CHEERFULBY REQUEST

By

EDNA FERBER

AUTHOR OF "DAWN O'HARA, " "BUTTERED SIDE DOWN""ROAST BEEF MEDIUM, " "FANNY HERSELF"

1918

CONTENTS

 CHAPTER I. CHEERFUL--BY REQUEST II. THE GAY OLD DOG III. THE TOUGH GUY IV. THE ELDEST V. THAT'S MARRIAGE VI. THE WOMAN WHO TRIED TO BE GOOD VII. THE GIRL WHO WENT RIGHT VIII. THE HOOKER-UP-THE-BACK IX. THE GUIDING MISS GOWD X. SOPHY-AS-SHE-MIGHT-HAVE-BEEN XI. THE THREE OF THEM XII. SHORE LEAVE

CHEERFUL--BY REQUEST

I

CHEERFUL--BY REQUEST

The editor paid for the lunch (as editors do). He lighted his seventhcigarette and leaned back. The conversation, which had zigzagged fromthe war to Zuloaga, and from Rasputin the Monk to the number of miles aDarrow would go on a gallon, narrowed down to the thin, straight line ofbusiness. 

"Now don't misunderstand. Please! We're not presuming to dictate. Dearme, no! We have always felt that the writer should be free to expressthat which is in his--ah--heart. But in the last year we've been swampedwith these drab, realistic stories. Strong, relentless things, you know, about dishwashers, with a lot of fine detail about the fuzz of grease onthe rim of the pan. And then those drear and hopeless ones about fallensisters who end it all in the East River. The East River must be chokedup with 'em. Now, I know that life is real, life is earnest, and I'm notdemanding a happy ending, exactly. But if you could--that is--wouldyou--do you see your way at all clear to giving us a fairly cheerfulstory? Not necessarily Glad, but not so darned Russian, if you get me. Not pink, but not all grey either. Say--mauve. " . . . 

That was Josie Fifer's existence. Mostly grey, with a dash of pink. Which makes mauve. 

Unless you are connected (which you probably are not) with the greatfirm of Hahn & Lohman, theatrical producers, you never will have heardof Josie Fifer. 

There are things about the theatre that the public does not know. Astatement, at first blush, to be disputed. The press agent, the specialwriter, the critic, the magazines, the Sunday supplement, the divorcecourts--what have they left untold? We know the make of car MissBillboard drives; who her husbands are and were; how much the movieshave offered her; what she wears, reads, says, thinks, and eats forbreakfast. Snapshots of author writing play at place on Hudson; picturesof the play in rehearsal; of the director directing it; of the stagehands rewriting it--long before the opening night we know more about thepiece than does the playwright himself, and are ten times less eager tosee it. 

Josie Fifer's knowledge surpassed even this. For she was keeper of theghosts of the firm of Hahn & Lohman. Not only was she present at thebirth of a play; she officiated at its funeral. She carried the keys tothe closets that housed the skeletons of the firm. When a play died ofinanition, old age, or--as was sometimes the case--before it was born, it was Josie Fifer who laid out its remains and followed it to thegrave. 

Her notification of its demise would come thus:

"Hello, Fifer! This is McCabe" (the property man of H. & L. At thephone). 

"Well?"

"A little waspish this morning, aren't you, Josephine?"

"I've got twenty-five bathing suits for the No. 2 'Ataboy' company tomend and clean and press before five this afternoon. If you think I'mgoing to stand here wasting my--"

"All right, all right! I just wanted to tell you that 'My Mistake'closes Saturday. The stuff'll be up Monday morning early. "

A sardonic laugh from Josie. "And yet they say 'What's in a name!'"

The unfortunate play had been all that its title implies. Its purposewas to star an actress who hadn't a glint. Her second-act costume alonehad cost $700, but even Russian sable bands can't carry a bad play. Thecritics had pounced on it with the savagery of their kind and hacked it, limb from limb, leaving its carcass to rot under the pitiless whiteglare of Broadway. The dress with the Russian sable bands went the wayof all Hahn & Lohman tragedies. Josie Fifer received it, if notreverently, still appreciatively. 

"I should think Sid Hahn would know by this time, " she observedsniffily, as her expert fingers shook out the silken folds and smoothedthe fabulous fur, "that auburn hair and a gurgle and a Lucille dressdon't make a play. Besides, Fritzi Kirke wears the biggest shoe of anyactress I ever saw. A woman with feet like that"--she picked up a satinslipper, size 7-1/2 C--"hasn't any business on the stage. She ought totravel with a circus. Here, Etta. Hang this away in D, next to theamethyst blue velvet, and be sure and lock the door. "

McCabe had been right. A waspish wit was Josie's. 

The question is whether to reveal to you now where it was that JosieFifer reigned thus, queen of the cast-offs; or to take you back to thedays that led up to her being there--the days when she was José Fyfer onthe programme. 

Her domain was the storage warehouse of Hahn & Lohman, as you may haveguessed. If your business lay Forty-third Street way, you might havepassed the building a hundred times without once giving it a seeingglance. It was not Forty-third Street of the small shops, the smartcrowds, and the glittering motors. It was the Forty-third lying east ofthe Grand Central sluice gates; east of fashion; east, in a word, ofFifth Avenue--a great square brick building smoke-grimed, cobwebbed, andhaving the look of a cold-storage plant or a car barn fallen intodisuse; dusty, neglected, almost eerie. Yet within it lurks Romance, andher sombre sister Tragedy, and their antic brother Comedy, the cut-up. 

A worn flight of wooden steps leads up from the sidewalk to the dimhallway; a musty-smelling passage wherein you are met by a genial signwhich reads:

"No admittance. Keep out. This means you. "

To confirm this, the eye, penetrating the gloom, is confronted by agreat blank metal door that sheathes the elevator. To ride in thatelevator is to know adventure, so painfully, so protestingly, with suchcreaks and jerks and lurchings does it pull itself from floor to floor, like an octogenarian who, grunting and groaning, hoists himself from hiseasy-chair by slow stages that wring a protest from ankle, knee, hip, back and shoulder. The corkscrew stairway, broken and footworn though itis, seems infinitely less perilous. 

First floor--second--third--fourth. Whew! And there you are in JosieFifer's kingdom--a great front room, unexpectedly bright and even cosywith its whir of sewing machines: tables, and tables, and tables, piledwith orderly stacks of every sort of clothing, from shoes to hats, fromgloves to parasols; and in the room beyond this, and beyond that, andagain beyond that, row after row of high wooden cabinets stretching thewidth of the room, and forming innumerable aisles. All of Bluebeard'swives could have been tucked away in one corner of the remotest andleast of these, and no one the wiser. All grimly shut and locked, theyare, with the key in Josie's pocket. But when, at the behest of McCabe, or sometimes even Sid Hahn himself, she unlocked and opened one ofthese doors, what treasures hung revealed! What shimmer and sparkle andperfume--and moth balls! The long-tailed electric light bulb held highin one hand, Josie would stand at the door like a priestess before heraltar. 

There they swung, the ghosts and the skeletons, side by side. Youremember that slinking black satin snakelike sheath that Gita Moriniwore in "Little Eyolf"? There it dangles, limp, invertebrate, yet howeloquent! No other woman in the world could have worn that gown, withits unbroken line from throat to hem, its smooth, high, black satincollar, its writhing tail that went slip-slip-slipping after her. In itshe had looked like a sleek and wicked python that had fasted for along, long time. 

Dresses there are that have made stage history. Surely you remember theberuffled, rose-strewn confection in which the beautiful Elsa Marriottswam into our ken in "Mississipp'"? She used to say, wistfully, that shealways got a hand on her entrance in that dress. It was due to the sheershock of delight that thrilled audience after audience as it beheld herloveliness enhanced by this floating, diaphanous tulle cloud. There ithangs, time-yellowed, its pristine freshness vanished quite, yet asfragrant with romance as is the sere and withered blossom of a deadwhite rose pressed within the leaves of a book of love poems. Just nextit, incongruously enough, flaunt the wicked froufrou skirts and thelow-cut bodice and the wasp waist of the abbreviated costume in whichCora Kassell used so generously to display her charms. A rich and portlysociety matron of Pittsburgh now--she whose name had been a synonym forpulchritude these thirty years; she who had had more cold creams, hats, cigars, corsets, horses, and lotions named for her than any woman inhistory! Her ample girth would have wrought sad havoc with thateighteen-inch waist now. Gone are the chaste curves of the slim whitesilk legs that used to kick so lithely from the swirl of lace andchiffon. Yet there it hangs, pertly pathetic, mute evidence of hervanished youth, her delectable beauty, and her unblushing confidence inthose same. 

Up one aisle and down the next--velvet, satin, lace and broadcloth--herethe costume the great Canfield had worn in Richard III; there the littlecocked hat and the slashed jerkin in which Maude Hammond, as Peterkins, winged her way to fame up through the hearts of a million children whoseages ranged from seven to seventy. Brocades and ginghams; tailor suitsand peignoirs; puffed sleeves and tight--dramatic history, all, theyspelled failure, success, hope, despair, vanity, pride, triumph, decay. Tragic ghosts, over which Josie Fifer held grim sway!

Have I told you that Josie Fifer, moving nimbly about the greatstorehouse, limped as she went? The left leg swung as a normal legshould. The right followed haltingly, sagging at hip and knee. And thatbrings us back to the reason for her being where she was. And what. 

The story of how Josie Fifer came to be mistress of the cast-off robesof the firm of Hahn & Lohman is one of those stage tragedies that neverhave a public performance. Josie had been one of those little girls whospeak pieces at chicken-pie suppers held in the basement of thePresbyterian church. Her mother had been a silly, idle woman addicted tomother hubbards and paper-backed novels about the house. Her one passionwas the theatre, a passion that had very scant opportunity for feedingin Wapello, Iowa. Josie's piece-speaking talent was evidently a directinheritance. Some might call it a taint. 

Two days before one of Josie's public appearances her mother would twistthe child's hair into innumerable rag curlers that stood out ingrotesque, Topsy-like bumps all over her fair head. On the eventfulevening each rag chrysalis would burst into a full-blown butterfly curl. In a pale-blue, lace-fretted dress over a pale-blue slip, made in whather mother called "Empire style, " Josie would deliver herself of"Entertaining Big Sister's Beau" and other sophisticated classics withan incredible ease and absence of embarrassment. It wasn't a definiteboldness in her. She merely liked standing there before all thosepeople, in her blue dress and her toe slippers, speaking her pieces withenhancing gestures taught her by her mother in innumerable rehearsals. 

Any one who has ever lived in Wapello, Iowa, or its equivalent, remembers the old opera house on the corner of Main and Elm, withSchroeder's drug store occupying the first floor. Opera never camewithin three hundred miles of Wapello, unless it was the so-calledcomic kind. It was before the day of the ubiquitous moving-picturetheatre that has since been the undoing of the one-night standand the ten-twenty-thirty stock company. The old red-brick operahouse furnished unlimited thrills for Josie and her mother. Fromthe time Josie was seven she was taken to see whatever Wapello wasoffered in the way of the drama. That consisted mostly of plays of thetell-me-more-about-me-mother type. 

By the time she was ten she knew the whole repertoire of the Maude LaVergne Stock Company by heart. She was _blasé_ with "East Lynne" and"The Two Orphans, " and even "Camille" left her cold. She was as wise tothe trade tricks as is a New York first nighter. She would sit there inthe darkened auditorium of a Saturday afternoon, surveying the stagewith a judicious and undeceived eye, as she sucked indefatigably at alollipop extracted from the sticky bag clutched in one moist palm. (Abag of candy to each and every girl; a ball or a top to each and everyboy!) Josie knew that the middle-aged _soubrette_ who came out betweenthe first and second acts to sing a gingham-and-sunbonnet song wouldwhisk off to reappear immediately in knee-length pink satin and curls. When the heroine left home in a shawl and a sudden snowstorm thatfollowed her upstage and stopped when she went off, Josie wasinterested, but undeceived. She knew that the surprised-looking whitehorse used in the Civil War comedy-drama entitled "His SouthernSweetheart" came from Joe Brink's livery stable in exchange for fourpasses, and that the faithful old negro servitor in the white cotton wigwould save somebody from something before the afternoon was over. 

In was inevitable that as Josie grew older she should take part inhome-talent plays. It was one of these tinsel affairs that had madeclear to her just where her future lay. The Wapello _Daily Courier_helped her in her decision. She had taken the part of a gipsy queen, appropriately costumed in slightly soiled white satin slippers withfour-inch heels, and a white satin dress enhanced by a red sash, a blackvelvet bolero, and large hoop earrings. She had danced and sung with apert confidence, and the _Courier_ had pronounced her talents notamateur, but professional, and had advised the managers (who, no doubt, read the Wapello _Courier_ daily, along with their _Morning Telegraph_)to seek her out, and speedily. 

Josie didn't wait for them to take the hint. She sought them outinstead. There followed seven tawdry, hard-working, heartbreaking years. Supe, walk-on, stock, musical comedy--Josie went through them all. Ifany illusions about the stage had survived her Wapello days, they wouldhave vanished in the first six months of her dramatic career. By thetime she was twenty-four she had acquired the wisdom of fifty, anear-seal coat, a turquoise ring with a number of smoky-looking crusheddiamonds surrounding it, and a reputation for wit and for decency. Thelast had cost the most. 

During all these years of cheap theatrical boarding houses (the mostsoul-searing cheapness in the world), of one-night stands, of insult, disappointment, rebuff, and something that often came perilously near towant, Josie Fifer managed to retain a certain humorous outlook on life. There was something whimsical about it. She could even see a joke onherself. When she first signed her name José Fyfer, for example, she didit with, an appreciative giggle and a glint in her eye as she formed theaccent mark over the e. 

"They'll never stop me now, " she said. "I'm made. But I wish I knew ifthat J was pronounced like H, in humbug. Are there any Spanish blondes?"

It used to be the habit of the other women in the company to say to her:"Jo, I'm blue as the devil to-day. Come on, give us a laugh. "

She always obliged. 

And then came a Sunday afternoon in late August when her laugh broke offshort in the middle, and was forever after a stunted thing. 

She was playing Atlantic City in a second-rate musical show. She hadnever seen the ocean before, and she viewed it now with an appreciationthat still had in it something of a Wapello freshness. 

They all planned to go in bathing that hot August afternoon afterrehearsal. Josie had seen pictures of the beauteous bathing girl dashinginto the foaming breakers. She ran across the stretch of glisteningbeach, paused and struck a pose, one toe pointed waterward, her armsextended affectedly. 

"So!" she said mincingly. "So this is Paris!"

It was a new line in those days, and they all laughed, as she had meantthey should. So she leaped into the water with bounds and shouts andmuch waving of white arms. A great floating derelict of a log struck herleg with its full weight, and with all the tremendous force of thebreaker behind it. She doubled up ridiculously, and went down like ashot. Those on the beach laughed again. When she came up, and they sawher distorted face they stopped laughing, and fished her out. Her legwas broken in two places, and mashed in a dozen. 

José Fyfer's dramatic career was over. (This is not the cheery portionof the story. )

When she came out of the hospital, three months later, she did verywell indeed with her crutches. But the merry-eyed woman hadvanished--she of the Wapello colouring that had persisted duringall these years. In her place limped a wan, shrunken, tragic littlefigure whose humour had soured to a caustic wit. The near-seal coat andthe turquoise-and-crushed-diamond ring had vanished too. 

During those agonized months she had received from the others inthe company such kindness and generosity as only stage folk canshow--flowers, candy, dainties, magazines, sent by every one from theprima donna to the call boy. Then the show left town. There came a fewletters of kind inquiry, then an occasional post card, signed by half adozen members of the company. Then these ceased. Josie Fifer, in hercast and splints and bandages and pain, dragged out long hospital daysand interminable hospital nights. She took a dreary pleasure infollowing the tour of her erstwhile company via the pages of thetheatrical magazines. 

"They're playing Detroit this week, " she would announce to the aloof andspectacled nurse. Or: "One-night stands, and they're due in Muncie, Ind. , to-night. I don't know which is worse--playing Muncie for onenight or this moan factory for a three month's run. "

When she was able to crawl out as far as the long corridor she spoke toevery one she met. As she grew stronger she visited here and there, andon the slightest provocation she would give a scene ranging all the wayfrom "Romeo and Juliet" to "The Black Crook. " It was thus she first metSid Hahn, and felt the warming, healing glow of his friendship. 

Some said that Sid Hahn's brilliant success as a manager at thirty-fivewas due to his ability to pick winners. Others thought it was hisrefusal to be discouraged when he found he had picked a failure. Stillothers, who knew him better, were likely to say: "Why, I don't know. It's a sort of--well, you might call it charm--and yet--. Did you ever seehim smile? He's got a million-dollar grin. You can't resist it. "

None of them was right. Or all of them. Sid Hahn, erstwhile usher, callboy, press agent, advance man, had a genius for things theatrical. Itwas inborn. Dramatic, sensitive, artistic, intuitive, he was oftenrendered inarticulate by the very force and variety of his feelings. Alittle, rotund, ugly man, Sid Hahn, with the eyes of a dreamer, thewide, mobile mouth of a humourist, the ears of a comic ol'-clo'es man. His generosity was proverbial, and it amounted to a vice. 

In September he had come to Atlantic City to try out "Splendour. " It wasa doubtful play, by a new author, starring Sarah Haddon for the firsttime. No one dreamed the play would run for years, make a fortune forHahn, lift Haddon from obscurity to the dizziest heights of stardom, andbecome a classic of the stage. 

Ten minutes before the curtain went up on the opening performance Hahnwas stricken with appendicitis. There was not even time to rush him toNew York. He was on the operating table before the second act wasbegun. When he came out of the ether he said: "How did it go?"

"Fine!" beamed the nurse. "You'll be out in two weeks. "

"Oh, hell! I don't mean the operation. I mean the play. "

He learned soon enough from the glowing, starry-eyed Sarah Haddon andfrom every one connected with the play. He insisted on seeing them alldaily, against his doctor's orders, and succeeded in working up atemperature that made his hospital stay a four weeks' affair. He refusedto take the tryout results as final. 

"Don't be too bubbly about this thing, " he cautioned Sarah Haddon. "I'veseen too many plays that were skyrockets on the road come down likesticks when they struck New York. "

The company stayed over in Atlantic City for a week, and Hahn heldscraps of rehearsals in his room when he had a temperature of 102. SarahHaddon worked like a slave. She seemed to realise that her greatopportunity had come--the opportunity for which hundreds of giftedactresses wait a lifetime. Haddon was just twenty-eight then--a yearyounger than Josie Fifer. She had not yet blossomed into the fullradiance of her beauty. She was too slender, and inclined to stoop abit, but her eyes were glorious, her skin petal-smooth, her whole facereminding one, somehow, of an intelligent flower. Her voice was agolden, liquid delight. 

Josie Fifer, dragging herself from bed to chair, and from chair to bed, used to watch for her. Hahn's room was on her floor. Sarah Haddon, inher youth and beauty and triumph, represented to Josie all that she haddreamed of and never realised; all that she had hoped for and nevercould know. She used to insist on having her door open, and she wouldlie there for hours, her eyes fixed on that spot in the hall acrosswhich Haddon would flash for one brief instant on her way to the roomdown the corridor. There is about a successful actress a certain radiantsomething--a glamour, a luxuriousness, an atmosphere that suggest amysterious mixture of silken things, of perfume, of adulation, of allthat is rare and costly and perishable and desirable. 

Josie Fifer's stage experience had included none of this. But she knewthey were there. She sensed that to this glorious artist would come allthose fairy gifts that Josie Fifer would never possess. All things abouther--her furs, her gloves, her walk, her hats, her voice, her very shoeties--were just what Josie would have wished for. As she lay there shedeveloped a certain grim philosophy. 

"She's got everything a woman could wish for. Me, I haven't got a thing. Not a blamed thing! And yet they say everything works out in the endaccording to some scheme or other. Well, what's the answer to this, Iwonder? I can't make it come out right. I guess one of the figures musthave got away from me. "

In the second week of Sid Hahn's convalescence he heard, somehow, ofJosie Fifer. It was characteristic of him that he sent for her. She puta chiffon scarf about the neck of her skimpy little kimono, spent anhour and ten minutes on her hair, made up outrageously with that sublimeunconsciousness that comes from too close familiarity with rouge pad andgrease jar, and went. She was trembling as though facing a first-nightaudience in a part she wasn't up on. Between the crutches, the lameness, and the trembling she presented to Sid Hahn, as she stood in thedoorway, a picture that stabbed his kindly, sensitive heart with a quickpang of sympathy. 

He held out his hand. Josie's crept into it. At the feel of thatgenerous friendly clasp she stopped trembling. Said Hahn:

"My nurse tells me that you can do a bedside burlesque of 'East Lynne'that made even that Boston-looking interne with the thick glasses laugh. Go on and do it for me, there's a good girl. I could use a laugh myselfjust now. "

And Josie Fifer caught up a couch cover for a cloak, with the scarf thatwas about her neck for a veil, and, using Hahn himself as the ailingchee-ild, gave a biting burlesque of the famous bedside visit thatbrought the tears of laughter to his eyes, and the nurse flying fromdown the hall. "This won't do, " said that austere person. 

