As Hawker again entered the room of the great windows he glanced in sidelong bitterness at the chandelier. When he was seated he looked at it in open and .  
Men in the street were at the snow. The noise of their instruments scraping on the stones came plainly to Hawker's ears in a harsh chorus, and this sound at this time was perhaps to him a miserere.
 
"I came to tell you," he began, "I came to tell you that perhaps I am going away."
 
"Going away!" she cried. "Where?"
 
"Well, I don't know—quite. You see, I am rather indefinite as yet. I thought of going for the winter somewhere in the Southern States. I am merely this much, you know—I am going somewhere. But I don't know where. 'Way off, anyhow."
 
"We shall be very sorry to lose you," she remarked. "We——"
 
"And I thought," he continued, "that I would come and say 'adios' now for fear that I might leave very suddenly. I do that sometimes. I'm afraid you will forget me very soon, but I want to tell you that——"
 
"Why," said the girl in some surprise, "you speak as if you were going away for all time. You surely do not mean to desert New York?"
 
"I think you misunderstand me," he said. "I give this important air to my farewell to you because to me it is a very important event. Perhaps you that once I told you that I cared for you. Well, I still care for you, and so I can only go away somewhere—some place 'way off—where—where—— See?"
 
"New York is a very large place," she observed.
 
"Yes, New York is a very large—— How good of you to remind me! But then you don't understand. You can't understand. I know I can find no place where I will cease to remember you, but then I can find some place where I can cease to remember in a way that I am myself. I shall never try to forget you. Those two violets, you know—one I found near the tennis court and the other you gave me, you remember—I shall take them with me."
 
"Here," said the girl, at her gown for a moment—"Here! Here's a third one." She thrust a violet toward him.
 
"If you were not so insolent," said Hawker, "I would think that you felt sorry for me. I don't wish you to feel sorry for me. And I don't wish to be melodramatic. I know it is all commonplace enough, and I didn't mean to act like a . Please don't pity me."
 
"I don't," she replied. She gave the violet a little fling.
 
Hawker lifted his head suddenly and at her. "No, you don't," he at last said slowly, "you don't. Moreover, there is no reason why you should take the trouble. But——"
 
He paused when the girl leaned and peered over the arm of her chair in the manner of a child at the of a fountain. "There's my violet on the floor," she said. "You treated it quite contemptuously,............