She floated toward him, her hands outstretched, a smile of welcome on her lips. He touched her hands with some uncertainty. It was all so like a dream.
"So you are home again?" he said, finding only this commonplace question among all the beautiful phrases he had invented for her benefit.
"And I am glad to be home, John; glad. I knew you would come."
"How in the world could I help it?" smiling. "It was very kind of you to send your carriage. A carriage is a luxury in which I do not often indulge. I couldn't invent any excuse; I had no engagement. Besides, I would have come anyway."
She laughed, and drew two chairs to the blazing grate and motioned him to be seated.
"Do you know," he began, "but for your note I might have forgotten all about its being Christmas Eve? To what terrible depths a man falls to be able to confess such a sacrilege! But a lonely man forgets the customs of his youth. There is no Christmas spirit where there are no children, no family ties. I'm a hermit."
"Tell me all about yourself, John," she urged, cleverly seating herself so that she might see him easily, while he, to see her, would have to turn his head.
"There isn't much to say. I've just gone right on making a failure."
"There is no such thing as failure, John. Failure means effort, and effort is never failure."
"That is a pretty way of putting it. Well, then, let me say that I am still unsuccessful. Fame has knocked on my door with soft gloves, and I have not heard her; and Fortune never had me on her visiting list." He stared into the fire.