"Won't, eh? Go on and stick your old thermometer in my mouth. What do Icare! A laugh like that is worth five degrees of temperature. "

When Josie rose to leave he eyed her keenly, and pointed to the draggingleg. 

"How about that? Temporary or permanent?"

"Permanent. "

"Oh, fudge! Who's telling you that? These days they can do--"

"Not with this, though. That one bone was mashed into about twenty-ninesplinters, and when it came to putting 'em together again a couple ofpieces were missing. I must've mislaid 'em somewhere. Anyway, I make alimping exit--for life. "

"Then no more stage for you--eh, my girl?"

"No more stage. "

Hahn reached for a pad of paper on the table at his bedside, scrawled afew words on it, signed it "S. H. " in the fashion which became famous, and held the paper out to her. 

"When you get out of here, " he said, "you come to New York, and up to myoffice; see? Give 'em this at the door. I've got a job for you--if youwant it. "

And that was how Josie Fifer came to take charge of the great Hahn &Lohman storehouse. It was more than a storehouse. It was a museum. Ithoused the archives of the American stage. If Hahn & Lohman pridedthemselves on one thing more than on another, it was the lavishgenerosity with which they invested a play, from costumes to carpets. Aperiod play was a period play when they presented it. You never saw aFrench clock on a Dutch mantel in a Hahn & Lohman production. No hybridhangings marred their back drop. No matter what the play, the firmprovided its furnishings from the star's slippers to the chandeliers. Did a play last a year or a week, at the end of its run furniture, hangings, scenery, rugs, gowns, everything, went off in wagonloads tothe already crowded storehouse on East Forty-third Street. 

Sometimes a play proved so popular that its original costumes, outworn, had to be renewed. Sometimes the public cried "Thumbs down!" at theopening performance, and would have none of it thereafter. That meantthat costumes sometimes reached Josie Fifer while the wounds of thedressmaker's needle still bled in them. And whether for a week or a yearfur on a Hahn & Lohman costume was real fur; its satin was silk-backed, its lace real lace. No paste, or tinsel, or cardboard about H. & L. !Josie Fifer could recall the scenes in a play, step by step from notingwith her keen eye the marks left on costume after costume by the ravagesof emotion. At the end of a play's run she would hold up a dress forcritical inspection, turning it this way and that. 

"This is the dress she wore in her big scene at the end of the secondact where she crawls on her knees to her wronged husband and pounds onthe door and weeps. She certainly did give it some hard wear. WhenMarriott crawls she crawls, and when she bawls she bawls. I'll say thatfor her. From the looks of this front breadth she must have worn agroove in the stage at the York. "

No gently sentimental reason caused Hahn & Lohman to house thesehundreds of costumes, these tons of scenery, these forests of furniture. Neither had Josie Fifer been hired to walk wistfully among them like aspinster wandering in a dead rose garden. No, they were stored for amuch thriftier reason. They were stored, if you must know, for possiblefuture use. H. & L. Were too clever not to use a last year's costume fora this year's road show. They knew what a coat of enamel would do for abedroom set. It was Josie Fifer's duty not only to tabulate and care forthese relics, but to refurbish them when necessary. The sewing was doneby a little corps of assistants under Josie's direction. 

But all this came with the years. When Josie Fifer, white and weak, first took charge of the H. & L. _lares et penates_, she told herself itwas only for a few months--a year or two at most. The end of sixteenyears found her still there. 

When she came to New York, "Splendour" was just beginning its phenomenalthree years' run. The city was mad about the play. People came to seeit again and again--a sure sign of a long run. The Sarah Haddon second-actcostume was photographed, copied (unsuccessfully), talked about, untilit became as familiar as a uniform. That costume had much to dowith the play's success, though Sarah Haddon would never admit it. "Splendour" was what is known as a period play. The famous dress was ofblack velvet, made with a quaint, full-gathered skirt that made Haddon'sslim waist seem fairylike and exquisitely supple. The black velvetbodice outlined the delicate swell of the bust. A rope of pearlsenhanced the whiteness of her throat. Her hair, done in old-timescallops about her forehead, was a gleaming marvel of simplicity, andthe despair of every woman who tried to copy it. The part was that of anItalian opera singer. The play pulsated with romance and love, glamourand tragedy. Sarah Haddon, in her flowing black velvet robe and herpearls and her pallor, was an exotic, throbbing, exquisite realisationof what every woman in the audience dreamed of being and every mandreamed of loving. 

Josie Fifer saw the play for the first time from a balcony seat givenher by Sid Hahn. It left her trembling, red-eyed, shaken. After that sheused to see it, by hook or crook whenever possible. She used to come inat the stage door and lurk back of the scenes and in the wings when shehad no business there. She invented absurd errands to take her to thetheatre where "Splendour" was playing. Sid Hahn always said that afterthe big third-act scene he liked to watch the audience swim up theaisle. Josie, hidden in the back-stage shadows, used to watch, fascinated, breathless. Then, one night, she indiscreetly was led, byher, absorbed interest, to venture too far into the wings. It wasduring the scene where Haddon, hearing a broken-down street singercracking the golden notes of "Aïda" into a thousand mutilated fragments, throws open her window and, leaning far out, pours a shower of Italianand broken English and laughter and silver coin upon her amazedcompatriot below. 

When the curtain went down she came off raging. 

"What was that? Who was that standing in the wings? How dare any onestand there! Everybody knows I can't have any one in the wings. Staring!It ruined my scene to-night. Where's McCabe? Tell Mr. Hahn I want to seehim. Who was it? Staring at me like a ghost!"

Josie had crept away, terrified, contrite, and yet resentful. But thenext week saw her back at the theatre, though she took care to stay inthe shadows. 

She was waiting for the black velvet dress. It was more than a dress toher. It was infinitely more than a stage costume. It was the habit ofglory. It epitomised all that Josie Fifer had missed of beauty andhomage and success. 

The play ran on, and on, and on. Sarah Haddon was superstitious aboutthe black gown. She refused to give it up for a new one. She insistedthat if ever she discarded the old black velvet for a new the run of theplay would stop. She assured Hahn that its shabbiness did not show fromthe front. She clung to it with that childish unreasonableness that isso often found in people of the stage. 

But Josie waited patiently. Dozens of costumes passed through herhands. She saw plays come and go. Dresses came to her whose lining borethe mark of world-famous modistes. She hung them away, or refurbishedthem if necessary with disinterested conscientiousness. Sometimes hercaustic comment, as she did so, would have startled the complacency ofthe erstwhile wearers of the garments. Her knowledge of the stage, itsartifices, its pretence, its narrowness, its shams, was widening anddeepening. No critic in bone-rimmed glasses and evening clothes was morescathingly severe than she. She sewed on satin. She mended fine lace. She polished stage jewels. And waited. She knew that one day herpatience would be rewarded. And then, at last came the familiar voiceover the phone: "Hello, Fifer! McCabe talking. "

"Well?"

"'Splendour' closes Saturday. Haddon says she won't play in this heat. They're taking it to London in the autumn. The stuff'll be up Monday, early. "

Josie Fifer turned away from the telephone with a face so radiant thatone of her sewing women, looking up, was moved to comment. 

"Got some good news, Miss Fifer?"

"'Splendour' closes this week. "

"Well, my land! To look at you a person would think you'd been losingmoney at the box office every night it ran. "

The look was still on her face when Monday morning came. She was sewingon a dress just discarded by Adelaide French, the tragédienne. Adelaide's maid was said to be the hardest-worked woman in theprofession. When French finished with a costume it was useless as adress; but it was something historic, like a torn and tattered battleflag--an emblem. 

McCabe, box under his arm, stood in the doorway. Josie Fifer stood up sosuddenly that the dress on her lap fell to the floor. She stepped overit heedlessly, and went toward McCabe, her eyes on the pasteboard box. Behind McCabe stood two more men, likewise box-laden. 

"Put them down here, " said Josie. The men thumped the boxes down on thelong table. Josie's fingers were already at the strings. She opened thefirst box, emptied its contents, tossed them aside, passed on to thesecond. Her hands busied themselves among the silks and broadcloth ofthis; then on to the third and last box. McCabe and his men, withscenery and furniture still to unload and store, turned to go. Theirfootsteps echoed hollowly as they clattered down the worn old stairway. Josie snapped the cord that bound the third box. Her cheeks wereflushed, her eyes bright. She turned it upside down. Then she pawed itover. Then she went back to the contents of the first two boxes, clawingabout among the limp garments with which the table was strewn. She wasbreathing quickly. Suddenly: "It isn't here!" she cried. "It isn'there!" She turned and flew to the stairway. The voices of the men cameup to her. She leaned far over the railing. "McCabe! McCabe!"

"Yeh? What do you want?"

"The black velvet dress! The black velvet dress! It isn't there. "

"Oh, yeh. That's all right. Haddon, she's got a bug about that dress, and she says she wants to take it to London with her, to use on theopening night. She says if she wears a new one that first night, theplay'll be a failure. Some temperament, that girl, since she's got to bea star!"

Josie stood clutching the railing of the stairway. Her disappointmentwas so bitter that she could not weep. She felt cheated, outraged. Shewas frightened at the intensity of her own sensations. "She might havelet me have it, " she said aloud in the dim half light of the hallway. "She's got everything else in the world. She might have let me havethat. "

Then she went back into the big, bright sewing room. "Splendour" ranthree years in London. 

During those three years she saw Sid Hahn only three or four times. Hespent much of his time abroad. Whenever opportunity presented itself shewould say: "Is 'Splendour' still playing in London?"

"Still playing. "

The last time Hahn, intuitive as always, had eyed her curiously. "Youseem to be interested in that play. "

"Oh, well, " Josie had replied with assumed carelessness, "it being inAtlantic City just when I had my accident, and then meeting you throughthat, and all, why, I always kind of felt a personal interest in it. " . . . 

At the end of three years Sarah Haddon returned to New York with anEnglish accent, a slight embonpoint, and a little foreign habit ofrushing up to her men friends with a delighted exclamation (preferablyFrench) and kissing them on both cheeks. When Josie Fifer, happeningback stage at a rehearsal of the star's new play, first saw her do thisa grim gleam came into her eyes. 

"Bernhardt's the only woman who can spring that and get away with it, "she said to her assistant. "Haddon's got herself sized up wrong. I'llgamble her next play will be a failure. "

And it was. 

The scenery, props, and costumes of the London production of "Splendour"were slow in coming back. But finally they did come. Josie received themwith the calmness that comes of hope deferred. It had been three yearssince she last saw the play. She told herself, chidingly, that she hadbeen sort of foolish over that play and this costume. Her recent glimpseof Haddon had been somewhat disillusioning. But now, when she finallyheld the gown itself in her hand--the original "Splendour" second-actgown, a limp, soft black mass: just a few yards of worn and shabbyvelvet--she found her hands shaking. Here was where she had hugged thetoy dog to her breast. Here where she had fallen on her knees to praybefore the little shrine in her hotel room. Every worn spot had ameaning for her. Every mark told a story. Her fingers smoothed ittenderly. 

"Not much left of that, " said one of the sewing girls, glancing up. "Iguess Sarah would have a hard time making the hooks and eyes meet now. They say she's come home from London looking a little too prosperous. "

Josie did not answer. She folded the dress over her arm and carried itto the wardrobe room. There she hung it away in an empty closet, quiteapart from the other historic treasures. And there it hung, untouched, until the following Sunday. 

On Sunday morning East Forty-third Street bears no more resemblance tothe week-day Forty-third than does a stiffly starched and subduedSabbath-school scholar to his Monday morning self. Strangely quiet itis, and unfrequented. Josie Fifer, scurrying along in the unwontedstillness, was prompted to throw a furtive glance over her shoulder nowand then, as though afraid of being caught at some criminal act. She ranup the little flight of steps with a rush, unlocked the door withtrembling fingers, and let herself into the cool, dank gloom of thestorehouse hall. The metal door of the elevator stared inquiringly afterher. She fled past it to the stairway. Every step of that ancientstructure squeaked and groaned. First floor, second, third, fourth. Theeveryday hum of the sewing machines was absent. The room seemed to beholding its breath. Josie fancied that the very garments on theworktables lifted themselves inquiringly from their supine position tosee what it was that disturbed their Sabbath rest. Josie, a tense, wide-eyed, frightened little figure, stood in the centre of the vastroom, listening to she knew not what. Then, relaxing, she gave a nervouslittle laugh and, reaching up, unpinned her hat. She threw it on anear-by table and disappeared into the wardrobe room beyond. 

Minutes passed--an hour. She did not come back. From the room beyondcame strange sounds--a woman's voice; the thrill of a song; cries; theanguish of tears; laughter, harsh and high, as a desperate and deceivedwoman laughs--all this following in such rapid succession that Sid Hahn, puffing laboriously up the four flights of stairs leading to thewardrobe floor, entered the main room unheard. Unknown to any one, hewas indulging in one of his unsuspected visits to the old wareroom thathoused the evidence of past and gone successes--successes that hadbrought him fortune and fame, but little real happiness, perhaps. No oneknew that he loved to browse among these pathetic rags of a forgottentriumph. No one would have dreamed that this chubby little man couldglow and weep over the cast-off garment of a famous Cyrano, or the fadedfinery of a Zaza. 

At the doorway he paused now, startled. He was listening with everynerve of his taut body. What? Who? He tiptoed across the room with astep incredibly light for one so stout, peered cautiously around theside of the doorway, and leaned up against it weakly. Josie Fifer, inthe black velvet and mock pearls of "Splendour, " with her grey-streakedblonde hair hidden under the romantic scallops of a black wig, wasgiving the big scene from the third act. And though it sounded like aburlesque of that famous passage, and though she limped more than everas she reeled to an imaginary shrine in the corner, and though the blackwig was slightly askew by now, and the black velvet hung with bunchyawkwardness about her skinny little body, there was nothing of mirth inSid Hahn's face as he gazed. He shrank back now. 

She was coming to the big speech at the close of the act--the bigrenunciation speech that was the curtain. Sid Hahn turned and tiptoedpainfully, breathlessly, magnificently, out of the big front room, intothe hallway, down the creaking stairs, and so to the sunshine ofForty-third Street, with its unaccustomed Sunday-morning quiet. And hewas smiling that rare and melting smile of his--the smile that was saidto make him look something like a kewpie, and something like a cupid, and a bit like an imp, and very much like an angel. There was little ofthe first three in it now, and very much of the last. And so he gotheavily into his very grand motor car and drove off. 

"Why, the poor little kid, " said he--"the poor, lonely, stifled littlecrippled-up kid. "

"I beg your pardon, sir?" inquired his chauffeur. 

"Speak when you're spoken to, " snapped Sid Hahn. 

And here it must be revealed to you that Sid Hahn did not marry theCinderella of the storage warehouse. He did not marry anybody, andneither did Josie. And yet there is a bit more to this story--ten yearsmore, if you must know--ten years, the end of which found Josie asparse, spectacled, and agile little cripple, as alert and caustic asever. It found Sid Hahn the most famous theatrical man of his day. Itfound Sarah Haddon at the fag-end of a career that had blazed withtriumph and adulation. She had never had a success like "Splendour. "Indeed, there were those who said that all the plays that followed hadbeen failures, carried to semi-success on the strength of that play'sglorious past. She eschewed low-cut gowns now. She knew that it is thetelltale throat which first shows the marks of age. She knew, too, whyBernhardt, in "Camille, " always died in a high-necked nightgown. Shetook to wearing high, ruffled things about her throat, and softening, kindly chiffons. 

And then, in a mistaken moment, they planned a revival of "Splendour. "Sarah Haddon would again play the part that had become a classic. Fathers had told their children of it--of her beauty, her golden voice, the exquisite grace of her, the charm, the tenderness, the pathos. Andthey told them of the famous black velvet dress, and how in it she hadmoved like a splendid, buoyant bird. 

So they revived "Splendour. " And men and women brought their sons anddaughters to see. And what they saw was a stout, middle-aged woman in atoo-tight black velvet dress that made her look like a dowager. And whenthis woman flopped down on her knees in the big scene at the close ofthe last act she had a rather dreadful time of it getting up again. And the audience, resentful, bewildered, cheated of a precious memory, laughed. That laugh sealed the career of Sarah Haddon. It is afickle thing, this public that wants to be amused; fickle and crueland--paradoxically enough--true to its superstitions. The Sarah Haddonof eighteen years ago was one of these. They would have none of thisfat, puffy, ample-bosomed woman who was trying to blot her picture fromtheir memory. "Away with her!" cried the critics through the columns ofnext morning's paper. And Sarah Haddon's day was done. 

"It's because I didn't wear the original black velvet dress!" cried she, with the unreasoning rage for which she had always been famous. "If Ihad worn it, everything would have been different. That dress had agood-luck charm. Where is it? I want it. I don't care if they do takeoff the play. I want it. I want it. "

"Why, child, " Sid Hahn said soothingly, "that dress has probably falleninto dust by this time. "

"Dust! What do you mean? How old do you think I am? That you should saythat to me! I've made millions for you, and now--"

"Now, now, Sally, be a good girl. That's all rot about that dress beinglucky. You've grown out of this part; that's all. We'll find anotherplay--"

"I want that dress. "

Sid Hahn flushed uncomfortably. "Well, if you must know, I gave itaway. "

"To whom?"

"To--to Josie Fifer. She took a notion to it, and so I told her shecould have it. " Then, as Sarah Haddon rose, dried her eyes, and began tostraighten her hat: "Where are you going?" He trailed her to the doorworriedly. "Now, Sally, don't do anything foolish. You're just tired andoverstrung. Where are you--"

"I am going to see Josie Fifer. "

"Now, look here, Sarah!"

But she was off, and Sid Hahn could only follow after, the showman inhim anticipating the scene that was to follow. When he reached thefourth floor of the storehouse Sarah Haddon was there ahead of him. Thetwo women--one tall, imperious, magnificent in furs; the other shrunken, deformed, shabby--stood staring at each other from opposites sides ofthe worktable. And between them, in a crumpled, grey-black heap, lay thevelvet gown. 

"I don't care who says you can have it, " Josie Fifer's shrill voice wassaying. "It's mine, and I'm going to keep it. Mr. Hahn himself gave itto me. He said I could cut it up for a dress or something if I wantedto. Long ago. " Then, as Sid Hahn himself appeared, she appealed to him. "There he is now. Didn't you, Mr. Hahn? Didn't you say I could have it?Years ago?"

"Yes, Jo, " said Sid Hahn. "It's yours, to do with as you wish. "

Sarah Haddon, who never had been denied anything in all her pamperedlife, turned to him now. Her bosom rose and fell. She was breathingsharply. "But S. H. !" she cried, "S. H. , I've got to have it. Don't yousee, I want it! It's all I've got left in the world of what I used tobe. I want it!" She began to cry, and it was not acting. 

Josie Fifer stood staring at her, her eyes wide with horror andunbelief. 

"Why, say, listen! Listen! You can have it. I didn't know you wanted itas bad as that. Why, you can have it. I want you to take it. Here. "

She shoved it across the table. Sarah reached out for it quickly. Sherolled it up in a tight bundle and whisked off with it without abackward glance at Josie or at Hahn. She was still sobbing as she wentdown the stairs. 

The two stood staring at each other ludicrously. Hahn spoke first. 

"I'm sorry, Josie. That was nice of you, giving it to her like that. "

But Josie did not seem to hear. At least she paid no attention to hisremark. She was staring at him with that dazed and wide-eyed look ofone upon whom a great truth has just dawned. Then, suddenly, she beganto laugh. She laughed a high, shrill laugh that was not so much anexpression of mirth as of relief. 

Sid Hahn put up a pudgy hand in protest. "Josie! Please! For the love ofHeaven don't _you_ go and get it. I've had to do with one hystericalwoman to-day. Stop that laughing! Stop it!"

Josie stopped, not abruptly, but in a little series of recurringgiggles. Then these subsided and she was smiling. It wasn't at all herusual smile. The bitterness was quite gone from it. She faced Sid Hahnacross the table. Her palms were outspread, as one who would make thingsplain. "I wasn't hysterical. I was just laughing. I've been aboutseventeen years earning that laugh. Don't grudge it to me. "

"Let's have the plot, " said Hahn. 

"There isn't any. You see, it's just--well, I've just discovered how itworks out. After all these years! She's had everything she wanted allher life. And me, I've never had anything. Not a thing. She's travelledone way, and I've travelled in the opposite direction, and where has itbrought us? Here we are, both fighting over an old black velvet rag. Don't you see? Both wanting the same--" She broke off, with the littletwisted smile on her lips again. "Life's a strange thing, Mr. Hahn. "

"I hope, Josie, you don't claim any originality for that remark, "replied Sid Hahn dryly. 

"But, " argued the editor, "you don't call this a cheerful story, Ihope. "

"Well, perhaps not exactly boisterous. But it teaches a lesson, and allthat. And it's sort of philosophical and everything, don't you think?"

