Paix. It was yet early when I reached Geneva from my day's trip, and after I had eaten my dinner and bought the paper containing Mr. Harding's picture, I retired to my room for early sleep. But my thoughts were too full of Mr. Harding and I could not sleep. His face seemed very near to me, and I switched on my light again and studied the picture in the graphic sheet. The more I studied it the more tired he looked to me, until I thought in terror, "Heavens! I wish they would let him alone!" I slipped into my negligee and walked out upon the tiny balcony and drank in the loveliness of a moonlight night on Lake Geneva.
Across the lake, beyond Mt. Blanc Bridge which connects the two sections of the city, sounded the gay laughter of late diners. "Winers" I thought, absent-mindedly. There is considerable difference in time between Alaska and Switzerland, and I wondered where Mr. Harding was then and what he was doing. It was nine o'clock by the little watch he had given me in 1917. Perhaps he was thinking of me, too, and that was what brought him so vividly before me.
I stood there thus meditating, when over the waters, clear in the mountain air, floated to me a familiar song, an old-time favorite from a musical comedy, "The Prince of Luxemburg." The words, which I remembered quite distinctly, at first seemed a reassuring answer to my fears, and I mentally fitted them to the air as it was played and replayed by the little cafe orchestra:
Say not that cruel fate will redeem
Perfect joy with pain.
Look, oh, look not beyond—joy so near!
True hearts may ne'er despond, for love knows naught of fear.
Love breaks every bond, and love, true love, is here!"
But instead of happy "Say not" negations the lines seemed to sing themselves into positive affirmations of ill, and I struggled
