way to poignant wonder as she

s clinging rags, even behind the mask of a long, red, dusty beard and formidable

e employer--keen and smooth-shaven, alert, well-dressed, self-centered, dominant, the ma

sound of the girl's voice, he staggered toward her with o

et to correlate his thought

b ten times, Beatrice saw terror

atrice watched him, breathlessly, from the door, she saw his

ible were limning the man's soul upon

nd woman stood looking at each other like two children in some d

him. Forgetful of every convention and of her disarray, she seiz

at does all thi

m she

uth--and save m

ringly. He smiled a stran

hen his lips moved, but fo

effort, this t

st and dryness of the innumerable years had got i

een asleep. What? What is it? I don't know yet. I'll fin

pointed at the hi

. That's two of us, anyhow. Maybe there are a lot m

oth that once had been a business suit, he waded throug

d, you have some notion of his outward guise. No tramp you ever

ed beard reached far below his waist. Even his eyebrows, natur

silient force of vigorous manhood, you might have thought him some incredibly a

earance. With one quick gesture he swept away the shrouding tangle of

cried he, and st

an to

she breathle

ng big! Something universal! It's--it's--no,

everything.

, staring out into the clear sunshine,

test of an imprisoned fly in a web at the top of the window

cried Beatric

lding his emotions in control. "Why not be frank about this? You'd better make

rst? Yo

e out there. You can in

d find no voicing in words. Instinctively the engineer passe

ished dictating those Taunton Bridge specifications. I suddenly felt--oh, so sl

hi

no

ck us? Us and everybody--and everything? Talk about

l once more to studying th

nce upon a time been Long Island City and Brooklyn, as familiar a scene in the ot

ord. "No hallucination about that." He swept the sky-line with his eyes, that now peered keenly out from

got a full yard of whiskers. My good Lo

led horribly on the girl's tense nerves. Suddenly he grew serious. For

t out for me, all right. But--you can't go that way, Miss Kendrick. It--it won'

t, but at the merest touch it tore to shr

otects me very well for the present. If you and I are all that'

her. Then he nodded,

hand on her shoulder. Once more he

to himself. "Only a skyscraper standing here or th

owing thick among the ruins? A dead world if--if all the

mport of the catastrophe. And Stern, deep down in his heart