He was sure of that. That clinging form, those yielding lips, were not merely playing a part. The fact that they were not painted lips reflected in part an inner cleanness of mind that would not yield to falseness of this sort. He found that most of all he wanted to find her true. Even if it meant a parting from her forever, he kept praying that she might be clean, might be true, as she had seemed to him.

Ordinarily the errand upon which he was bound that morning, the meeting of a world-renowned scientist who chose his associates from among the greatest scholars and refused students at the slightest whim, would have kept him on the alert. He had so longed, so prayed for this opportunity, yet now that it had arrived, it seemed small in comparison with what was occupying his mind.

He ate a meager breakfast, sitting on a stool in a cheap restaurant, and thought in humiliation, as he lifted the thick coffee cup and put it to his lips, that the girl whom he had dared to kiss last night might even now be driving in a great limousine up Fifth Avenue or Riverside Drive or wherever the Wainwrights of the world took their morning airings.

Fool that he was, he might have known when he saw the make of her luxurious little car and heard its costly purring that she was not of his class at all. The very size of the stone she had worn under her glove, which he had touched there on his arm, might have taught him that a girl who could command gifts like that was not the girl for him to dare aspire to. Fool, fool, fool!

And presently, after she had gently and kindly told him where he belonged, she would tell her cousin Jeff, and he would have to go through all his life knowing that Jeff, whom he loved like a brother, despised his good sense and regarded him less because of his impulsive act.

Lower in spirit John Saxon could not possibly have been as he started out that morning to meet his appointment with the great man. He had borne poverty, toil, sickness, even sorrow like a man, sometimes almost like an angel, but this new form of trial, that was thrillingly sweet and bitterly tender and gallingly humiliating, really got him down and out. For a few hours a little demon sat on his shoulder and laughed to his fellows about how John Saxon, Christian, had surrendered to the common passion of love and had compromised his good sense as well as his trust in God.

“I told you so!” the little demon cried to the others gathered round to gloat. “I told you his trust wasn’t so great! I told you he’d forget his Guide and go the way his feelings led him when it came to something he really wanted!”

But John Saxon had not his trust in God for naught. The habit of prayer was too firmly fixed upon him to be long suspended, and in his despair he turned to God. He prayed on the street as he went, threading his way among traffic and pedestrians. His heart was in touch with heaven, and his soul was crying out for help, for confidence—not in himself, but in the God whose he was.

By the time he reached the place of his appointment, he was steady and calm. His natural gravity sat well upon him, and there was none of the trepidation he might have felt at another time.

It was good to get in touch with everyday affairs again, to be planning his life’s work, to look into the face of the great man and read the genius that made him eminent among his peers. John felt again the enthusiasm for his profession, the zest to do his best, and although he did not realize it, he made a fine impression upon the man who was accounted to be hard to interest.

The interview was not long. Dr. Hughes asked him a few crisp questions about his work so far, about his interests and where he had pursued his studies, about his financial state and how he had earned his way. He seemed pleased with the answers, and then, just as if it had been a foregone conclusion that he would be accepted, John found himself accepted and approved, was told briefly when and where and how to present himself in the fall, and with a brief handshake was dismissed.

He carried with him the glow from the last smile the great man had given him. Now, at least, he had something to say for his own prospects that needn’t make him feel ashamed. It was not everybody who could claim to be this great man’s special student. If all went well, his professional future was assured.

And then his heart sprang back to last night. Sharp as a sword thrust through his heart went the thought that he ought not to think about Mary Elizabeth anymore. And yet his human heart went throbbing on and loving her in spite of all.

How he longed to jump on a train and go back to the place where he had left her. Of course, she wouldn’t still be there. She didn’t live there, and she would have started home by this time. Finally he could stand it no longer and he called the hotel, asking for Miss Wainwright. He had decided that he would tell her he had been anxious lest she had not reached the hotel safely alone last night. That was a poor excuse of course, and she would laugh at it, but it would be so good just to hear her voice, even in a bit of laughter.

But he was promptly told that Miss Wainwright had checked out early that morning, and he hung up with a dreary, desolate feeling that his dream had turned into practical everyday living and wouldn’t ever come back. He had mailed his letter early that morning, against his better judgment.