The editor shuffled the sheets together decisively, so that they formeda neat sheaf. "I'm afraid I didn't make myself quite clear. It'sentertaining, and all that, but--ah--in view of our present needs, I'msorry to say we--"

II

THE GAY OLD DOG

Those of you who have dwelt--or even lingered--in Chicago, Illinois(this is not a humorous story), are familiar with the region known asthe Loop. For those others of you to whom Chicago is a transfer pointbetween New York and San Francisco there is presented this briefexplanation:

The Loop is a clamorous, smoke-infested district embraced by the ironarms of the elevated tracks. In a city boasting fewer millions, it wouldbe known familiarly as downtown. From Congress to Lake Street, fromWabash almost to the river, those thunderous tracks make a completecircle, or loop. Within it lie the retail shops, the commercial hotels, the theatres, the restaurants. It is the Fifth Avenue (diluted) and theBroadway (deleted) of Chicago. And he who frequents it by night insearch of amusement and cheer is known, vulgarly, as a Loop-hound. 

Jo Hertz was a Loop-hound. On the occasion of those sparse first nightsgranted the metropolis of the Middle West he was always present, thirdrow, aisle, left. When a new loop café was opened Jo's table alwayscommanded an unobstructed view of anything worth viewing. On enteringhe was wont to say, "Hello, Gus, " with careless cordiality to the headwaiter, the while his eye roved expertly from table to table as heremoved his gloves. He ordered things under glass, so that his table, atmidnight or thereabouts, resembled a hot-bed that favours the bellsystem. The waiters fought for him. He was the kind of man who mixes hisown salad dressing. He liked to call for a bowl, some cracked ice, lemon, garlic, paprika, salt, pepper, vinegar, and oil and make a riteof it. People at near-by tables would lay down their knives and forks towatch, fascinated. The secret of it seemed to lie in using all the oilin sight and calling for more. 

That was Jo--a plump and lonely bachelor of fifty. A plethoric, roving-eyed and kindly man, clutching vainly at the garments of a youththat had long slipped past him. Jo Hertz, in one of those pinch-waistbelted suits and a trench coat and a little green hat, walking upMichigan Avenue of a bright winter's afternoon, trying to take the curbwith a jaunty youthfulness against which every one of his fat-encasedmuscles rebelled, was a sight for mirth or pity, depending on one'svision. 

The gay-dog business was a late phase in the life of Jo Hertz. He hadbeen a quite different sort of canine. The staid and harassed brother ofthree unwed and selfish sisters is an under dog. The tale of how JoHertz came to be a Loop-hound should not be compressed within thelimits of a short story. It should be told as are the photo plays, withfrequent throwbacks and many cut-ins. To condense twenty-three years ofa man's life into some five or six thousand words requires a verbaleconomy amounting to parsimony. 

At twenty-seven Jo had been the dutiful, hard-working son (in thewholesale harness business) of a widowed and gummidging mother, whocalled him Joey. If you had looked close you would have seen that nowand then a double wrinkle would appear between Jo's eyes--a wrinkle thathad no business there at twenty-seven. Then Jo's mother died, leavinghim handicapped by a death-bed promise, the three sisters and athree-story-and-basement house on Calumet Avenue. Jo's wrinkle became afixture. 

Death-bed promises should be broken as lightly as they are seriouslymade. The dead have no right to lay their clammy fingers upon theliving. 

"Joey, " she had said, in her high, thin voice, "take care of the girls. "

"I will, Ma, " Jo had choked. 

"Joey, " and the voice was weaker, "promise me you won't marry till thegirls are all provided for. " Then as Joe had hesitated, appalled: "Joey, it's my dying wish. Promise!"

"I promise, Ma, " he had said. 

Whereupon his mother had died, comfortably, leaving him with acompletely ruined life. 

They were not bad-looking girls, and they had a certain style, too. That is, Stell and Eva had. Carrie, the middle one, taught school overon the West Side. In those days it took her almost two hours each way. She said the kind of costume she required should have been corrugatedsteel. But all three knew what was being worn, and they wore it--orfairly faithful copies of it. Eva, the housekeeping sister, had a needleknack. She could skim the State Street windows and come away with amental photograph of every separate tuck, hem, yoke, and ribbon. Headsof departments showed her the things they kept in drawers, and she wenthome and reproduced them with the aid of a two-dollar-a-day seamstress. Stell, the youngest, was the beauty. They called her Babe. She wasn'treally a beauty, but some one had once told her that she looked likeJanice Meredith (it was when that work of fiction was at the height ofits popularity). For years afterward, whenever she went to parties, sheaffected a single, fat curl over her right shoulder, with a rose stuckthrough it. 

Twenty-three years ago one's sisters did not strain at the householdleash, nor crave a career. Carrie taught school, and hated it. Eva kepthouse expertly and complainingly. Babe's profession was being the familybeauty, and it took all her spare time. Eva always let her sleep untilten. 

This was Jo's household, and he was the nominal head of it. But it wasan empty title. The three women dominated his life. They weren'tconsciously selfish. If you had called them cruel they would have putyou down as mad. When you are the lone brother of three sisters, itmeans that you must constantly be calling for, escorting, or droppingone of them somewhere. Most men of Jo's age were standing before theirmirror of a Saturday night, whistling blithely and abstractedly whilethey discarded a blue polka-dot for a maroon tie, whipped off the maroonfor a shot-silk, and at the last moment decided against the shot-silk infavor of a plain black-and-white, because she had once said shepreferred quiet ties. Jo, when he should have been preening his feathersfor conquest, was saying:

"Well, my God, I _am_ hurrying! Give a man time, can't you? I just gothome. You girls have been laying around the house all day. No wonderyou're ready. "

He took a certain pride in seeing his sisters well dressed, at a timewhen he should have been reveling in fancy waistcoats and brilliant-huedsocks, according to the style of that day, and the inalienable right ofany unwed male under thirty, in any day. On those rare occasions whenhis business necessitated an out-of-town trip, he would spend half a dayfloundering about the shops, selecting handkerchiefs, or stockings, orfeathers, or fans, or gloves for the girls. They always turned out to bethe wrong kind, judging by their reception. 

From Carrie, "What in the world do I want of a fan!"

"I thought you didn't have one, " Jo would say. 

"I haven't. I never go to dances. "

Jo would pass a futile hand over the top of his head, as was his waywhen disturbed. "I just thought you'd like one. I thought every girlliked a fan. Just, " feebly, "just to--to have. "

"Oh, for pity's sake!"

And from Eva or Babe, "I've _got_ silk stockings, Jo. " Or, "You broughtme handkerchiefs the last time. "

There was something selfish in his giving, as there always is in anygift freely and joyfully made. They never suspected the exquisitepleasure it gave him to select these things; these fine, soft, silkenthings. There were many things about this slow-going, amiable brother oftheirs that they never suspected. If you had told them he was a dreamerof dreams, for example, they would have been amused. Sometimes, dead-tired by nine o'clock, after a hard day down town, he would dozeover the evening paper. At intervals he would wake, red-eyed, to asnatch of conversation such as, "Yes, but if you get a blue you can wearit anywhere. It's dressy, and at the same time it's quiet, too. " Eva, the expert, wrestling with Carrie over the problem of the new springdress. They never guessed that the commonplace man in the frayed oldsmoking-jacket had banished them all from the room long ago; hadbanished himself, for that matter. In his place was a tall, debonair, and rather dangerously handsome man to whom six o'clock spelled eveningclothes. The kind of man who can lean up against a mantel, or propose atoast, or give an order to a man-servant, or whisper a gallant speech ina lady's ear with equal ease. The shabby old house on Calumet Avenue wastransformed into a brocaded and chandeliered rendezvous for thebrilliance of the city. Beauty was here, and wit. But none so beautifuland witty as She. Mrs. --er--Jo Hertz. There was wine, of course; but novulgar display. There was music; the soft sheen of satin; laughter. Andhe the gracious, tactful host, king of his own domain--

"Jo, for heaven's sake, if you're going to snore go to bed!"

"Why--did I fall asleep?"

"You haven't been doing anything else all evening. A person would thinkyou were fifty instead of thirty. "

And Jo Hertz was again just the dull, grey, commonplace brother of threewell-meaning sisters. 

Babe used to say petulantly, "Jo, why don't you ever bring home any ofyour men friends? A girl might as well not have any brother, all thegood you do. "

Jo, conscience-stricken, did his best to make amends. But a man whohas been petticoat-ridden for years loses the knack, somehow, ofcomradeship with men. He acquires, too, a knowledge of women, anda distaste for them, equalled only, perhaps, by that of anelevator-starter in a department store. 

Which brings us to one Sunday in May. Jo came home from a late Sundayafternoon walk to find company for supper. Carrie often had in one ofher school-teacher friends, or Babe one of her frivolous intimates, oreven Eva a staid guest of the old-girl type. There was always a Sundaynight supper of potato salad, and cold meat, and coffee, and perhaps afresh cake. Jo rather enjoyed it, being a hospitable soul. But heregarded the guests with the undazzled eyes of a man to whom they werejust so many petticoats, timid of the night streets and requiring escorthome. If you had suggested to him that some of his sisters' popularitywas due to his own presence, or if you had hinted that the morekittenish of these visitors were probably making eyes at him, he wouldhave stared in amazement and unbelief. 

This Sunday night it turned out to be one of Carrie's friends. 

"Emily, " said Carrie, "this is my brother, Jo. "

Jo had learned what to expect in Carrie's friends. Drab-looking women inthe late thirties, whose facial lines all slanted downward. 

"Happy to meet you, " said Jo, and looked down at a different sortaltogether. A most surprisingly different sort, for one of Carrie'sfriends. This Emily person was very small, and fluffy, and blue-eyed, and sort of--well, crinkly looking. You know. The corners of her mouthwhen she smiled, and her eyes when she looked up at you, and her hair, which was brown, but had the miraculous effect, somehow, of beinggolden. 

Jo shook hands with her. Her hand was incredibly small, and soft, sothat you were afraid of crushing it, until you discovered she had a firmlittle grip all her own. It surprised and amused you, that grip, as doesa baby's unexpected clutch on your patronising forefinger. As Jo felt itin his own big clasp, the strangest thing happened to him. Somethinginside Jo Hertz stopped working for a moment, then lurched sickeningly, then thumped like mad. It was his heart. He stood staring down at her, and she up at him, until the others laughed. Then their hands fellapart, lingeringly. 

"Are you a school-teacher, Emily?" he said. 

"Kindergarten. It's my first year. And don't call me Emily, please. "

"Why not? It's your name. I think it's the prettiest name in the world. "Which he hadn't meant to say at all. In fact, he was perfectly aghast tofind himself saying it. But he meant it. 

At supper he passed her things, and stared, until everybody laughedagain, and Eva said acidly, "Why don't you feed her?"

It wasn't that Emily had an air of helplessness. She just made you feelyou wanted her to be helpless, so that you could help her. 

Jo took her home, and from that Sunday night he began to strain at theleash. He took his sisters out, dutifully, but he would suggest, with acarelessness that deceived no one, "Don't you want one of your girlfriends to come along? That little What's-her-name--Emily, or something. So long's I've got three of you, I might as well have a full squad. "

For a long time he didn't know what was the matter with him. He onlyknew he was miserable, and yet happy. Sometimes his heart seemed to achewith an actual physical ache. He realised that he wanted to do thingsfor Emily. He wanted to buy things for Emily--useless, pretty, expensivethings that he couldn't afford. He wanted to buy everything that Emilyneeded, and everything that Emily desired. He wanted to marry Emily. That was it. He discovered that one day, with a shock, in the midst of atransaction in the harness business. He stared at the man with whom hewas dealing until that startled person grew uncomfortable. 

"What's the matter, Hertz?"

"Matter?"

"You look as if you'd seen a ghost or found a gold mine. I don't knowwhich. "

"Gold mine, " said Jo. And then, "No. Ghost. "

For he remembered that high, thin voice, and his promise. And theharness business was slithering downhill with dreadful rapidity, as theautomobile business began its amazing climb. Jo tried to stop it. But hewas not that kind of business man. It never occurred to him to jump outof the down-going vehicle and catch the up-going one. He stayed on, vainly applying brakes that refused to work. 

"You know, Emily, I couldn't support two households now. Not the waythings are. But if you'll wait. If you'll only wait. The girlsmight--that is, Babe and Carrie--"

She was a sensible little thing, Emily. "Of course I'll wait. But wemustn't just sit back and let the years go by. We've got to help. "

She went about it as if she were already a little match-making matron. She corralled all the men she had ever known and introduced them toBabe, Carrie, and Eva separately, in pairs, and _en masse_. She arrangedparties at which Babe could display the curl. She got up picnics. Shestayed home while Jo took the three about. When she was present shetried to look as plain and obscure as possible, so that the sistersshould show up to advantage. She schemed, and planned, and contrived, and hoped; and smiled into Jo's despairing eyes. 

And three years went by. Three precious years. Carrie still taughtschool, and hated it. Eva kept house, more and more complainingly asprices advanced and allowance retreated. Stell was still Babe, thefamily beauty; but even she knew that the time was past for curls. Emily's hair, somehow, lost its glint and began to look just plainbrown. Her crinkliness began to iron out. 

"Now, look here!" Jo argued, desperately, one night. "We could be happy, anyway. There's plenty of room at the house. Lots of people begin thatway. Of course, I couldn't give you all I'd like to, at first. Butmaybe, after a while--"

No dreams of salons, and brocade, and velvet-footed servitors, and satindamask now. Just two rooms, all their own, all alone, and Emily to workfor. That was his dream. But it seemed less possible than that otherabsurd one had been. 

You know that Emily was as practical a little thing as she lookedfluffy. She knew women. Especially did she know Eva, and Carrie, andBabe. She tried to imagine herself taking the household affairs and thehousekeeping pocketbook out of Eva's expert hands. Eva had oncedisplayed to her a sheaf of aigrettes she had bought with what she savedout of the housekeeping money. So then she tried to picture herselfallowing the reins of Jo's house to remain in Eva's hands. Andeverything feminine and normal in her rebelled. Emily knew she'd want toput away her own freshly laundered linen, and smooth it, and pat it. Shewas that kind of woman. She knew she'd want to do her own delightfulhaggling with butcher and vegetable pedlar. She knew she'd want to mussJo's hair, and sit on his knee, and even quarrel with him, if necessary, without the awareness of three ever-present pairs of maiden eyes andears. 

"No! No! We'd only be miserable. I know. Even if they didn't object. Andthey would, Jo. Wouldn't they?"

His silence was miserable assent. Then, "But you do love me, don't you, Emily?"

"I do, Jo. I love you--and love you--and love you. But, Jo, I--can't. "

"I know it, dear. I knew it all the time, really. I just thought, maybe, somehow--"

The two sat staring for a moment into space, their hands clasped. Thenthey both shut their eyes, with a little shudder, as though what theysaw was terrible to look upon. Emily's hand, the tiny hand that was sounexpectedly firm, tightened its hold on his, and his crushed the absurdfingers until she winced with pain. 

That was the beginning of the end, and they knew it. 

Emily wasn't the kind of girl who would be left to pine. There are toomany Jo's in the world whose hearts are prone to lurch and then thump atthe feel of a soft, fluttering, incredibly small hand in their grip. Oneyear later Emily was married to a young man whose father owned a large, pie-shaped slice of the prosperous state of Michigan. 

That being safely accomplished, there was something grimly humorous inthe trend taken by affairs in the old house on Calumet. For Evamarried. Of all people, Eva! Married well, too, though he was a greatdeal older than she. She went off in a hat she had copied from a Frenchmodel at Field's, and a suit she had contrived with a home dressmaker, aided by pressing on the part of the little tailor in the basement overon Thirty-first Street. It was the last of that, though. The next timethey saw her, she had on a hat that even she would have despaired ofcopying, and a suit that sort of melted into your gaze. She moved to theNorth Side (trust Eva for that), and Babe assumed the management of thehousehold on Calumet Avenue. It was rather a pinched little householdnow, for the harness business shrank and shrank. 

"I don't see how you can expect me to keep house decently on this!" Babewould say contemptuously. Babe's nose, always a little inclined tosharpness, had whittled down to a point of late. "If you knew what Bengives Eva. "

"It's the best I can do, Sis. Business is something rotten. "

"Ben says if you had the least bit of--" Ben was Eva's husband, andquotable, as are all successful men. 

"I don't care what Ben says, " shouted Jo, goaded into rage. "I'm sick ofyour everlasting Ben. Go and get a Ben of your own, why don't you, ifyou're so stuck on the way he does things. "

And Babe did. She made a last desperate drive, aided by Eva, and shecaptured a rather surprised young man in the brokerage way, who had madeup his mind not to marry for years and years. Eva wanted to give her herwedding things, but at that Jo broke into sudden rebellion. 

"No sir! No Ben is going to buy my sister's wedding clothes, understand?I guess I'm not broke--yet. I'll furnish the money for her things, andthere'll be enough of them, too. "

Babe had as useless a trousseau, and as filled with extravagantpink-and-blue and lacy and frilly things as any daughter of dotingparents. Jo seemed to find a grim pleasure in providing them. But itleft him pretty well pinched. After Babe's marriage (she insisted thatthey call her Estelle now) Jo sold the house on Calumet. He and Carrietook one of those little flats that were springing up, seemingly overnight, all through Chicago's South Side. 

There was nothing domestic about Carrie. She had given up teaching twoyears before, and had gone into Social Service work on the West Side. She had what is known as a legal mind--hard, clear, orderly--and shemade a great success of it. Her dream was to live at the SettlementHouse and give all her time to the work. Upon the little household shebestowed a certain amount of grim, capable attention. It was the samekind of attention she would have given a piece of machinery whose oilingand running had been entrusted to her care. She hated it, and didn'thesitate to say so. 

Jo took to prowling about department store basements, and householdgoods sections. He was always sending home a bargain in a ham, or a sackof potatoes, or fifty pounds of sugar, or a window clamp, or a new kindof paring knife. He was forever doing odd little jobs that the janitorshould have done. It was the domestic in him claiming its own. 

Then, one night, Carrie came home with a dull glow in her leatherycheeks, and her eyes alight with resolve. They had what she called aplain talk. 

"Listen, Jo. They've offered me the job of first assistant residentworker. And I'm going to take it. Take it! I know fifty other girlswho'd give their ears for it. I go in next month. "

They were at dinner. Jo looked up from his plate, dully. Then he glancedaround the little dining room, with its ugly tan walls and its heavy, dark furniture (the Calumet Avenue pieces fitted cumbersomely into thefive-room flat). 

"Away? Away from here, you mean--to live?" Carrie laid down her fork. "Well, really, Jo! After all that explanation. "

"But to go over there to live! Why, that neighbourhood's full of dirt, and disease, and crime, and the Lord knows what all. I can't let you dothat, Carrie. "

Carrie's chin came up. She laughed a short little laugh. "Let me!That's eighteenth-century talk, Jo. My life's my own to live. I'mgoing. "

And she went. 

Jo stayed on in the apartment until the lease was up. Then he sold whatfurniture he could, stored or gave away the rest, and took a room onMichigan Avenue in one of the old stone mansions whose decayed splendourwas being put to such purpose. 

Jo Hertz was his own master. Free to marry. Free to come and go. And hefound he didn't even think of marrying. He didn't even want to come orgo, particularly. A rather frumpy old bachelor, with thinning hair and athickening neck. Much has been written about the unwed, middle-agedwoman; her fussiness, her primness, her angularity of mind and body. Inthe male that same fussiness develops, and a certain primness, too. Buthe grows flabby where she grows lean. 

Every Thursday evening he took dinner at Eva's, and on Sunday noon atStell's. He tucked his napkin under his chin and openly enjoyed thehome-made soup and the well-cooked meats. After dinner he tried to talkbusiness with Eva's husband, or Stell's. His business talks were theold-fashioned kind, beginning:

"Well, now, looka here. Take, f'rinstance your raw hides and leathers. "

But Ben and George didn't want to "take, f'rinstance, your raw hides andleathers. " They wanted, when they took anything at all, to take golf, or politics or stocks. They were the modern type of business man whoprefers to leave his work out of his play. Business, with them, was aprofession--a finely graded and balanced thing, differing from Jo'sclumsy, downhill style as completely as does the method of a greatcriminal detective differ from that of a village constable. They wouldlisten, restively, and say, "Uh-uh, " at intervals, and at the firstchance they would sort of fade out of the room, with a meaning glance attheir wives. Eva had two children now. Girls. They treated Uncle Jo withgood-natured tolerance. Stell had no children. Uncle Jo degenerated, byalmost imperceptible degrees, from the position of honoured guest, whois served with white meat, to that of one who is content with a leg andone of those obscure and bony sections which, after much turning with abewildered and investigating knife and fork, leave one baffled andunsatisfied. 

Eva and Stell got together and decided that Jo ought to marry. 

"It isn't natural, " Eva told him. "I never saw a man who took so littleinterest in women. "

"Me!" protested Jo, almost shyly. "Women!"

