THE RUNAWAY ROAD
'woman talk' about silk linings, but I know a thing or two, even if I am a man."
But the radiancy of the Girl's face defied his cynicism utterly. Her eyes were absolutely fathom less with Youth.
Then his mood changed suddenly. He reached out with a little brooding gesture of protection. "These are my college books," he confided, "my Dream Library. I've scarcely thought of them for a dozen years. I don't meet many dreamers nowadays. You've probably got a lot of newer books than these, but I'll wager you anything in the world that every book here is a precious friend to you. I should n't wonder if your own copies opened exactly to the same places. Here's young Keats with his shadowing tragedy. How you have mooned over it. And here's Tennyson. What about the starlit vision:
"And on her lover's arm she leant,
And round her waist she felt it fold,—"
The Girl took up the words softly in unison:
"And far across the hills they went
To that new world which is the old."
In rushing, eager tenderness she browsed through one book after another, sometimes silently, some times with a little crooning quotation, where cor-
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