THE SUPERB MOMENT
peculiar and characteristic, and stood at gaze. Just so, surprised and blank, he might have regarded the appearance of a stranger.
In sheer high spirits Carron took a run and make a slide across that shining floor. "Didn't you expect me?" he asked.
Rader had backed a little as if this onslaught had nearly put him to flight, and now confronted immediately by the man and the question, "No," he said, and looked down.
"I told you I would be back to-night."
"Yes, but—" his air was embarrassed and shy. He seemed unable to get any further.
"I have dashed in on him too suddenly and scared him out of his thoughts," Carron reflected. Aloud he said smiling, "I have had good luck." He couldn't resist that much, though he knew he was treading dangerous ground.
The scholar raised his large blue eyes suddenly, and fixed them on the young man. There was a spark in the center of each, the flame of a most acute distress. It reached Carron even in the secure citadel of his success.
"What's happened?" he said. Still he was smiling. Everything that happened, or might still be happening, among the people of this house looked far beneath him and small as the things on earth ap-
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