"Yes. Of course. You act like a frightened schoolboy. "

So they had in for dinner certain friends and acquaintances of fittingage. They spoke of them as "splendid girls. " Between thirty-six andforty. They talked awfully well, in a firm, clear way, about civics, and classes, and politics, and economics, and boards. They ratherterrified Jo. He didn't understand much that they talked about, and hefelt humbly inferior, and yet a little resentful, as if something hadpassed him by. He escorted them home, dutifully, though they told himnot to bother, and they evidently meant it. They seemed capable, notonly of going home quite unattended, but of delivering a pointed lectureto any highwayman or brawler who might molest them. 

The following Thursday Eva would say, "How did you like her, Jo?"

"Like who?" Jo would spar feebly. 

"Miss Matthews. "

"Who's she?"

"Now, don't be funny, Jo. You know very well I mean the girl who washere for dinner. The one who talked so well on the emigration question. 

"Oh, her! Why, I liked her all right. Seems to be a smart woman. "

"Smart! She's a perfectly splendid girl. "

"Sure, " Jo would agree cheerfully. 

"But didn't you like her?"

"I can't say I did, Eve. And I can't say I didn't. She made me think alot of a teacher I had in the fifth reader. Name of Himes. As I recallher, she must have been a fine woman. But I never thought of her as awoman at all. She was just Teacher. "

"You make me tired, " snapped Eva impatiently. "A man of your age. Youdon't expect to marry a girl, do you? A child!"

"I don't expect to marry anybody, " Jo had answered. 

And that was the truth, lonely though he often was. 

The following spring Eva moved to Winnetka. Any one who got the meaningof the Loop knows the significance of a move to a north-shore suburb, and a house. Eva's daughter, Ethel, was growing up, and her mother hadan eye on society. 

That did away with Jo's Thursday dinner. Then Stell's husband bought acar. They went out into the country every Sunday. Stell said it wasgetting so that maids objected to Sunday dinners, anyway. Besides, theywere unhealthy, old-fashioned things. They always meant to ask Jo tocome along, but by the time their friends were placed, and the lunch, and the boxes, and sweaters, and George's camera, and everything, thereseemed to be no room for a man of Jo's bulk. So that eliminated theSunday dinners. 

"Just drop in any time during the week, " Stell said, "for dinner. ExceptWednesday--that's our bridge night--and Saturday. And, of course, Thursday. Cook is out that night. Don't wait for me to phone. "

And so Jo drifted into that sad-eyed, dyspeptic family made up of thoseyou see dining in second-rate restaurants, their paper propped upagainst the bowl of oyster crackers, munching solemnly and withindifference to the stare of the passer-by surveying them through thebrazen plate-glass window. 

And then came the War. The war that spelled death and destruction tomillions. The war that brought a fortune to Jo Hertz, and transformedhim, over night, from a baggy-kneed old bachelor, whose business was afailure, to a prosperous manufacturer whose only trouble was theshortage in hides for the making of his product--leather! The armies ofEurope called for it. Harnesses! More harnesses! Straps! Millions ofstraps. More! More!

The musty old harness business over on Lake Street was magically changedfrom a dust-covered, dead-alive concern to an orderly hive that hummedand glittered with success. Orders poured in. Jo Hertz had insideinformation on the War. He knew about troops and horses. He talkedwith French and English and Italian buyers--noblemen, many ofthem--commissioned by their countries to get American-made supplies. Andnow, when he said to Ben or George, "Take f'rinstance your raw hides andleathers, " they listened with respectful attention. 

And then began the gay-dog business in the life of Jo Hertz. Hedeveloped into a Loop-hound, ever keen on the scent of fresh pleasure. That side of Jo Hertz which had been repressed and crushed and ignoredbegan to bloom, unhealthily. At first he spent money on his rathercontemptuous nieces. He sent them gorgeous fans, and watch bracelets, and velvet bags. He took two expensive rooms at a downtown hotel, andthere was something more tear-compelling than grotesque about the wayhe gloated over the luxury of a separate ice-water tap in the bathroom. He explained it. 

"Just turn it on. Ice-water! Any hour of the day or night. "

He bought a car. Naturally. A glittering affair; in colour a brightblue, with pale blue leather straps and a great deal of gold fittings, and wire wheels. Eva said it was the kind of thing a soubrette woulduse, rather than an elderly business man. You saw him driving about init, red-faced and rather awkward at the wheel. You saw him, too, inthe Pompeian room at the Congress Hotel of a Saturday afternoon whendoubtful and roving-eyed matrons in kolinsky capes are wont tocongregate to sip pale amber drinks. Actors grew to recognise thesemi-bald head and the shining, round, good-natured face looming out atthem from the dim well of the parquet, and sometimes, in a musical show, they directed a quip at him, and he liked it. He could pick out thecritics as they came down the aisle, and even had a nodding acquaintancewith two of them. 

"Kelly, of the _Herald_, " he would say carelessly. "Bean, of the _Trib_. They're all afraid of him. "

So he frolicked, ponderously. In New York he might have been called aMan About Town. 

And he was lonesome. He was very lonesome. So he searched about in hismind and brought from the dim past the memory of the luxuriouslyfurnished establishment of which he used to dream in the evenings whenhe dozed over his paper in the old house on Calumet. So he rented anapartment, many-roomed and expensive, with a man-servant in charge, andfurnished it in styles and periods ranging through all the Louises. Theliving room was mostly rose colour. It was like an unhealthy and bloatedboudoir. And yet there was nothing sybaritic or uncleanly in the sightof this paunchy, middle-aged man sinking into the rosy-cushioned luxuryof his ridiculous home. It was a frank and naïve indulgence oflong-starved senses, and there was in it a great resemblance to therolling eyed ecstasy of a schoolboy smacking his lips over an all-daysucker. 

The War went on, and on, and on. And the money continued to roll in--aflood of it. Then, one afternoon, Eva, in town on shopping bent, entereda small, exclusive, and expensive shop on Michigan Avenue. Exclusive, that is, in price. Eva's weakness, you may remember, was hats. She wasseeking a hat now. She described what she sought with a languidconciseness, and stood looking about her after the saleswoman hadvanished in quest of it. The room was becomingly rose-illumined andsomewhat dim, so that some minutes had passed before she realised that aman seated on a raspberry brocade settee not five feet away--a man witha walking stick, and yellow gloves, and tan spats, and a check suit--washer brother Jo. From him Eva's wild-eyed glance leaped to the woman whowas trying on hats before one of the many long mirrors. She was seated, and a saleswoman was exclaiming discreetly at her elbow. 

Eva turned sharply and encountered her own saleswoman returning, hat-laden. "Not to-day, " she gasped. "I'm feeling ill. Suddenly. " Andalmost ran from the room. 

That evening she told Stell, relating her news in that telephonepidgin-English devised by every family of married sisters as protectionagainst the neighbours and Central. Translated, it ran thus:

"He looked straight at me. My dear, I thought I'd die! But at least hehad sense enough not to speak. She was one of those limp, willowycreatures with the greediest eyes that she tried to keep softened to ababy stare, and couldn't, she was so crazy to get her hands on thosehats. I saw it all in one awful minute. You know the way I do. I supposesome people would call her pretty. I don't. And her colour! Well! Andthe most expensive-looking hats. Aigrettes, and paradise, and feathers. Not one of them under seventy-five. Isn't it disgusting! At his age!Suppose Ethel had been with me!"

The next time it was Stell who saw them. In a restaurant. She said itspoiled her evening. And the third time it was Ethel. She was one of theguests at a theatre party given by Nicky Overton II. You know. The NorthShore Overtons. Lake Forest. They came in late, and occupied the entirethird row at the opening performance of "Believe Me!" And Ethel wasNicky's partner. She was glowing like a rose. When the lights went upafter the first act Ethel saw that her uncle Jo was seated just ahead ofher with what she afterward described as a blonde. Then her uncle hadturned around, and seeing her, had been surprised into a smile thatspread genially all over his plump and rubicund face. Then he had turnedto face forward again, quickly. 

"Who's the old bird?" Nicky had asked. Ethel had pretended not to hear, so he had asked again. 

"My Uncle, " Ethel answered, and flushed all over her delicate face, anddown to her throat. Nicky had looked at the blonde, and his eyebrows hadgone up ever so slightly. 

It spoiled Ethel's evening. More than that, as she told her mother of itlater, weeping, she declared it had spoiled her life. 

Eva talked it over with her husband in that intimate, kimonoed hour thatprecedes bedtime. She gesticulated heatedly with her hair brush. 

"It's disgusting, that's what it is. Perfectly disgusting. There's nofool like an old fool. Imagine! A creature like that. At his time oflife. "

There exists a strange and loyal kinship among men. "Well, I don'tknow, " Ben said now, and even grinned a little. "I suppose a boy's gotto sow his wild oats some time. "

"Don't be any more vulgar than you can help, " Eva retorted. "And Ithink you know, as well as I, what it means to have that Overton boyinterested in Ethel. "

"If he's interested in her, " Ben blundered, "I guess the fact thatEthel's uncle went to the theatre with some one who wasn't Ethel's auntwon't cause a shudder to run up and down his frail young frame, willit?"

"All right, " Eva had retorted. "If you're not man enough to stop it, I'll have to, that's all. I'm going up there with Stell this week. "

They did not notify Jo of their coming. Eva telephoned his apartmentwhen she knew he would be out, and asked his man if he expected hismaster home to dinner that evening. The man had said yes. Eva arrangedto meet Stell in town. They would drive to Jo's apartment together, andwait for him there. 

When she reached the city Eva found turmoil there. The first of theAmerican troops to be sent to France were leaving. Michigan Boulevardwas a billowing, surging mass: Flags, pennants, banners crowds. All theelements that make for demonstration. And over the whole--quiet. Noholiday crowd, this. A solid, determined mass of people waiting patienthours to see the khaki-clads go by. Three years of indefatigable readinghad brought them to a clear knowledge of what these boys were going to. 

"Isn't it dreadful!" Stell gasped. 

"Nicky Overton's only nineteen, thank goodness. "

Their car was caught in the jam. When they moved at all it was byinches. When at last they reached Jo's apartment they were flushed, nervous, apprehensive. But he had not yet come in. So they waited. 

No, they were not staying to dinner with their brother, they told therelieved houseman. 

Jo's home has already been described to you. Stell and Eva, sunk inrose-coloured cushions, viewed it with disgust, and some mirth. Theyrather avoided each other's eyes. 

"Carrie ought to be here, " Eva said. They both smiled at the thought ofthe austere Carrie in the midst of those rosy cushions, and hangings, and lamps. Stell rose and began to walk about, restlessly. She picked upa vase and laid it down; straightened a picture. Eva got up, too, andwandered into the hall. She stood there a moment, listening. Then sheturned and passed into Jo's bedroom. And there you knew Jo for what hewas. 

This room was as bare as the other had been ornate. It was Jo, theclean-minded and simple-hearted, in revolt against the cloying luxurywith which he had surrounded himself. The bedroom, of all rooms in anyhouse, reflects the personality of its occupant. True, the actualfurniture was panelled, cupid-surmounted, and ridiculous. It had beenthe fruit of Jo's first orgy of the senses. But now it stood out in thatstark little room with an air as incongruous and ashamed as that of apink tarleton _danseuse_ who finds herself in a monk's cell. None ofthose wall-pictures with which bachelor bedrooms are reputed to behung. No satin slippers. No scented notes. Two plain-backed militarybrushes on the chiffonier (and he so nearly hairless!). A little orderlystack of books on the table near the bed. Eva fingered their titles andgave a little gasp. One of them was on gardening. 

"Well, of all things!" exclaimed Stell. A book on the War, by anEnglishman. A detective story of the lurid type that lulls us to sleep. His shoes ranged in a careful row in the closet, with a shoe-tree inevery one of them. There was something speaking about them. They lookedso human. Eva shut the door on them, quickly. Some bottles on thedresser. A jar of pomade. An ointment such as a man uses who is growingbald and is panic-stricken too late. An insurance calendar on the wall. Some rhubarb-and-soda mixture on the shelf in the bathroom, and a littlebox of pepsin tablets. 

"Eats all kinds of things at all hours of the night, " Eva said, andwandered out into the rose-coloured front room again with the air of onewho is chagrined at her failure to find what she has sought. Stellfollowed her furtively. 

"Where do you suppose he can be?" she demanded. "It's"--she glanced ather wrist--"why, it's after six!"

And then there was a little click. The two women sat up, tense. The dooropened. Jo came in. He blinked a little. The two women in the rosy roomstood up. 

"Why--Eve! Why, Babe! Well! Why didn't you let me know?"

"We were just about to leave. We thought you weren't coming home. "

Joe came in, slowly. 

"I was in the jam on Michigan, watching the boys go by. " He sat down, heavily. The light from the window fell on him. And you saw that hiseyes were red. 

And you'll have to learn why. He had found himself one of the thousandsin the jam on Michigan Avenue, as he said. He had a place near the curb, where his big frame shut off the view of the unfortunates behind him. Hewaited with the placid interest of one who has subscribed to all thefunds and societies to which a prosperous, middle-aged business man iscalled upon to subscribe in war time. Then, just as he was about toleave, impatient at the delay, the crowd had cried, with a queerdramatic, exultant note in its voice, "Here they come! Here come theboys!"

Just at that moment two little, futile, frenzied fists began to beat amad tattoo on Jo Hertz's broad back. Jo tried to turn in the crowd, allindignant resentment. "Say, looka here!"

The little fists kept up their frantic beating and pushing. And avoice--a choked, high little voice--cried, "Let me by! I can't see! Youman, you! You big fat man! My boy's going by--to war--and I can't see!Let me by!"

Jo scrooged around, still keeping his place. He looked down. Andupturned to him in agonised appeal was the face of little Emily. Theystared at each other for what seemed a long, long time. It was reallyonly the fraction of a second. Then Jo put one great arm firmly aroundEmily's waist and swung her around in front of him. His great bulkprotected her. Emily was clinging to his hand. She was breathingrapidly, as if she had been running. Her eyes were straining up thestreet. 

"Why, Emily, how in the world!--"

"I ran away. Fred didn't want me to come. He said it would excite me toomuch. "

"Fred?"

"My husband. He made me promise to say good-bye to Jo at home. "

"Jo?"

"Jo's my boy. And he's going to war. So I ran away. I had to see him. Ihad to see him go. "

She was dry-eyed. Her gaze was straining up the street. 

"Why, sure, " said Jo. "Of course you want to see him. " And then thecrowd gave a great roar. There came over Jo a feeling of weakness. Hewas trembling. The boys went marching by. 

"There he is, " Emily shrilled, above the din. "There be is! There he is!There he--" And waved a futile little hand. It wasn't so much a wave asa clutching. A clutching after something beyond her reach. 

"Which one? Which one, Emily?"

"The handsome one. The handsome one. There!" Her voice quavered anddied. 

Jo put a steady hand on her shoulder. "Point him out, " he commanded. "Show me. " And the next instant. "Never mind. I see him. "

Somehow, miraculously, he had picked him from among the hundreds. Hadpicked him as surely as his own father might have. It was Emily's boy. He was marching by, rather stiffly. He was nineteen, and fun-loving, andhe had a girl, and he didn't particularly want to go to France and--togo to France. But more than he had hated going, he had hated not to go. So he marched by, looking straight ahead, his jaw set so that his chinstuck out just a little. Emily's boy. 

Jo looked at him, and his face flushed purple. His eyes, the hard-boiledeyes of a Loop-hound, took on the look of a sad old man. And suddenly hewas no longer Jo, the sport; old J. Hertz, the gay dog. He was Jo Hertz, thirty, in love with life, in love with Emily, and with the stingingblood of young manhood coursing through his veins. 

Another minute and the boy had passed on up the broad street--the fine, flag-bedecked street--just one of a hundred service-hats bobbing inrhythmic motion like sandy waves lapping a shore and flowing on. 

Then he disappeared altogether. 

Emily was clinging to Jo. She was mumbling something, over and over. "Ican't. I can't. Don't ask me to. I can't let him go. Like that. Ican't. "

Jo said a queer thing. 

"Why, Emily! We wouldn't have him stay home, would we? We wouldn't wanthim to do anything different, would we? Not our boy. I'm glad heenlisted. I'm proud of him. So are you glad. "

Little by little he quieted her. He took her to the car that waswaiting, a worried chauffeur in charge. They said good-bye, awkwardly. Emily's face was a red, swollen mass. 

So it was that when Jo entered his own hallway half an hour later heblinked, dazedly, and when the light from the window fell on him you sawthat his eyes were red. 

Eva was not one to beat about the bush. She sat forward in her chair, clutching her bag rather nervously. 

"Now, look here, Jo. Stell and I are here for a reason. We're here totell you that this thing's got to stop. "

"Thing? Stop?"

"You know very well what I mean. You saw me at the milliner's that day. And night before last, Ethel. We're all disgusted. If you must go aboutwith people like that, please have some sense of decency. "

Something gathering in Jo's face should have warned her. But he wasslumped down in his chair in such a huddle, and he looked so old and fatthat she did not heed it. She went on. "You've got us to consider. Yoursisters. And your nieces. Not to speak of your own--"

But he got to his feet then, shaking, and at what she saw in his faceeven Eva faltered and stopped. It wasn't at all the face of a fat, middle-aged sport. It was a face Jovian, terrible. 

"You!" he began, low-voiced, ominous. "You!" He raised a great fisthigh. "You two murderers! You didn't consider me, twenty years ago. Youcome to me with talk like that. Where's my boy! You killed him, you two, twenty years ago. And now he belongs to somebody else. Where's my sonthat should have gone marching by to-day?" He flung his arms out in agreat gesture of longing. The red veins stood out on his forehead. "Where's my son! Answer me that, you two selfish, miserable women. Where's my son!" Then, as they huddled together, frightened, wild-eyed. "Out of my house! Out of my house! Before I hurt you!"

They fled, terrified. The door banged behind them. 

Jo stood, shaking, in the centre of the room. Then he reached for achair, gropingly, and sat down. He passed one moist, flabby hand overhis forehead and it came away wet. The telephone rang. He sat still. Itsounded far away and unimportant, like something forgotten. I think hedid not even hear it with his conscious ear. But it rang and ranginsistently. Jo liked to answer his telephone, when at home. 

"Hello!" He knew instantly the voice at the other end. 

"That you, Jo?" it said. 

"Yes. "

"How's my boy?"

"I'm--all right. "

"Listen, Jo. The crowd's coming over to-night. I've fixed up a littlepoker game for you. Just eight of us. "

"I can't come to-night, Gert. "

"Can't! Why not?"

"I'm not feeling so good. "

"You just said you were all right. "

"I _am_ all right. Just kind of tired. "

The voice took on a cooing note. "Is my Joey tired? Then he shall be allcomfy on the sofa, and he doesn't need to play if he don't want to. No, sir. "

Jo stood staring at the black mouth-piece of the telephone. He wasseeing a procession go marching by. Boys, hundreds of boys, in khaki. 

"Hello! Hello!" the voice took on an anxious note. "Are you there?"

"Yes, " wearily. 

"Jo, there's something the matter. You're sick. I'm coming right over. "

"No!"

"Why not? You sound as if you'd been sleeping. Look here--"

"Leave me alone!" cried Jo, suddenly, and the receiver clacked onto thehook. "Leave me alone. Leave me alone. " Long after the connection hadbeen broken. 

He stood staring at the instrument with unseeing eyes. Then he turnedand walked into the front room. All the light had gone out of it. Duskhad come on. All the light had gone out of everything. The zest had goneout of life. The game was over--the game he had been playing againstloneliness and disappointment. And he was just a tired old man. Alonely, tired old man in a ridiculous, rose-coloured room that hadgrown, all of a sudden, drab. 

III

THE TOUGH GUY

You could not be so very tough in Chippewa, Wisconsin. But Buzz Wernermanaged magnificently with the limited means at hand. Before he wasnineteen mothers were warning their sons against him, and brothers theirsisters. Buzz Werner not only was tough--he looked tough. When hespoke--which was often--his speech slid sinisterly out of the extremeleft corner of his mouth. He had a trick of hitching himself up from thebelt--one palm on the stomach and a sort of heaving jerk from the waist, as a prize fighter does it--that would have made a Van Bibber lookrough. 

His name was not really Buzz, but quotes are dispensed with because noone but his mother remembered what it originally had been. His mothercalled him Ernie and she alone, in all Chippewa, Wisconsin, was unawarethat her son was the town tough guy. But even she sometimes mildlyremonstrated with him for being what she called kind of wild. Buzz hadyellow hair with a glint in it, and it curled up into a bang at thefront. No amount of wetting or greasing could subdue that irrepressibleforelock. A boy with hair like that never grows up in his mother'seyes. 

If Buzz's real name was lost in the dim mists of boyhood, the origin andfitness of his nickname were apparent after two minutes' conversationwith him. Buzz Werner was called Buzz not only because he talked toomuch, but because he was a braggart. His conversation bristled with theperpendicular pronoun, and his pet phrase was, "I says to him--"

He buzzed. 

By the time Buzz was fourteen he was stealing brass from the yards ofthe big paper mills down in the Flats and selling it to the junk man. How he escaped the reform school is a mystery. Perhaps it was the blondforelock. At nineteen he was running with the Kearney girl. 

