"I'm going to take Burdon home." "I need somebody to mind me," said Burdon, flashing Mary one of his violent smiles; and turning to go he said to Helen over his shoulder, "Come, child.

We're late." "He calls her 'child'..." thought Mary.
That night Wally was a visitor at the house on the hill--and when Mary saw how subdued he was--how chastened he looked--her heart went out to him.
"It seems so good to be here, calling again like this," he said.

"Does it remind you of old times, the same as it does me ?" But Mary wouldn't follow him there.

As they talked it occurred to her more than once that while Wally appeared to be listening to her, his thoughts were elsewhere--his ears attuned for other sounds.
"What are you listening for!" she asked him once.
He answered her with a puzzle.
"For the Lorelei's song," he said, and going to the piano he sang it, his clear, plaintive tenor still retaining its power to make her nose smart and the dumb chills to run up and down her back.

She was sitting near the piano and when he was through, he turned around on the bench.
"Have you ever been the least bit sorry," he asked, "that you turned me down--for a business career ?" "I didn't turn you down," she said.