Fred was saying he wished Helen were there.

Katie turned from the vivid picture out to the subtle night--warm summer's night.

The dreaming music carried her back to vanished things--other waltzes, other warm summer's nights, to the times when she had been, in her light-hearted fashion, in love, to those various flirtations for which she had more tenderness than regret just for the glimpses they brought.

And suddenly the heart of things gone seemed to flow into a great longing for that never known tenderness and wildness of feeling that sobbed in the music.

She was being borne out to the heart of the night, and at the heart of the night some one waited for her with arms held out.