Twenty-five years hence Chippewa will have learned to treat theKearney-girl type as a disease, and a public menace. Which she was. TheKearney girl ran wild in Chippewa, and Chippewa will be paying taxes onthe fruit of her liberty for a hundred years to come. The Kearney girlwas a beautiful idiot, with a lovely oval face, and limpid, ratherwistful blue eyes, and fair, fine hair, and a long slim neck. She lookedvery much like those famous wantons of history, from Lucrezia Borgia toNell Gwyn, that you see pictured in the galleries of Europe--all verymild and girlish, with moist red mouths, like a puppy's, so that youwonder if they have not been basely defamed through all the centuries. 

The Kearney girl's father ran a saloon out on Second Avenue, and everyfew days the Chippewa paper would come out with a story of a brawl, aknifing, or a free-for-all fight following a Saturday night inKearney's. The Kearney girl herself was forever running up and downGrand Avenue, which was the main business street. She would trail up anddown from the old Armory to the post-office and back again. When sheturned off into the homeward stretch on Outagamie Street there alwaysslunk after her some stoop-shouldered, furtive, loping youth. But henever was seen with her on Grand Avenue. She had often been up beforeold Judge Colt for some nasty business or other. At such times theshabby office of the Justice of the Peace would be full of shawledmothers and heavy-booted, work-worn fathers, and an aunt or two, andsome cousins, and always a slinking youth fumbling with the hat in hishands, his glance darting hither and thither, from group to group, butnever resting for a moment within any one else's gaze. Of all thesepresent, the Kearney girl herself was always the calmest. Old Judge Coltmeted out justice according to his lights. Unfortunately, the wearing ofa yellow badge on the breast was a custom that had gone out some yearsbefore. 

This nymph it was who had taken a fancy to Buzz Werner. It looked veryblack for his future. 

The strange part of it was that the girl possessed little attraction forBuzz. It was she who made all the advances. Buzz had sprung from verydecent stock, as you shall see. And something about the sultryunwholesomeness of this girl repelled him, though he was hardly awarethat this was so. Buzz and his gang would meet down town of a Saturdaynight, very moist as to hair and clean as to soft shirt. They wouldlounge on the corner of Grand and Outagamie, in front of Schroeder'sbrightly lighted drug store, watching the girls go by. They were, forthe most part, a pimply-faced lot. They would shuffle their feet in aslow jig, hands in pockets. When a late comer joined them it wasconsidered _au fait_ to welcome him by assuming a fistic attitude, afterthe style of the pugilists pictured in the barber-shop magazines, andspar a good-natured and make-believe round with him, with much agiledancing about in a circle, head held stiffly, body crouching, whileworking a rapid and facetious right. 

This corner, or Donovan's pool-shack, was their club, their forum. Herethey recounted their exploits, bragged of their triumphs, boasted oftheir girls, flexed their muscles to show their strength. And allthrough their talk there occurred again and again a certain term whoseuse is common to their kind. Their remarks were prefaced and interlardedand concluded with it, so that it was no longer an oath or a blasphemy. 

"Je's, I was sore at 'm. I told him where to get off at. Nobody can talkto me like that. Je's, I should say not. "

So accustomed had it grown that it was not even thought of asprofanity. 

If Buzz's family could have heard him in his talk with his street-cornercompanions they would not have credited their ears. A mouthy braggart incompany is often silent in his own home, and Buzz was no exception tothis rule. Fortunately, Buzz's braggadocio carried with it a certainconviction. He never kept a job more than a month, and his own accountof his leave-taking was always as vainglorious as it was dramatic. 

"'G'wan!' I says to him, 'Who you talkin' to? I don't have to takenothin' from you nor nobody like you, ' I says. 'I'm as good as you areany day, and better. You can have your dirty job, ' I says. And with thatI give him my time and walked out on 'm. Je's, he was sore!"

They would listen to him, appreciatively, but with certain mentalreservations; reservations inevitable when a speaker's name is Buzz. Oneby one they would melt away as their particular girl, after flaunting bywith a giggle and a sidelong glance for the dozenth time, would switchher skirts around the corner of Outagamie Street past the Brill House, homeward bound. 

"Well, s'long, " they would say. And lounging after her, would overtakeher in the shadow of the row of trees in front of the Agassiz School. 

If the Werner family had been city folk they would, perforce, haveburrowed in one of those rabbit-warren tenements that line block afterblock of city streets. But your small-town labouring man is likely toown his two-story frame house with a garden patch in the back and acement walk leading up to the front porch, and pork roast on Sundays. The Werners had all this, no thanks to Pa Werner; no thanks to Buzz, surely; and little to Minnie Werner who clerked in the Sugar Bowl CandyStore and tried to dress like Angie Hatton whose father owned thebiggest Pulp and Paper mill in the Fox River Valley. No, the house andthe garden, the porch and the cement sidewalk, and the pork roast allhad their origin in Ma Werner's tireless energy, in Ma Werner's thrift;in her patience and unremitting toil, her nimble fingers and bent back, her shapeless figure and unbounded and unexpressed (verbally, thatis) love for her children. Pa Werner--sullen, lazy, brooding, tyrannical--she soothed and mollified for the children's sake, orshouted down with a shrewish outburst, as the occasion required. Anexpert stone-mason by trade, Pa Werner could be depended on only when hewas not drinking, or when he was not on strike, or when he had notquarrelled with the foreman. An anarchist, Pa--dissatisfied with thingsas they were, but with no plan for improving them. His evil-smellingpipe between his lips, he would sit, stocking-footed, in silence, smoking and thinking vague, formless, surly thoughts. This sullen unrestand rebellion it was that, transmitted to his son, had made Buzz theunruly braggart that he was, and which, twenty or thirty years hence, would find him just such a one as his father--useless, evil-tempered, half brutal, defiant of order. 

It was in May, a fine warm sunny day, that Ma Werner, looking up fromthe garden patch where she was spading, a man's old battered felt hatperched grotesquely atop her white head, saw Buzz lounging homeward, cutting across lots from Bates Street, his dinner pail glinting in thesun. It was four o'clock in the afternoon. Ma Werner straightenedpainfully and her over-flushed face took on a purplish tinge. She wipedher moist chin with an apron-corner. 

As Buzz espied her his gait became a swagger. At sight of that swaggerMa knew. She dropped her spade and plodded heavily through the freshlyturned earth to the back porch as Buzz turned in at the walk. Sheshifted her weight ponderously as she wiped first one earth-crusted shoeand then the other. 

"What's the matter, Ernie? You ain't sick, are you?"

"Naw. "

"What you home so early for?"

"Because I feel like it, that's why. "

He took the back steps at a bound and slammed the kitchen door behindhim. Ma Werner followed heavily after. Buzz was hanging his hat upbehind the kitchen door. He turned with a scowl as his mother entered. She looked even more ludicrous in the house than she had outside, withher skirts tucked up to make spading the easier, so that there wasdisplayed an unseemly length of thick ankle rising solidly above the oldpair of men's side-boots that encased her feet. The battered hat perchedrakishly atop her knob of gray-white hair gave her a jaunty, sportinglook, as of a ponderous, burlesque Watteau. 

She abandoned pretense. "Ernie, your pa'll be awful mad. You know theway he carried on the last time. "

"Let him. He aint worked five days himself this month. " Then, at asudden sound from the front of the house, "He ain't home, is he?"

"That's the shade flapping. "

Buzz turned toward the inside wooden stairway that led to the half-storyabove. But his mother followed, with surprising agility for so heavy awoman. She put a hand on his arm. "Such a good-payin' job, Ernie. An'you said only yesterday you liked it. Somethin' must've happened. "

There broke a grim little laugh from Buzz. "Believe _me_ somethinghappened good an' plenty. " A little frightened look came into his eyes. "I just had a run-in with young Hatton. "

The red faded from her face and a grey-white mask seemed to slip downover it. "You don't mean Hatton! Not Hatton's son. Ernie, you ain'tdone--"

A dash of his street-corner bravado came back to him. "Aw, keep yourhair on, Ma. I didn't know it was young Hatton when I hit'm. An' anywaynobody his age is gonna tell me where to get off at. Say, w'en a guy whoain't twenty-three, hardly, and that never done a lick in his lifeexcept go to college, the sissy, tries t'--"

But the first sentence only had penetrated her brain. She grappled withit, dizzily. "Hit him! Ernie, you don't mean you hit him! Not Hatton'sson! Ernie!"

"Sure I did. You oughta seen his face. " But there was very littletriumph or satisfaction in Buzz Werner's face or voice as he said it. "Course, I didn't know it was him when I done it. I dunno would it havemade any difference if I had. "

She seemed so old and so shrunken, in spite of her bulk, as she lookedup at him. The look in her eyes was so strained. The way her handbrought her apron-corner up to her mouth, as though to stifle the fearthat shook her, was so groping, somehow, so uncertain, that, paradoxically, the pitifulness of it reacted to make him savage. 

When she quavered her next question, "What was he doin' in the mill?" heturned toward the stairway again, flinging his answer over his shoulder. 

"Learnin' the business, that's what. From the ground up, see?" He turnedat the first stair and leaned forward and down, one hand on thedoor-jamb. "Well, believe me he don't use me as no ground-dirt. An' whenI'm takin' the screen off the big roll--see?--he comes up to me an'says I'm handlin' it rough an' it's a delicate piece of mechanism. 'Who're you?' I says. 'Never mind who I am' he says, 'I'm working' onthis job, ' he says, 'an' this is a paper mill you're workin' in, ' hesays, 'not a boiler factory. Treat the machinery accordin', like a realworkman, ' he says. The simp! I just stepped down off the platform of thebig press, and I says, 'Well, you look like a kinda delicate piece ofmechanism yourself, ' I says, 'an' need careful handlin', so take thatfor a starter, ' I says. An' with that I handed him one in the nose. "Buzz laughed, but there was little mirth in it. "I bet he seen enoughwheels an' delicate machinery that minute to set up a whole new plant. "

There was nothing of mirth in the woman's drawn face. "Oh, Ernie, f'rGod's sake! What they goin' to do to you!"

He was half way up the narrow stairway, she at the foot of it, peeringup at him. "They won't do anything. I guess old Hatton ain't so stuck onhavin' his swell golf club crowd know his little boy was beat up by oneof the workmen. "

He was clumping about upstairs now. So she turned toward the kitchen, dazedly. She glanced at the clock. Going on toward five. Still inthe absurd hat she got out a panful of potatoes and began to peelthem skilfuly, automatically. The seamed and hardened fingershad come honestly by their deftness. They had twirled and peeledpecks--bushels--tons of these brown balls in their time. 

At five-thirty Pa came in. At six, Minnie. She had to go back to theSugar Bowl until nine. Five minutes later the supper was steaming onthe table. 

"Ernie, " called Ma, toward the ceiling. "Er-nie! Supper's on. " The threesat down at the table without waiting. Pa had slipped off his shoes, andwas in his stockinged feet. They ate in silence. It was a good meal. AEuropean family of the same class would have considered it a banquet. There were meat and vegetables, butter and home-made bread, preserve andcake, true to the standards of the extravagant American labouring-classhousehold. In the summer the garden supplied them with lettuce, beans, peas, onions, radishes, beets, potatoes, corn, thanks to Ma's achingback and blistered hands. They stored enough vegetables in the cellar tolast through the winter. 

Buzz usually cleaned up after supper. But to-night, when he came down, he was already clean-shaven, clean-shirted, and his hair was wet fromthe comb. He took his place in silence. His acid-stained work shoes hadbeen replaced by his good tan ones. Evidently he was going down townafter supper. Buzz never took any exercise for the sake of his body'sgood. Sometimes he and the Lembke boys across the way played a game ofball in the middle of the road, or in the vacant lot, but they did itout of the game instinct, and with no thought of their muscles' gain. 

But to-night, evidently, there was to be no ball. Buzz ate little. Hismother, forever between the stove and the table, ate less. But that wasnothing unusual in her. She waited on the others, but mostly she hoveredabout the boy. 

"Ernie, you ain't eaten your potatoes. Look how nice an' mealy theyare. "

"Don't want none. "

"Ernie, would you rather have a baked apple than the raspberry preserve?I fixed a pan this morning. "

"Naw. Lemme alone. I ain't hungry. "

He slouched from the table. Minnie, teacup in hand, regarded him overits rim with wide, malicious eyes. "I saw that Kearney girl go by herebefore supper, and she rubbered in like everything. "

"You're a liar, " said Buzz, unemotionally. 

"I did so! She went by and then she came back again. I saw her bothtimes. Say, I guess I ought to know her. Anybody in town'd knowKearney. "

Buzz had been headed toward the front porch. He hesitated and turned, now, and picked up the newspaper from the sitting-room sofa. Pa Werner, in trousers, shirt and suspenders, was padding about the kitchen withhis pipe and tobacco. He came into the sitting room now and stood amoment, his lips twisted about the pipe-stem. The pipe's putt-puttinggave warning that he was about to break into unaccustomed speech. Heregarded Buzz with beady, narrowed eyes. 

"You let me see you around with that Kearney girl and I'll break everybone in your body, and hers too. The hussy!"

"Oh, you will, will you?"

Ma, who had been making countless trips from the kitchen to the backgarden with water pail and sprinkling can sagging from either arm, putin a word to stay the threatening storm. "Now, Pa! Now, Ernie!" The twomen subsided into bristling silence. 

Suddenly, "There she is again!" shrilled Minnie, from her bedroom. Buzzshrank back in his chair. Old man Werner, with a muttered oath, went tothe open doorway and stood there, puffing savage little spurts of smokestreetward. The Kearney girl stared brazenly at him as she strolledslowly by, a slim and sinister figure. Old man Werner watched her untilshe passed out of sight. 

"You go gettin' mixed up with dirt like that, " threatened he, "and I'lllearn you. She'll be hangin' around the mill yet, the brass-faced thing. If I hear of it I'll get the foreman to put her off the place. You'llstay home to-night. Carry a pail of water for your ma once. "

"Carry it yourself. "

Buzz, with a wary eye up the street, slouched out to the front porch, into the twilight of the warm May evening. Charley Lembke, from hisporch across the street, called to him: "Goin' down town?"

"Yeh, I guess so. "

"Ain't you afraid of bein' pinched?" Buzz turned his head quicklytoward the room just behind him. He turned to go in. Charley's voicecame again, clear and far-reaching. "I hear you had a run-in withHatton's son, and knocked him down. Some class t' you, Buzz, even if itdoes cost you your job. "

From within the sound of a newspaper hurled to the floor. Pa Werner wasat the door. "What's that! What's that he's sayin'?"

Buzz, cornered, jutted a threatening jaw at his father and brazened itout. "Can't you hear good?"

"Come on in here. "

Buzz hesitated a moment. Then he turned, slowly, and walked into thelittle sitting room with an attempt at a swagger that failed to convinceeven himself. He leaned against the side of the door, hands in pockets. Pa Werner faced him, black-browed. "Is that right, what he said? Lembke?Huh?"

"Sure it's right. I had a run-in with Hatton, an' licked him, and give'mmy time. What you goin' to do about it?"

Ma Werner was in the room, now. Minnie, passing through on her way towork again, caught the electric current of the storm about to break andescaped it with a parting:

"Oh, for the land's sakes! You two. Always a-fighting. "

The two men faced each other. The one a sturdy man-boy nearing twenty, with a great pair of shoulders and a clear eye, a long, quick arm and adeft hand--these last his assets as a workman. The other, gnarled, prematurely wrinkled, almost gnome-like. This one took his pipe frombetween his lips and began to speak. The drink he had had at Wenzel's onthe way home sparked his speech. 

He began with a string of epithets. They flowed from his lips, an acidstream. Pick and choose as I will, there is none that can be repeatedhere. Old Man Werner had, perhaps, been something of a tough guyhimself, in his youth. As he reviled his son now you saw that son, atfifty, just such another stocking-footed, bitter old man, smoking a glumpipe on the back porch, summer evenings, and spitting into the freshyoung grass. 

I don't say that this thought came to Buzz as his father flayed him withhis abuse. But there was something unusual, surely, in thenon-resistance with which he allowed the storm to beat about his head. Something in his steady, unruffled gaze caused the other man to falter alittle in his tirade, and finally to stop, almost apprehensively. He hadpaid no heed to Ma Werner's attempts at pacification. "Now, Pa!" she hadsaid, over and over, her hand on his arm, though he shook it off againand again. "Now, Pa!--" But he stopped now, fist raised in a lastprofane period. Buzz stood regarding him with his unblinking stare. 

Finally: "You through?" said Buzz. 

"Ya-as, " snarled Pa, "I'm through. Get to hell out of here. You'll behung yet, you loafer. A good-for-nothing bum, that's what. Get out o'here!"

"I'm gettin', " said Buzz. He took his hat off the hook and wiped itcarefully with the lower side of his sleeve, round and round. He placedit on his head, jauntily. He stepped to the kitchen, took a tooth-pickfrom the little red-and-white glass holder on the table, and--with thisemblem of insouciance, at an angle of ninety, between histeeth--strolled indolently, nonchalantly down the front steps, along thecement walk to the street and so toward town. The two old people, leftalone in the sudden silence of the house, stared after the swaggeringfigure until the dim twilight blotted it out. And a sinister somethingseemed to close its icy grip about the heart of one of them. A vaguepremonition that she could only feel, not express, made her next wordsseem futile. 

"Pa, you oughtn't to talked to him like that. He's just a little wild. He looked so kind of funny when he went out. I don'no, he looked so kindof--"

"He looked like the bum he is, that's what. No respect for nothing. Forhis pa, or ma, or nothing. Down on the corner with the rest of 'em, that's where he's goin'. Hatton ain't goin' to let this go by. You see. "

But she, on her way to the kitchen, repeated, "I don'no, he looked sokind of funny. He looked so kind of--"

Considering all things--the happenings of the past few hours, atleast--Buzz, as he strolled on down toward Grand Avenue with hissauntering, care-free gait, did undoubtedly look kind of funny. Thered-hot rage of the afternoon and the white-hot rage of the evening hadchoked the furnace of brain and soul with clinkers so that he wasthinking unevenly and disconnectedly. On the surface he was cool andunruffled. He stopped for a moment at the railroad tracks to talk withStumpy Gans, the one-legged gateman. The little bell above Stumpy'sshanty was ringing its warning, so he strolled leisurely over to thedepot platform to see the 7:15 come in from Chicago. When the trainpulled out Buzz went on down the street. His mind was darting here andthere, planning this revenge, discarding it; seizing on another, abandoning that. He'd show'm. He'd show'm. Sick of the whole damn bunch, anyway. . . . Wonder was Hatton going to raise a shindy. . . . Let'm. Whocares?. . . The old man was a drunk, that's what. . . . Ma had looked kindasick. . . . 

He put that uncomfortable thought out of his mind and slammed the dooron it. Anyway, he'd show'm. 

Out of the shadows of the great trees in front of the Agassiz Schoolstepped the Kearney girl, like a lean and hungry cat. One hand clutchedhis arm. 

Buzz jumped and said something under his breath. Then he laughed, shortly. "Might as well kill a guy as scare him to death!"

She thrust one hand through his arm and linked it with the other. "I'vebeen waiting for you, Buzz. "

"Yeh. Well, let me tell you something. You quit traipsing up and down infront of my house, see?"

"I wanted to see you. An' I didn't know whether you was coming down townto-night or not. "

"Well, I am. So now you know. " He pulled away from her, but she twinedher arm the tighter about his. 

"Ain't sore at me, are yuh, Buzz?"

"No. Leggo my arm. "

"If you're sore because I been foolin' round with that little wart of aDonahue--" She turned wise eyes up to him, trying to make them limpid inthe darkness. 

"What do I care who you run with?"

"Don't you care, Buzz?" The words were soft but there was a steel edgeto her utterance. 

"No. "

"Oh, Buzz, I'm batty about you. I can't help it, can I? H'm? Look here, you go on to Grand, and hang around for an hour, maybe, and I'll meetyou here an' we'll walk a ways. Will you? I got something to tell you. "

"Naw, I can't to-night. I'm busy. "

And then the steel edge cut. "Buzz, if you turn me down I'll have youup. "

"Up?"

"Before old Colt. I can fix up charges. He'll believe it. Say, he knowsme, Judge Colt does. I can name you an'--"

"Me!" Sheer amazement rang in his voice. "Me? You must be crazy. Iain't had anything to do with you. You make me sick. "

"That don't make any difference. You can't prove it. I told you I wascrazy about you. I told you--"

He jerked loose from her then and was off. He ran one block. Then, aftera backward glance, fell into a quick walk that brought him past theBrill House and to Schroeder's drug store corner. There was hiscrowd--Spider, and Red, and Bing, and Casey. They took him literallyunto their breasts. They thumped him on the back. They bestowed on himthe low epithets with which they expressed admiration. Red worked at oneof the bleaching vats in the Hatton paper mill. The story of Buzz'sfistic triumph had spread through the big plant like a flame. 

