since we were parted. For I am strong and admirable--even I, who
sneered and played so long, because I thought myself a thing of
no worth at all. That which has been since you and I were young
together is as a mist that passes: and I am strong and admirable,
and all my being is one vast hunger for you, my dearest, and I will
not let you go, for you, and you alone, are my Heart's Desire."

Now the girl was looking at him very steadily, with a small puzzled
frown, and with her vivid young soft lips a little parted. And all
her tender loveliness was glorified by the light of a sky that had
turned to dusty palpitating gold.

"Ah, but you say that you are strong and admirable: and I can only
marvel at such talking. For I see that which all men see."

And then Dorothy showed him the little mirror which was attached to
the long chain of turquoise matrix about her neck: and Jurgen
studied the frightened foolish aged face that he found in the
mirror.

Thus drearily did sanity return to Jurgen: and his flare of passion
died, and the fever and storm and the impetuous whirl of things was
ended, and the man was very weary. And in the silence he heard the
piping cry of a bird that seemed to seek for what it could not find.

"Well, I am answered," said the pawnbroker: "and yet I know that
this is not the final answer. Dearer than any hope of heaven was
that moment when awed surmises first awoke as to the new strange
loveliness which I had seen in the face of Dorothy. It was then I
noted the new faint flush suffusing her face from chin to brow so