"Go on, Buzz, tell 'em about it, " Red urged, now. "Je's, I like to diedlaughing when I heard it. He must of looked a sight, the poor boob. Goon, Buzz, tell 'em how you says to him he must be a kind of delicatepiece of--you know; go on, tell 'em. "

Buzz hitched himself up with a characteristic gesture, and plunged intohis story. His audience listened entranced, interrupting him with anoccasional "Je's!" of awed admiration. But the thing seemed to lack acertain something. Perhaps Casey put his finger on that something when, at the recital's finish he asked:

"Didn't he see you was goin' to hit him?"

"No. He never see a thing. "

Casey ruminated a moment. "You could of give him a chanst to put up hisdukes, " he said at last. A little silence fell upon the group. Honouramong thieves. 

Buzz shifted uncomfortably. "He's a bigger guy than I am. I bet he'sover six foot. The papers was always telling how he played football atthat college he went to. "

Casey spoke up again. "They say he didn't wait for this here draft. He'sgoin' to Fort Sheridan, around Chicago somewhere, to be made a officer. "

"Yeh, them rich guys, they got it all their own way, " Spider spoke up, gloomily. "They--"

From down the street came a dull, muffled thud-thud-thud-thud. AlreadyChippewa, Wisconsin, had learned to recognise it. Grand Avenue, none toocrowded on this mid-week night, pressed to the curb to see. Down thestreet they stared toward the moving mass that came steadily nearer. Thelistless group on the corner stiffened into something like interest. 

"Company G, " said Red. "I hear they're leavin' in a couple of days. "

And down the street they came, thud-thud-thud, Company G, headed for thenew red-brick Armory for the building of which they had engineeredeverything from subscription dances and exhibition drills to turkeyraffles. Chippewa had never taken Company G very seriously until now. How could it, when Company G was made up of Willie Kemp, who clerked inHassell's shoe store; Fred Garvey, the reporter on the Chippewa_Eagle_; Hermie Knapp, the real-estate man, and Earl Hanson who camearound in the morning for your grocery order. 

Thud-thud-thud-thud. And to Chippewa, standing at the curb, quitesuddenly these every-day men and boys were transformed into somethingremote and almost terrible. Something grim. Something sacrificial. Something sacred. 

Thud-thud-thud-thud. Looking straight ahead. 

"The poor boobs, " said Spider, and spat, and laughed. 

The company passed on down the street--vanished. Grand Avenue went itsway. 

A little silence fell upon the street-corner group. Bing was the firstto speak. 

"They won't git me in this draft. I got a mother an' two kid sisters tosupport. "

"Yeh, a swell lot of supportin' you do!"

"Who says I don't! I can prove it. "

"They'll get me all right, " said Casey. "I ain't kickin'. "

"I'm under age, " from Red. 

Spider said nothing. His furtive eyes darted here and there. Spider wasof age. And Spider had no family to support. But Spider had reason toknow that no examining board would pass him into the army of hiscountry. And it was a reason of which one did not speak. "You're onlytwenty, ain't you, Buzz?" he asked, to cover the gap in theconversation. 

"Yeh. " Silence fell again. Then, "But I wouldn't mind goin'. Anythingfor a change. This place makes me sick. "

Spider laughed. "You better be a hero and go and enlist. "

Buzz's head came up with a jerk. "Je's, I never thought of that!"

Red struck an attitude, one hand on his breast. "Now's your chanct, Buzz, to save your country an' your flag. Enlistment office's right overthe Golden Eagle clothing store. Step up. Don't crowd gents! This way!"

Buzz was staring at him, open-mouthed. His gaze was fixed, tense. Suddenly he seemed to gather all his muscles together as for a spring. But he only threw his cigarette into the gutter, yawned elaborately, andmoved away. "S'long, " he said; and lounged off. The others looked afterhim a moment, puzzled, speculative. Buzz was not usually so laconic. Butevidently he was leaving with no further speech. 

"I guess maybe he ain't so dead sure that Hatton bunch won't git him forthis, anyway, " Casey said. Then, raising his voice: "Goin' home, Buzz?"

"Yeh. "

But he did not. If they had watched him they would have seen him changehis lounging gait when he reached the corner. They would have seen himstand a moment, sending a quick glance this way and that, then turn, retrace his steps almost at a run, and dart into the doorway that ledto the flight of wooden stairs at the side of the Golden Eagle clothingstore. 

A dingy room. A man at a bare table. Another seated at the window, hischair tipped back, his feet on the sill, a pipe between his teeth. Buzz, shambling, suddenly awkward, stood in the door. 

"This the place where you enlist?"

The man at the table stood up. The chair in front of the open windowcame down on all-fours. 

"Sure, " said the first man. "What's your name?"

Buzz told him. 

"Meet Sergeant Keith. He's a Canadian. Been through the whole game. "

Five minutes later Buzz's fine white torso rose above his trousers likea great pillar. Unconsciously his sagging shoulders had straightened. His stomach was held in. His chest jutted, shelf-like. His ribs showedthrough the pink-white flesh. 

"Get some of that pork off of him, " observed Sergeant Keith, "and he'lldo in a couple of Fritzes before he's through. "

"Me!" blurted Buzz, struggling now with his shirt. "A couple! Say, youdon't know me. Whaddyou mean, a couple? I can lick a whole regiment ofthem beerheads with one hand tied behind me an' my feet in a sack. " Heemerged from the struggle with his shirt, his face very red, his hairrumpled. 

Sergeant Keith smiled a grim little smile. "Keep your shirt on, kid, "he said, "and remember, this isn't a fist fight you're going into. It'swar. "

Buzz, fumbling with his hat, put his question. "When--when do I go?" Forhe had signed his name in his round, boyish, sixth-grade scrawl. 

"To-morrow. Now listen to these instructions. "

"T-to-morrow?" gasped Buzz. 

He was still gasping as he reached the street and struck out towardhome. To-morrow! When the Kearney girl again stepped out of thetree-shadows he stared at her as at something remote and trivial. 

"I thought you tried to give me the slip, Buzz. Where you been?"

"Never mind where I've been. "

She fell into step beside him, but had difficulty in matching his greatstrides. She caught at his arm. At that Buzz turned and stopped. It wastoo dark to see his face, but something in his voice--something new, andhard, and resolute--reached even the choked and slimy cells of thiscreature's consciousness. 

"Now looka here. You beat it. I got somethin' on my mind to-night and Ican't be bothered with no fool girl, see? Don't get me sore. I mean it. "

Her hand dropped away from his arm. "I didn't mean what I said abouthavin' you up, Buzz; honest t' Gawd I didn't. "

"I don't care what you meant. "

'Will you meet me to-morrow night? Will you, Buzz?"

"If I'm in this town to-morrow night I'll meet you. Is that goodenough?"

He turned and strode away. But she was after him. "Where you goin'to-morrow?"

"I'm goin' to war, that's where. "

"Yes you are!" scoffed Miss Kearney. Then, at his silence: "You didn'tgo and do a fool thing like that?"

"I sure did. "

"When you goin'?"

"To-morrow. "

"Well, of all the big boobs, " sneered Miss Kearney; "what did you go anddo that for?"

"Search _me_, " said Buzz, dully. "Search _me_. "

Then he turned and went on toward home, alone. The Kearney girl's silly, empty laugh came back to him through the darkness. It might have beencalled a scornful laugh if the Kearney girl had been capable of anyemotion so dignified as scorn. 

The family was still up. The door was open to the warm May night. TheWerners, in their moments of relaxation, were as unbuttoned and highly_negligée_ as one of those group pictures you see of the Robert LouisStevenson family. Pa, shirt-sleeved, stocking-footed, asleep in hischair. Ma's dress open at the front. Minnie, in an untidy kimono, sewing. 

On this flaccid group Buzz burst, bomb-like. He hung his hat on thehook, wordlessly. The noise he made woke his father, as he had meantthat it should. There came a muttered growl from the old man. Buzzleaned against the stairway door, negligently. The eyes of the threewere on him. 

"Well, " he said, "I guess you won't be bothered with me much longer. " MaWerner's head came up sharply at that. 

"What you done, Ernie?"

"Enlisted. "

"Enlisted--for what?"

"For the war; what do you suppose?"

Ma Werner rose at that, heavily. "Ernie! You never!"

Pa Werner was wide awake now. Out of his memory of the old country, andsoldier service there, he put his next question. "Did you sign to it?"

"Yeh. "

"When you goin'?"

"To-morrow. "

Even Pa Werner gasped at that. 

In families like the Werners emotion is rarely expressed. But now, because of something in the stricken face and starting eyes of thewoman, and the open-mouthed dumbfoundedness of the old man, and thesudden tender fearfulness in the face of the girl; and because, in thatmoment, all these seemed very safe, and accustomed, and, somehow, dear, Buzz curled his mouth into the sneer of the tough guy and spoke out ofthe corner of that contorted feature. 

"What did you think I was goin' to do? Huh? Stick around here and takedirt from the bunch of you! Nix! I'm through!"

There was nothing dramatic about Buzz's going. He seemed to be whiskedaway. One moment he was eating his breakfast at an unaccustomed hour, inhis best shirt and trousers, his mother, only half understanding evennow, standing over him with the coffee pot; the next he was standingwith his cheap shiny suitcase in his hand. Then he was waiting on thedepot platform, and Hefty Burke, the baggage man, was saying, "Where yougoin', Buzz?"

"Goin' to fight the Germans. "

Hefty had hooted hoarsely: "Ya-a-as you are, you big bluff!"

"Who you callin' a bluff, you baggage-smasher, you! I'm goin' to war, I'm tellin' you. "

Hefty, still scoffing, turned away to his work. "Well, then, I guessit's as good as over. Give old Willie a swipe for me, will you?"

"You bet I will. Watch me!"

I think he more than half meant it. 

And thus Buzz Werner went to war. He was vague about its locality. Somewhere in Europe. He was pretty sure it was France. A line from hisFourth Grade geography came back to him. "The French, " it had said, "area gay people, fond of dancing and light wines. "

Well, that sounded all right. 

The things that happened to Buzz Werner in the next twelve monthscannot be detailed here. They would require the space of what thepublishers call a 12-mo volume. Buzz himself could never have told you. Things happened too swiftly, too concentratedly. 

Chicago first. Buzz had never seen Chicago. Now that he saw it, hehardly believed it. His first glimpse of it left him cowering, terrified. The noise, the rush, the glitter, the grimness, the vastness, were like blows upon his defenceless head. They beat the braggadocio andthe self-confidence temporarily out of him. But only temporarily. 

Then came a camp. A rough, temporary camp compared to which the presentcantonments are luxurious. The United States Government took Buzz Wernerby the slack of the trousers and the slack of the mind, and, holding himthus, shook him into shape--and into submission. And eventually--thoughit required months--into an understanding of why that submission wasmanly, courageous, and fine. But before he learned that he learned manyother things. He learned there was little good in saying, "Aw, g'wan!"to a dapper young lieutenant if they clapped you into the guard-housefor saying it. There was little point to throwing down your shovel andrefusing to shovel coal if they clapped you into the guard house fordoing it; and made you shovel harder than ever when you came out. Helearned what it was to rise at dawn and go thud-thud-thudding down adirt road for endless weary miles. He became an olive-drab unit in anolive-drab village. He learned what it was to wake up in the morning sosore and lame that he felt as if he had been pulled apart, limb fromlimb, during the night, and never put together again. He stood out witha raw squad in the dirt of No Man's Land between barracks and wentthrough exercises that took hold of his great slack muscles and weldedthem into whip-cords. And in front of him, facing him, stood a slim, six-foot whipper-snapper of a lieutenant, hatless, coatless, tireless, merciless--a creature whom Buzz at first thought he could snap betweenthumb and finger--like that!--who made life a hell for Buzz Werner. Until his muscles became used to it. 

"One--_two_!--three! One--_two_--three! One--_two_--three!" yelled thisperson. And, "_In_hale! _Ex_hale! _In_hale! _Ex_hale!" till Buzz's lungswere bursting, his eyes were starting from his head, his chest carried asledge hammer inside it, his thigh-muscles screamed, and his legs, arms, neck, were no longer parts of him, but horrid useless burdens, detached, yet clinging. He learned what this person meant when he shouted (alwayswith the rising inflection), "Comp'ny! Right! _Whup_!" Buzz whupped withthe best of 'em. The whipper-snapper seemed tireless. Long after Buzzfelt that another moment of it would kill him the lithe young lieutenantwould be leaping about like a faun, and pride kept Buzz going though hewanted to drop with fatigue, and his shirt and hair and face were wetwith sweat. 

So much for his body. It soon became accustomed to the routine, thenhardened. His mind was less pliable. But that, too, was undergoing achange. He found that the topics of conversation that used to interesthis little crowd on the street corner in Chippewa were not of muchinterest, here. There were boys from every part of the great country. And they talked of the places whence they had come and speculated aboutthe places to which they were going. And Buzz listened and learned. There was strangely little talk about girls. There usually is whenmuscles and mind are being driven to the utmost. But he heard men--menas big as he--speak openly of things that he had always sneered at assoft. After one of these conversations he wrote an awkward, butsignificant scrawl home to his mother. 

"Well Ma, " he wrote, "I guess maybe you would like to hear a few wordsfrom me. Well I like it in the army it is the life for me you bet. I amfeeling great how are you all--"

Ma Werner wasted an entire morning showing it around the neighbourhood, and she read and reread it until it was almost pulp. 

Six months of this. Buzz Werner was an intelligent machine composed ofsteel, cord, and iron. I think he had forgotten that the Kearney girlhad ever existed. One day, after three months of camp life, the man inthe next cot had thrown him a volume of Kipling. Buzz fingered it, disinterestedly. Until that moment Kipling had not existed for BuzzWerner. After that moment he dominated his leisure hours. The Y. M. C. A. Hut had many battered volumes of this writer. Buzz read them all. 

The week before Thanksgiving Buzz found himself on his way to New York. For some reason unexplained to him he was separated from his company inone of the great shake-ups performed for the good of the army. He neversaw them again. He was sent straight to a New York camp. When he beheldhis new lieutenant his limbs became fluid, and his heart leaped into histhroat, and his mouth stood open, and his eyes bulged. It was youngHatton--Harry Hatton--whose aristocratic nose he had punched six monthsbefore, in the Hatton Pulp and Paper Mill. 

And even as he stared young Hatton fixed him with his eye, and then cameover to him and said, "It's all right, Werner. "

Buzz Werner could only salute with awkward respect, while with one greatgulp his heart slid back into normal place. He had not thought thatHatton was so tall, or so broad-shouldered, or so--

He no more thought of telling the other men that he had once knockedthis man down than he thought of knocking him down again. He wouldalmost as soon have thought of taking a punch at the President. 

The day before Thanksgiving Buzz was told he might have a holiday. Alsohe was given an address and a telephone number in New York City and toldthat if he so desired he might call at that address and receive abountiful Thanksgiving dinner. They were expecting him there. That thetelephone exchange was Murray Hill, and the street Madison Avenue meantnothing to Buzz. He made the short trip to New York, floundered aboutthe city, found every one willing and eager to help him find the addresson the slip, and brought up, finally, in front of the house on MadisonAvenue. It was a large, five-story stone place, and Buzz supposed it wasa flat, of course. He stood off and surveyed it. Then he ascended thesteps and rang the bell. They must have been waiting for him. The doorwas opened by a large amiable-looking, middle-aged man who said, "Well, well! Come in, come in, my boy!" a great deal as the folks in Chippewa, Wisconsin, might have said it. The stout old party also said he was gladto see him and Buzz believed it. They went upstairs, much to Buzz'ssurprise. In Buzz's experience upstairs always meant bedrooms. But inthis case it meant a great bright sitting room, with books in it, and afireplace, very cheerful. There were not a lot of people in the room. Just a middle-aged woman in a soft kind of dress, who came to himwithout any fuss and the first thing he knew he felt acquainted. Withinthe next fifteen minutes or so some other members of the family seemedto ooze in, unnoticeably. First thing you knew, there they were. Theydidn't pay such an awful lot of attention to you. Just took you forgranted. A couple of young kids, a girl of fourteen, and a boy ofsixteen who asked you easy questions about the army till you foundyourself patronising him. And a tall black-haired girl who made youthink of the vamps in the movies, only her eyes were different. Andthen, with a little rush, a girl about his own age, or maybe younger--hecouldn't tell--who came right up to him, and put out her hand, and gavehim a grip with her hard little fist, just like a boy, and said, "I'mJoyce Ladd. "

"Pleased to meetcha, " mumbled Buzz. And then he found himself talking toher quite easily. She knew a surprising lot about the army. 

"I've two brothers over there, " she said. "And all my friends, ofcourse. " He found out later, quite by accident, that this boyish, butstrangely appealing person belonged to some sort of Motor ServiceLeague, and drove an automobile, every day, from eight to six, up anddown and round and about New York, working like a man in the service ofthe country. He never would have believed that the world held that kindof girl. 

Then four other men in uniform came in, and it turned out that three ofthem were privates like himself, and the other a sergeant. Their awkwardentrance made him feel more than ever at ease, and ten minutes laterthey were all talking like mad, and laughing and joking as if they hadknown these people for years. They all went in to dinner. Buzz gotpanicky when he thought of the knives and forks, but that turned out allright, too, because they brought these as you needed them. And besides, the things they gave you to eat weren't much different from the thingsyou had for Sunday or Thanksgiving dinner at home, and it was cooked theway his mother would have cooked it--even better, perhaps. And lots ofit. And paper snappers and caps and things, and much laughter and talk. And Buzz Werner, who had never been shown any respect or deference inhis life, was asked, politely, his opinion of the war, and the army, andwhen he thought it all would end; and he told them, politely, too. 

After dinner Mrs. Ladd said, "What would you boys like to do? Would youlike to drive around the city and see New York? Or would you like to goto a matinée, or a picture show? Or do you want to stay here? Some ofJoyce's girl friends are coming in a little later. "

And Buzz found himself saying, stumblingly, "I--I'd kind of rather stayand talk with the girls. " Buzz, the tough guy, blushing like a shyschoolboy. 

They did not even laugh at that. They just looked as if they understoodthat you missed girls at camp. Mrs. Ladd came over to him and put herhand on his arm and said, "That's splendid. We'll all go up to theballroom and dance. " And they did. And Buzz, who had learned to dance atplaces like Kearney's saloon, and at the mill shindigs, glided expertlyabout with Joyce Ladd of Madison Avenue, and found himself seated in agreat cushioned window-seat, talking with her about Kipling. It was liketalking to another fellow, almost, only it had a thrill in it. She saidsuch comic things. And when she laughed she threw back her head and youreyes were dazzled by her slender white throat. They all stayed forsupper. And when they left Mrs. Ladd and Joyce handed them packagesthat, later, turned out to be cigarettes, and chocolate, and books, andsoap, and knitted things and a wallet. And when Buzz opened the walletand found, with relief, that there was no money in it he knew that hehad met and mingled with American royalty as its equal. 

Three days later he sailed for France. 

Buzz Werner, the Chippewa tough guy, in Paris! Buzz Werner at Napoleon'stomb, that glorious white marble poem. Buzz Werner in the Place de laConcorde. Eating at funny little Paris restaurants. 

Then a new life. Life in a drab, rain-soaked, mud-choked little Frenchvillage, sleeping in barns, or stables, or hen coops. If the French were"a gay people, fond of dancing and light wines, " he'd like to know whereit came in! Nothing but drill and mud, mud and drill, and rain, rain, rain! And old women with tragic faces, and young women with old eyes. And unbelievable stories of courage and sacrifice. And more rain, andmore mud, and more drill. And then--into it!

Into it with both feet. Living in the trenches. Back home, in camp, theyhad refused to take the trenches seriously. They had played in them aschildren play bear under the piano or table, and had refused to keeptheir heads down. But Buzz learned to keep his down now, quickly enough. A first terrifying stretch of this, then back to the rear again. Moremud and drill. Marches so long and arduous that walking was no longerwalking but a dreadful mechanical motion. He learned what thirst was, did Buzz. He learned what it was to be obliged to keep your mind off thethought of pails of water--pails that slopped and brimmed over, so thatyou could put your head into them and lip around like a horse. 

Then back into the trenches. And finally, over the top! Very littlememory of what happened after that. A rush. Trampling over soft heapsthat writhed. Some one yelling like an Indian with a voice somehow likehis own. The German trench reached. At them with his bayonet! Heremembered, automatically, how his manual had taught him to jerk out thesteel, after you had driven it home. He did it. Into the very trenchitself. A great six-foot German struggling with a slim figure that Buzzsomehow recognised as his lieutenant, Hatton. A leap at him, like anenraged dog:

"G'wan! who you shovin', you big slob you" yelled Buzz (I regret tosay). And he thrust at him, and through him. The man released hisgrappling hold of Hatton's throat, and grunted, and sat down. And Buzzlaughed. And the two went on, Buzz behind his lieutenant, and thensomething smote his thigh, and he too sat down. The dying German hadthrown his last bomb, and it had struck home. 

Buzz Werner would never again do a double shuffle on Schroeder'sdrug-store corner. 

Hospital days. Hospital nights. A wheel chair. Crutches. Home. 

It was May once more when Buzz Werner's train came into the littlered-brick depot at Chippewa, Wisconsin. Buzz, spick and span in hisuniform, looked down rather nervously, and yet with a certain pride athis left leg. When he sat down you couldn't tell which was the real one. As the train pulled in at the Chippewa Junction, just before reachingthe town proper, there was old Bart Ochsner ringing the bell for dinnerat the Junction eating house. Well, for the love of Mike! Wouldn't thatmake you laugh. Ringing that bell, just like always, as if nothing hadhappened in the last year! Buzz leaned against the window, to see. Therewas some commotion in the train and some one spoke his name. Buzzturned, and there stood Old Man Hatton, and a lot of others, and heseemed to be making a speech, and kind of crying, though that couldn'tbe possible. And his father was there, very clean and shaved and queer. Buzz caught words about bravery, and Chippewa's pride, and he was fussedto death, and glad when the train pulled in at the Chippewa station. Butthere the commotion was worse than ever. There was a band, playing awaylike mad. Buzz's great hands grown very white, were fidgeting at hisuniform buttons, and at the stripe on his sleeve, and the medal on hisbreast. They wouldn't let him carry a thing, and when he came out on thecar platform to descend there went up a great sound that was half roarand half scream. Buzz Werner was the first of Chippewa's men to comeback. 

After that it was rather hazy. There was his mother. His sister Minnie, too. He even saw the Kearney girl, with her loose red mouth, and hersilly eyes, and she was as a strange woman to him. He was in Hatton'sglittering automobile, being driven down Grand Avenue. There werespeeches, and a dinner, and, later, when he was allowed to go home, rather white, a steady stream of people pouring in and out of the houseall day. That night, when he limped up the stairs to his hot little roomunder the roof he was dazed, spent, and not so very happy. 

Next morning, though, he felt more himself, and inclined to joke. Andthen there was a talk with old Man Hatton; a talk that left Buzzsomewhat numb, and the family breathless. 

Visitors again, all that afternoon. 

After supper he carried water for the garden, against his mother'soutraged protests. 

"What'll folks think!" she said, "you carryin' water for me?"

Afterward he took his smart visored cap off the hook and limped downtown, his boots and leggings and uniform very spick and span from MaWerner's expert brushing and rubbing. She refused to let Buzz touchthem, although he tried to tell her that he had done that job for ayear. 

At the corner of Grand and Outagamie, in front of Schroeder's drugstore, stood what was left of the gang, and some new members who hadcome during the year that had passed. Buzz knew them all. 

They greeted him at first with a mixture of shyness and resentment. Theyeyed his leg, and his uniform, and the metal and ribbon thing that hungat his breast. Bing and Red and Spider were there. Casey was gone. 

Finally Spider spat and said, "G'wan, Buzz, give us your spiel about howyou saved young Hatton--the simp!"

"Who says he's a simp?" inquired Buzz, very quietly. But there was alook about his jaw. 

"Well--anyway--the papers was full of how you was a hero. Say, is thatright that old Hatton's goin' to send you to college? Huh? Je's!"

"Yeh, " chorused the others, "go on, Buzz. Tell us. "

Red put his question. "Tell us about the fightin', Buzz. Is it like theysay?"

It was Buzz Werner's great moment. He had pictured it a thousand timesin his mind as he lay in the wet trenches, as he plodded the muddyFrench roads, as he reclined in his wheel chair in the hospital garden. He had them in the hollow of his hand. His eyes brightened. He looked atthe faces so eagerly fixed on his utterance. 

"G'wan, Buzz, " they urged. 

Buzz opened his lips and the words he used were the words he might haveused a year before, as to choice. "There's nothin' to tell. A guy didn'thave no time to be scairt. Everything kind of come at once, and you gotyours, or either you didn't. That's all there was to it. Je's, it wasfierce!"

They waited. Nothing more. "Yeh, but tell us--"

And suddenly Buzz turned away. The little group about him fell back, respectfully. Something in his face, perhaps. A quietness, a newdignity. 

"S'long, boys, " he said. And limped off, toward home. 

And in that moment Buzz, the bully and braggart, vanished forever. Andin his place--head high, chest up, eyes clear--limped Ernest Werner, theman. 

IV

THE ELDEST

The Self-Complacent Young Cub leaned an elbow against the mantel asyou've seen it done in English plays, and blew a practically perfectsmoke-ring. It hurtled toward me like a discus. 

"Trouble with your stuff, " he began at once (we had just beenintroduced), "is that it lacks plot. Been meaning to meet and tell youthat for a long time. Your characterization's all right, and yourdialogue. In fact, I think they're good. But your stuff lacks _raisond'être_--if you know what I mean. 

"But"--in feeble self-defence--"people's insides are often so much moreinteresting than their outsides; that which they think or feel so muchmore thrilling than anything they actually do. Bennett--Wells--"

"Rot!" remarked the young cub, briskly. "Plot's the thing. "

 * * * * *

There is no plot to this because there is no plot to Rose. There neverwas. There never will be. Compared to the drab monotony of Rose'sexistence a desert waste is as thrilling as a five-reel film. 

They had called her Rose, fatuously, as parents do their first-borngirl. No doubt she had been normally pink and white and velvety. It is arisky thing to do, however. Think back hastily on the Roses you know. Don't you find a startling majority still clinging, sere and withered, to the family bush?

In Chicago, Illinois, a city of two millions (or is it three?), thereare women whose lives are as remote, as grey, as unrelated to the worldabout them as is the life of a Georgia cracker's woman-drudge. Rose wasone of these. An unwed woman, grown heavy about the hips and arms, ashouseworking women do, though they eat but little, moving dully aboutthe six-room flat on Sangamon Street, Rose was as much a slave as anyblack wench of plantation days. 

There was the treadmill of endless dishes, dirtied as fast as cleansed;there were beds, and beds, and beds; gravies and soups and stews. Andalways the querulous voice of the sick woman in the front bedroomdemanding another hot water bag. Rose's day was punctuated by hot waterbags. They dotted her waking hours. She filled hot water bagsautomatically, like a machine--water half-way to the top, then one handclutching the bag's slippery middle while the other, with a deft twist, ejected the air within; a quick twirl of the metal stopper, the bagreleased, squirming, and, finally, its plump and rufous cheeks wipeddry. 

"Is that too hot for you, Ma? Where'd you want it--your head or yourfeet?"

A spinster nearing forty, living thus, must have her memories--oneprecious memory, at least--or she dies. Rose had hers. She hugged it, close. The L trains roared by, not thirty feet from her kitchen door. Alley and yard and street sent up their noises to her. The life ofChicago's millions yelped at her heels. On Rose's face was the vague, mute look of the woman whose days are spent indoors, at sordid tasks. 

At six-thirty every night that look lifted, for an hour. At six-thirtythey came home--Floss, and Al, and Pa--their faces stamped with themarks that come from a day spent in shop and factory. They brought withthem the crumbs and husks of the day's happenings, and these they flungcarelessly before the life-starved Rose and she ate them, gratefully. 

They came in with a rush, hungry, fagged, grimed, imperious, smelling ofthe city. There was a slamming of doors, a banging of drawers, a clatterof tongues, quarrelling, laughter. A brief visit to the sick woman'sroom. The thin, complaining voice reciting its tale of the day'sdiscomfort and pain. Then supper. 

"Guess who I waited on to-day!" Floss might demand. 

Rose, dishing up, would pause, interested. "Who?"

"Gladys Moraine! I knew her the minute she came down the aisle. I sawher last year when she was playing in 'His Wives. ' She's prettier offthan on, I think. I waited on her, and the other girls were wild. Shebought a dozen pairs of white kids, and made me give 'em to her huge, soshe could shove her hand right into 'em, like a man does. Two sizes toobig. All the swells wear 'em that way. And only one ring--an emerald thesize of a dime. "

"What'd she wear?" Rose's dull face was almost animated. 

"Ah yes!" in a dreamy falsetto from Al, "what _did_ she wear?"

"Oh, shut up, Al! Just a suit, kind of plain, and yet you'd notice it. And sables! And a Gladys Moraine hat. Everything quiet, and plain, anddark; and yet she looked like a million dollars. I felt like a roachwhile I was waiting on her, though she was awfully sweet to me. "

Or perhaps Al, the eel-like, would descend from his heights to mingle abrief moment in the family talk. Al clerked in the National CigarCompany's store at Clark and Madison. His was the wisdom of the snake, the weasel, and the sphinx. A strangely silent young man, this Al, thin-lipped, smooth-cheeked, perfumed. Slim of waist, flat of hip, narrow of shoulder, his was the figure of the born fox-trotter. Hewalked lightly, on the balls of his feet, like an Indian, but withoutthe Indian's dignity. 

"Some excitement ourselves, to-day, down at the store, believe me. TheOld Man's son started in to learn the retail selling end of thebusiness. Back of the showcase with the rest of us, waiting on trade, and looking like a Yale yell. "

Pa would put down his paper to stare over his reading specs at Al. 

"Mannheim's son! The president!"

"Yep! And I guess he loves it, huh? The Old Man wants him to learn thebusiness from the ground up. I'll bet he'll never get higher than thefirst floor. To-day he went out to lunch at one and never shows up againtill four. Wears English collars, and smokes a brand of cigarettes wedon't carry. "

Thus was the world brought to Rose. Her sallow cheek would show a fainthint of colour as she sipped her tea. 

At six-thirty on a Monday morning in late April (remember, nothing'sgoing to happen) Rose smothered her alarm clock at the first warningsnarl. She was wide-awake at once, as are those whose yesterdays, to-days and to-morrows are all alike. Rose never opened her eyes to thedim, tantalising half-consciousness of a something delightful or asomething harrowing in store for her that day. For one to whom thewash-woman's Tuesday visitation is the event of the week, and in whosebosom the delivery boy's hoarse "Groc-rees!" as he hurls soap and cabbageon the kitchen table, arouses a wild flurry, there can be very littlethrill on awakening. 

Rose slept on the davenport-couch in the sitting-room. That fact initself rises her status in the family. This Monday morning she openedher eyes with what might be called a start if Rose were any other sortof heroine. Something had happened, or was happening. It wasn't the sixo'clock steam hissing in the radiator. She was accustomed to that. Therattle of the L trains, and the milkman's artillery disturbed her aslittle as does the chirping of the birds the farmer's daughter. Asensation new, yet familiar; delicious, yet painful, held her. Shegroped to define it, lying there. Her gaze, wandering over the expanseof the grey woollen blanket, fixed upon a small black object tremblingthere. The knowledge that came to her then had come, many weeks before, in a hundred subtle and exquisite ways, to those who dwell in the openplaces. Rose's eyes narrowed craftily. Craftily, stealthily, she sat up, one hand raised. Her eyes still fixed on the quivering spot, the handdescended, lightning-quick. But not quickly enough. The black spotvanished. It sped toward the open window. Through that window there camea balmy softness made up of Lake Michigan zephyr, and stockyards smell, and distant budding things. Rose had failed to swat the first fly of theseason. Spring had come. 

As she got out of bed and thud-thudded across the room on her heels toshut the window she glanced out into the quiet street. Her city eyes, untrained to nature's hints, failed to notice that the scraggy, smoke-dwarfed oak that sprang, somehow, miraculously, from the mangeylittle dirt-plot in front of the building had developed surprisingthings all over its scrawny branches overnight. But she did see that thefront windows of the flat building across the way were bare of theChicago-grey lace curtains that had hung there the day before. Housecleaning! Well, most decidedly spring had come. 

Rose was the household's Aurora. Following the donning of her limp andobscure garments it was Rose's daily duty to tear the silent family fromits slumbers. Ma was always awake, her sick eyes fixed hopefully on thedoor. For fourteen years it had been the same. 

"Sleeping?"

"Sleeping! I haven't closed an eye all night. "

Rose had learned not to dispute that statement. 

"It's spring out! I'm going to clean the closets and the bureau drawersto-day. I'll have your coffee in a jiffy. Do you feel like getting upand sitting out on the back porch, toward noon, maybe?"

On her way kitchenward she stopped for a sharp tattoo at the door of theroom in which Pa and Al slept. A sleepy grunt of remonstrance rewardedher. She came to Floss's door, turned the knob softly, peered in. Flosswas sleeping as twenty sleeps, deeply, dreamlessly, one slim bare armoutflung, the lashes resting ever so lightly on the delicate curve ofcheek. As she lay there asleep in her disordered bedroom, her clothesstrewing chair, dresser, floor, Floss's tastes, mental equipment, spiritual make-up, innermost thoughts, were as plainly to be read bythe observer as though she had been scientifically charted by apsycho-analyst, a metaphysician and her dearest girl friend. 

"Floss! Floss, honey! Quarter to seven!" Floss stirred, moaned faintly, dropped into sleep again. 

Fifteen minutes later, the table set, the coffee simmering, the morningpaper brought from the back porch to Ma, Rose had heard none of thesounds that proclaimed the family astir--the banging of drawers, therush of running water, the slap of slippered feet. A peep of enquiryinto the depths of the coffee pot, the gas turned to a circle of bluebeads, and she was down the hall to sound the second alarm. 

"Floss, you know if Al once gets into the bathroom!" Floss sat up inbed, her eyes still closed. She made little clucking sounds with hertongue and lips, as a baby does when it wakes. Drugged with sleep, hairtousled, muscles sagging, at seven o'clock in the morning, the mosttrying hour in the day for a woman, Floss was still triumphantly pretty. She had on one of those absurd pink muslin nightgowns, artfully designedto look like crêpe de chine. You've seen them rosily displayed in thecheaper shop windows, marked ninety-eight cents, and you may havewondered who might buy them, forgetting that there is an imitation mindfor every imitation article in the world. 

Rose stooped, picked up a pair of silk stockings from the floor, andran an investigating hand through to heel and toe. She plucked a soiledpink blouse off the back of a chair, eyed it critically, and tucked itunder her arm with the stockings. 

"Did you have a good time last night?"

Floss yawned elaborately, stretched her slim arms high above her head;then, with a desperate effort, flung back the bed-clothes, swung herlegs over the side of the bed and slipped her toes into the shabby, pomponed slippers that lay on the floor. 

"I say, did you have a g--"

"Oh Lord, I don't know! I guess so, " snapped Floss. Temperamentally, Floss was not at her best at seven o'clock on Monday morning. Rose didnot pursue the subject. She tried another tack. 

"It's as mild as summer out. I see the Werners and the Burkes arehousecleaning. I thought I'd start to-day with the closets, and thebureau drawers. You could wear your blue this morning, if it waspressed. "

Floss yawned again, disinterestedly, and folded her kimono about her. 

"Go as far as you like. Only don't put things back in my closet so's Ican't ever find 'em again. I wish you'd press that blue skirt. And washout the Georgette crêpe waist. I might need it. "

The blouse, and skirt, and stockings under her arm, Rose went back tothe kitchen to prepare her mother's breakfast tray. Wafted back to hercame the acrid odour of Pa's matutinal pipe, and the accustomedbickering between Al and Floss over the possession of the bathroom. 

"What do you think this is, anyway? A Turkish bath?"

"Shave in your own room!"

Between Floss and Al there existed a feud that lifted only when a thirdmember of the family turned against either of them. Immediately theyabout-faced and stood united against the offender. 

Pa was the first to demand breakfast, as always. Very neat, was Pa, andfussy, and strangely young looking to be the husband of the grey-haired, parchment-skinned woman who lay in the front bedroom. Pa had two manias:the movies, and a passion for purchasing new and complicated householdutensils--cream-whippers, egg-beaters, window-clamps, lemon-squeezers, silver-polishers. He haunted department store basements in search ofthem. 

He opened his paper now and glanced at the head-lines and at the Mondaymorning ads. "I see the Fair's got a spring housecleaning sale. Theyadvertise a new kind of extension curtain rod. And Scouro, three cakesfor a dime. "

"If you waste one cent more on truck like that, " Rose protested, placinghis breakfast before him, "when half the time I can't make thehousekeeping money last through the week!"

"Your ma did it. "

"Fourteen years ago liver wasn't thirty-two cents a pound, " retortedRose, "and besides--"

"Scramble 'em!" yelled Al, from the bedroom, by way of warning. 

There was very little talk after that. The energies of three of themwere directed toward reaching the waiting desk or counter on time. Theenergy of one toward making that accomplishment easy. The front doorslammed once--that was Pa, on his way; slammed again--Al. Floss rushedinto the dining-room fastening the waist-band of her skirt, her hatalready on. Rose always had a rather special breakfast for Floss. Flossposed as being a rather special person. She always breakfasted last, andlate. Floss's was a fastidiousness which shrinks at badly served food, aspotted table-cloth, or a last year's hat, while it overlooks a rent inan undergarment or the accumulated dust in a hairbrush. Her blouse wasof the sheerest. Her hair shone in waves about her delicate checks. Sheate her orange, and sipped her very special coffee, and made a littleface over her egg that had been shirred in the oven or in some wayhighly specialised. Then the front door slammed again--a semi-slam, thistime. Floss never did quite close a door. Rose followed her down thehall, shut and bolted it, Chicago fashion. The sick woman in the frontbedroom had dropped into one of her fitful morning dozes. At eighto'clock the little flat was very still. 

If you knew nothing about Rose; if you had not already been told thatshe slept on the sitting-room davenport; that she was taken for grantedas the family drudge; that she was, in that household, merely anintelligent machine that made beds, fried eggs, filled hot water bags, you would get a characterization of her from this: She was the sort ofperson who never has a closet or bureau drawer all her own. Her few andnegligible garments hung apologetically in obscure corners of closetsdedicated to her sister's wardrobe or her brother's, or her spruce andfussy old father's. Vague personal belongings, such as combings, handkerchiefs, a spectacle case, a hairbrush, were found tucked away ina desk pigeon-hole, a table drawer, or on the top shelf in the bathroom. 

As she pulled the disfiguring blue gingham dust-cap over her hair now, and rolled her sleeves to her elbows, you would never have dreamed thatRose was embarking upon her great adventure. You would never haveguessed that the semi-yearly closet cleaning was to give to Rose athrill as delicious as it was exquisitely painful. But Rose knew. And soshe teased herself, and tried not to think of the pasteboard box on theshelf in the hall closet, under the pile of reserve blankets, and toldherself that she would leave that closet until the last, when she wouldhave to hurry over it. 

 * * * * *

When you clean closets and bureau drawers thoroughly you have to carrythings out to the back porch and flap them, Rose was that sort ofhousekeeper. She leaned over the porch railing and flapped things, sothat the dust motes spun and swirled in the sunshine. Rose's arms workedup and down energetically, then less energetically, finally ceased theirmotion altogether. She leaned idle elbows on the porch railing and gazeddown into the yard below with a look in her eyes such as no squalidChicago back yard, with its dusty débris, could summon, even inspring-time. 

The woman next door came out on her back porch that adjoined Rose's. Theday seemed to have her in its spell, too, for in her hand was somethingwoolly and wintry, and she began to flap it about as Rose had done. Shehad lived next door since October, had that woman, but the two had neverexchanged a word, true to the traditions of their city training. Rosehad her doubts of the woman next door. She kept a toy dog which sheaired afternoons, and her kimonos were florid and numerous. Now, as theeyes of the two women met, Rose found herself saying, "Looks likesummer. "

The woman next door caught the scrap of conversation eagerly, hungrily. "It certainly does! Makes me feel like new clothes, and housecleaning. "

"I started to-day!" said Rose, triumphantly. 

"Not already!" gasped the woman next door, with the chagrin that only awoman knows who has let May steal upon her unawares. 

From far down the alley sounded a chant, drawing nearer and nearer, until there shambled into view a decrepit horse drawing a dilapidatedhuckster's cart. Perched on the seat was a Greek who turned his duskyface up toward the two women leaning over the porch railings. "Rhubarb, leddy. Fresh rhubarb!"

"My folks don't care for rhubarb sauce, " Rose told the woman next door. 

"It makes the worst pie in the world, " the woman confided to Rose. 

Whereupon each bought a bunch of the succulent green and red stalks. Itwas their offering at the season's shrine. 

Rose flung the rhubarb on the kitchen table, pulled her dust-cap morefirmly about her ears, and hurried back to the disorder of Floss's dimlittle bedroom. After that it was dust-cloth, and soapsuds, andscrub-brush in a race against recurrent water bags, insistent doorbells, and the inevitable dinner hour. It was mid-afternoon when Rose, standinga-tiptoe on a chair, came at last to the little box on the top shelfunder the bedding in the hall closet. Her hand touched the box, andclosed about it. A little electric thrill vibrated through her body. Shestepped down from the chair, heavily, listened until her acute earcaught the sound of the sick woman's slumbrous breathing; then, box inhand, walked down the dark hall to the kitchen. The rhubarb pie, stillsteaming in its pan, was cooling on the kitchen table. The dishes fromthe invalid's lunch-tray littered the sink. But Rose, seated on thekitchen chair, her rumpled dust-cap pushed back from her flushed, perspiring face, untied the rude bit of string that bound the old candybox, removed the lid, slowly, and by that act was wafted magically outof the world of rhubarb pies, and kitchen chairs, and dirty dishes, intothat place whose air is the breath of incense and myrrh, whose paths arerose-strewn, whose dwellings are temples dedicated to but one small god. The land is known as Love, and Rose travelled back to it on the magicrug of memory. 

A family of five in a six-room Chicago flat must sacrifice sentiment tonecessity. There is precious little space for those pressed flowers, time-yellowed gowns, and ribbon-bound packets that figured soprominently in the days of attics. Into the garbage can with yesterday'sroses! The janitor's burlap sack yawns for this morning's mail; lastyear's gown has long ago met its end at the hands of the ol'-clo'es manor the wash-woman's daughter. That they had survived these fourteenyears, and the strictures of their owner's dwelling, tells more aboutthis boxful of letters than could be conveyed by a battalion ofadjectives. 

Rose began at the top of the pile, in her orderly fashion, and readstraight through to the last. It took one hour. Half of that time shewas not reading. She was staring straight ahead with what is mistakenlycalled an unseeing look, but which actually pierces the veil of yearsand beholds things far, far beyond the vision of the actual eye. Theywere the letters of a commonplace man to a commonplace woman, writtenwhen they loved each other, and so they were touched with something ofthe divine. They must have been, else how could they have sustained thiswoman through fifteen years of drudgery? They were the only tangiblefoundation left of the structure of dreams she had built about this man. All the rest of her house of love had tumbled about her ears fifteenyears before, but with these few remaining bricks she had erected manytimes since castles and towers more exquisite and lofty and soaring thanthe original humble structure had ever been. 

The story? Well, there really isn't any, as we've warned you. Rose hadbeen pretty then in much the same delicate way that Floss was prettynow. They were to have been married. Rose's mother fell ill, Floss andAl were little more than babies. The marriage was put off. The illnesslasted six months--a year--two years--became interminable. The breachinto which Rose had stepped closed about her and became a prison. Theman had waited, had grown impatient, finally rebelled. He had fled, probably, to marry a less encumbered lady. Rose had gone dully on, caring for the household, the children, the sick woman. In the yearsthat had gone by since then Rose had forgiven him his faithlessness. She only remembered that he had been wont to call her his Röschen, his Rosebud, his pretty flower (being a German gentleman). She onlyrecalled the wonder of having been first in some one's thoughts--shewho now was so hopelessly, so irrevocably last. 

As she sat there in her kitchen, wearing her soap-stained and faded bluegingham, and the dust-cap pushed back at a rakish angle, a simperinglittle smile about her lips, she was really very much like thedisappointed old maids you used to see so cruelly pictured in the comicvalentines. Had those letters obsessed her a little more strongly shemight have become quite mad, the Freudians would tell you. Had they heldless for her, or had she not been so completely the household's slave, she might have found a certain solace and satisfaction in viewing theGreek profile and marcel wave of the most-worshipped movie star. As itwas, they were her ballast, her refuge, the leavening yeast in the soggydough of her existence. This man had wanted her to be his wife. She hadfound favour in his eyes. She was certain that he still thought of her, sometimes, and tenderly, regretfully, as she thought of him. It helpedher to live. Not only that, it made living possible. 

A clock struck, a window slammed, or a street-noise smote her earsharply. Some sound started her out of her reverie. Rose jumped, stareda moment at the letters in her lap, then hastily, almost shamefacedly, sorted them (she knew each envelope by heart) tied them, placed them intheir box and bore them down the hail. There, mounting her chair, shescrubbed the top shelf with her soapy rag, placed the box in itscorner, left the hall closet smelling of cleanliness, with never a hintof lavender to betray its secret treasure. 

Were Rose to die and go to Heaven, there to spend her days thumbing agolden harp, her hands, by force of habit, would, drop harp-strings atquarter to six, to begin laying a celestial and unspotted table-clothfor supper. Habits as deeply rooted as that must hold, even inafter-life. 

To-night's six-thirty stampede was noticeably subdued on the part of Paand Al. It had been a day of sudden and enervating heat, and the cityhad done its worst to them. Pa's pink gills showed a hint of purple. Al's flimsy silk shirt stuck to his back, and his glittering pompadourwas many degrees less submissive than was its wont. But Floss came inlate, breathless, and radiant, a large and significant paper bag in herhand. Rose, in the kitchen, was transferring the smoking supper from potto platter. Pa, in the doorway of the sick woman's little room, had justput his fourteen-year-old question with his usual assumption ofheartiness and cheer: "Well, well! And how's the old girl to-night? Feellike you could get up and punish a little supper, eh?" Al engaged at thetelephone with some one whom he addressed proprietorially as Kid, wasdeep in his plans for the evening's diversion. Upon this accustomedscene Floss burst with havoc. 

"Rose! Rose, did you iron my Georgette crêpe? Listen! Guess what!" Allthis as she was rushing down the hall, paper hat-bag still in hand. "Guess who was in the store to-day!"

Rose, at the oven, turned a flushed and interested face toward Floss. 

"Who? What's that? A hat?"

"Yes. But listen--"

"Let's see it. "

Floss whipped it out of its bag, defiantly. "There! But wait a minute!Let me tell you--"

"How much?"

Floss hesitated just a second. Her wage was nine dollars a week. Then, "Seven-fifty, trimmed. " The hat was one of those tiny, head-huggingabsurdities that only the Flosses can wear. 

"Trimmed is right!" jeered Al, from the doorway. 

Rose, thin-lipped with disapproval, turned to her stove again. 

"Well, but I had to have it. I'm going to the theatre to-night. Andguess who with! Henry Selz!"

Henry Selz was the unromantic name of the commonplace man over whosefifteen-year-old letters Rose had glowed and dreamed an hour before. Itwas a name that had become mythical in that household--to all but one. Rose heard it spoken now with a sense of unreality. She smiled a littleuncertainly, and went on stirring the flour thickening for the gravy. But she was dimly aware that something inside her had suspended actionfor a moment, during which moment she felt strangely light anddisembodied, and that directly afterward the thing began to work madly, so that there was a choked feeling in her chest and a hot pounding inher head. 

"What's the joke?" she said, stirring the gravy in the pan. 

"Joke nothing! Honest to God! I was standing back of the counter atabout ten. The rush hadn't really begun yet. Glove trade usually startslate. I was standing there kidding Herb, the stock boy, when down theaisle comes a man in a big hat, like you see in the western pictures, hair a little grey at the temples, and everything, just like a movieactor. I said to Herb, 'Is it real?' I hadn't got the words out of mymouth when the fellow sees me, stands stock still in the middle of theaisle with his mouth open and his eyes sticking out. 'Registersurprise, ' I said to Herb, and looked around for the camera. And thatminute he took two jumps over to where I was standing, grabbed my handsand says, 'Rose! Rose!' kind of choky. 'Not by about twenty years, ' Isaid. 'I'm Floss, Rose's sister. Let go my hands!'"

Rose--a transfigured Rose, glowing, trembling, radiant--repeated, vibrantly, "You said, 'I'm Floss, Rose's sister. Let go my hands!'And--?"

"He looked kind of stunned, for just a minute. His face was a scream, honestly. Then he said, 'But of course. Fifteen years. But I had alwaysthought of her as just the same. ' And he kind of laughed, ashamed, likea kid. And the whitest teeth!"

"Yes, they were--white, " said Rose. "Well?"

"Well, I said, 'Won't I do instead?' 'You bet you'll do!' he said. Andthen he told me his name, and how he was living out in Spokane, and hiswife was dead, and he had made a lot of money--fruit, or real estate, orsomething. He talked a lot about it at lunch, but I didn't pay anyattention, as long as he really has it a lot I care how--"

"At lunch?"

"Everything from grape-fruit to coffee. I didn't know it could be donein one hour. Believe me, he had those waiters jumping. It takes money. He asked all about you, and ma, and everything. And he kept looking atme and saying, 'It's wonderful!' I said, 'Isn't it!' but I meant thelunch. He wanted me to go driving this afternoon--auto and everything. Kept calling me Rose. It made me kind of mad, and I told him how youlook. He said, 'I suppose so, ' and asked me to go to a show to-night. Listen, did you press my Georgette? And the blue?"

"I'll iron the waist while you're eating. I'm not hungry. It only takesa minute. Did you say he was grey?"

"Grey? Oh, you mean--why, just here, and here. Interesting, but not abit old. And he's got that money look that makes waiters and doormen andtaxi drivers just hump. I don't want any supper. Just a cup of tea. Ihaven't got enough time to dress in, decently, as it is. "

Al, draped in the doorway, removed his cigarette to give greater forceto his speech. "Your story interests me strangely, little gell. Butthere's a couple of other people that would like to eat, even if youwouldn't. Come on with that supper, Ro. Nobody staked me to a lunchto-day. "

Rose turned to her stove again. Two carmine spots had leaped suddenly toher cheeks. She served the meal in silence, and ate nothing, but thatwas not remarkable. For the cook there is little appeal in the meat thatshe has tended from its moist and bloody entrance in the butcher'spaper, through the basting or broiling stage to its formal appearance onthe platter. She saw that Al and her father were served. Then she wentback to the kitchen, and the thud of her iron was heard as she deftlyfluted the ruffles of the crêpe blouse. Floss appeared when the meal washalf eaten, her hair shiningly coiffed, the pink ribbons of her corsetcover showing under her thin kimono. She poured herself a cup of tea anddrank it in little quick, nervous gulps. She looked deliriously young, and fragile and appealing, her delicate slenderness revealed by theflimsy garment she wore. Excitement and anticipation lent a glow to hereyes, colour to her cheeks. Al, glancing expertly at the ingenuousnessof her artfully simple coiffure, the slim limpness of her body, herwide-eyed gaze, laughed a wise little laugh. 

"Every move a Pickford. And so girlish withal. "

Floss ignored him. "Hurry up with that waist, Rose!"

"I'm on the collar now. In a second. " There was a little silence. Then:"Floss, is--is Henry going to call for you--here?"

"Well, sure! Did you think I was going to meet him on the corner? Hesaid he wanted to see you, or something polite like that. "

She finished her tea and vanished again. Al, too, had disappeared tobegin that process from which he had always emerged incredibly sleek, and dapper and perfumed. His progress with shaving brush, shirt, collarand tie was marked by disjointed bars of the newest syncopation whistledwith an uncanny precision and fidelity to detail. He caught the brokentime, and tossed it lightly up again, and dropped it, and caught itdeftly like a juggler playing with frail crystal globes that seemforever on the point of crashing to the ground. 

Pa stood up, yawning. "Well, " he said, his manner very casual, "guessI'll just drop around to the movie. "

From the kitchen, "Don't you want to sit with ma a minute, first?"

"I will when I come back. They're showing the third installment of 'TheAdventures of Aline, ' and I don't want to come in in the middle of it. "

He knew the selfishness of it, this furtive and sprightly old man. Andbecause he knew it he attempted to hide his guilt under a burst oftemper. 

"I've been slaving all day. I guess I've got the right to a littleamusement. A man works his fingers to the bone for his family, and thenhis own daughter nags him. "

He stamped down the hall, righteously, and slammed the front door. 

Rose came from the kitchen, the pink blouse, warm from the iron, in onehand. She prinked out its ruffles and pleatings as she went. Floss, burnishing her nails somewhat frantically with a dilapidated and greasybuffer, snatched the garment from her and slipped bare arms into it. Thefront door bell rang, three big, determined rings. Panic fell upon thehousehold. 

"It's him!" whispered Floss, as if she could be heard in the entrancethree floors below. "You'll have to go. "

"I can't!" Every inch of her seemed to shrink and cower away from thethought. "I can't!" Her eyes darted to and fro like a hunted thingseeking to escape. She ran to the hall. "Al! Al, go to the door, willyou?"

"Can't, " came back in a thick mumble. "Shaving. "

The front door-bell rang again, three big, determined rings. "Rose!"hissed Floss, her tone venomous. "I can't go with my waist open. Forheaven's sake! Go to the door!"

"I can't, " repeated Rose, in a kind of wail. "I--can't. " And went. Asshe went she passed one futile, work-worn hand over her hair, pluckedoff her apron and tossed it into; a corner, first wiping her flushedface with it. 

Henry Selz came up the shabby stairs springily as a man of forty should. Rose stood at the door and waited for him. He stood in the doorway amoment, uncertainly. 

"How-do, Henry. "

His uncertainty became incredulity. Then, "Why, how-do, Rose! Didn'tknow you--for a minute. Well, well! It's been a long time. Let'ssee--ten--fourteen--about fifteen years, isn't it?"

His tone was cheerfully conversational. He really was interested, mathematically. He was as sentimental in his reminiscence as if he hadbeen calculating the lapse of time between the Chicago fire and theWorld's Fair. 

"Fifteen, " said Rose, "in May. Won't you come in? Floss'll be here in aminute. "

Henry Selz came in and sat down on the davenport couch and dabbed at hisforehead. The years had been very kind to him--those same years that hadtreated Rose so ruthlessly. He had the look of an outdoor man; a man whohas met prosperity and walked with her, and followed her pleasant ways;a man who has learned late in life of golf and caviar and tailors, butwho has adapted himself to these accessories of wealth with a minimum offriction. 

"It certainly is warm, for this time of year. " He leaned back andregarded Rose tolerantly. "Well, and how've you been? Did little sistertell you how flabbergasted I was when I saw her this morning? I'm darnedif it didn't take fifteen years off my age, just like that! I got kindof balled up for one minute and thought it was you. She tell you?"

"Yes, she told me, " said Rose. 

"I hear your ma's still sick. That certainly is tough. And you've nevermarried, eh?"

"Never married, " echoed Rose. 

And so they made conversation, a little uncomfortably, until there camequick, light young steps down the hallway, and Floss appeared in thedoor, a radiant, glowing, girlish vision. Youth was in her eyes, hercheeks, on her lips. She radiated it. She was miraculously well dressed, in her knowingly simple blue serge suit, and her tiny hat, and her neatshoes and gloves. 

"Ah! And how's the little girl to-night?" said Henry Selz. 

Floss dimpled, blushed, smiled, swayed. "Did I keep you waiting aterribly long time?"

"No, not a bit. Rose and I were chinning over old times, weren't we, Rose?" A kindly, clumsy thought struck him. "Say, look here, Rose. We'regoing to a show. Why don't you run and put on your hat and come along. H'm? Come on!"

Rose smiled as a mother smiles at a child that has unknowingly hurt her. "No, thanks, Henry. Not to-night. You and Floss run along. Yes, I'llremember you to Ma. I'm sorry you can't see her. But she don't seeanybody, poor Ma. "

Then they were off, in a little flurry of words and laughter. From forceof habit Rose's near-sighted eyes peered critically at the hang ofFloss's blue skirt and the angle of the pert new hat. She stood amoment, uncertainly, after they had left. On her face was the queerestlook, as of one thinking, re-adjusting, struggling to arrive at aconclusion in the midst of sudden bewilderment. She turned mechanicallyand went into her mother's room. She picked up the tray on the table bythe bed. 

"Who was that?" asked the sick woman, in her ghostly, devitalised voice. 

"That was Henry Selz, " said Rose. 

The sick woman grappled a moment with memory. "Henry Selz! Henry--oh, yes. Did he go out with Rose?"

"Yes, " said Rose. 

"It's cold in here, " whined the sick woman. 

"I'll get you a hot bag in a minute, Ma. " Rose carried the tray down thehall to the kitchen. At that Al emerged from his bedroom, shrugginghimself into his coat. He followed Rose down the hall and watched her asshe filled the bag and screwed it and wiped it dry. 

"I'll take that in to Ma, " he volunteered. He was up the hall and backin a flash. Rose had slumped into a chair at the dining-room table, andwas pouring herself a cup of cold and bitter tea. Al came over to herand laid one white hand on her shoulder. 

"Ro, lend me a couple of dollars till Saturday, will you?"

"I should say not. "

Al doused his cigarette in the dregs of a convenient teacup. He bentdown and laid his powdered and pale cheek against Rose's sallow one. Onearm was about her, and his hand patted her shoulder. 

"Oh, come on, kid, " he coaxed. "Don't I always pay you back? Come on! Bea sweet ol' sis. I wouldn't ask you only I've got a date to go to theWhite City to-night, and dance, and I couldn't get out of it. I tried. "He kissed her, and his lips were moist, and he reeked of tobacco, andthough Rose shrugged impatiently away from him he knew that he had won. Rose was not an eloquent woman; she was not even an articulate one, attimes. If she had been, she would have lifted up her voice to say now:

"Oh, God! I am a woman! Why have you given me all the sorrows, and thedrudgery, and the bitterness and the thanklessness of motherhood, withnone of its joys! Give me back my youth! I'll drink the dregs at thebottom of the cup, but first let me taste the sweet!"

But Rose did not talk or think in such terms. She could not have putinto words the thing she was feeling even if she had been able todiagnose it. So what she said was, "Don't you think I ever get sick andtired of slaving for a thankless bunch like you? Well, I do! Sick andtired of it. That's what! You make me tired, coming around asking formoney, as if I was a bank. "

But Al waited. And presently she said, grudgingly, wearily, "There's adollar bill and some small change in the can on the second shelf in thechina closet. "

Al was off like a terrier. From the pantry came the clink of metalagainst metal. He was up the hall in a flash, without a look at Rose. The front door slammed a third time. 

Rose stirred her cold tea slowly, leaning on the table's edge and gazingdown into the amber liquid that she did not mean to drink. For suddenlyand comically her face puckered up like a child's. Her head came downamong the supper things with a little crash that set the teacups, andthe greasy plates to jingling, and she sobbed as she lay there, withgreat tearing, ugly sobs that would not be stilled, though she tried tostifle them as does one who lives in a paper-thin Chicago flat. She wasnot weeping for the Henry Selz whom she had just seen. She was notweeping for envy of her selfish little sister, or for loneliness, orweariness. She was weeping at the loss of a ghost who had become herfamiliar. She was weeping because a packet of soiled and yellow oldletters on the top shelf in the hall closet was now only a packet ofsoiled and yellow old letters, food for the ash can. She was weepingbecause the urge of spring, that had expressed itself in her only thismorning pitifully enough in terms of rhubarb, and housecleaning and abundle of thumbed old love letters, had stirred in her for the lasttime. 

But presently she did stop her sobbing and got up and cleared the table, and washed the dishes and even glanced at the crumpled sheets of themorning paper that she never found time to read until evening. By eighto'clock the little flat was very still. 

V

THAT'S MARRIAGE

Theresa Platt (she that had been Terry Sheehan) watched her husbandacross the breakfast table with eyes that smouldered. When a woman'seyes smoulder at 7. 30 a. M. The person seated opposite her had betterlook out. But Orville Platt was quite unaware of any smouldering inprogress. He was occupied with his eggs. How could he know that thesevery eggs were feeding the dull red menace in Terry Platt's eyes?

When Orville Platt ate a soft-boiled egg he concentrated on it. Hetreated it as a great adventure. Which, after all, it is. Few adjunctsof our daily life contain the element of chance that is to be found in athree-minute breakfast egg. 

This was Orville Platt's method of attack: First, he chipped off thetop, neatly. Then he bent forward and subjected it to a passionate andrelentless scrutiny. Straightening--preparatory to plunging his spoontherein--he flapped his right elbow. It wasn't exactly a flap; it was apass between a hitch and a flap, and presented external evidence of amental state. Orville Platt always gave that little preliminary jerkwhen he was contemplating a step, or when he was moved, orargumentative. It was a trick as innocent as it was maddening. 

Terry Platt had learned to look for that flap--they had been marriedfour years--to look for it, and to hate it with a morbid, unreasoninghate. That flap of the elbow was tearing Terry Platt's nerves into raw, bleeding fragments. 

Her fingers were clenched tightly under the table, now. She wasbreathing unevenly. "If he does that again, " she told herself, "if heflaps again when he opens the second egg, I'll scream. I'll scream. I'llscream! I'll sc--"

He had scooped the first egg into his cup. Now he picked up the second, chipped it, concentrated, straightened, then--up went the elbow, anddown, with the accustomed little flap. 

The tortured nerves snapped. Through the early morning quiet of Wetona, Wisconsin, hurtled the shrill, piercing shriek of Terry Platt'shysteria. 

"Terry! For God's sake! What's the matter!"

Orville Platt dropped the second egg, and his spoon. The egg yolktrickled down his plate. The spoon made a clatter and flung a gay spotof yellow on the cloth. He started toward her. 

Terry, wild-eyed, pointed a shaking finger at him. She was laughing, now, uncontrollably. "Your elbow! Your elbow!"

"Elbow?" He looked down at it, bewildered; then up, fright in his face. "What's the matter with it?"

She mopped her eyes. Sobs shook her. "You f-f-flapped it. "

"F-f-f--" The bewilderment in Orville Platt's face gave way to anger. "Do you mean to tell me that you screeched like that because my--becauseI moved my elbow?"

"Yes. "

His anger deepened and reddened to fury. He choked. He had started fromhis chair with his napkin in his hand. He still clutched it. Now hecrumpled it into a wad and hurled it to the centre of the table, whereit struck a sugar bowl, dropped back, and uncrumpled slowly, reprovingly. "You--you--" Then bewilderment closed down again like a fogover his countenance. "But why? I can't see--"

"Because it--because I can't stand it any longer. Flapping. This is whatyou do. Like this. "

And she did it. Did it with insulting fidelity, being a clever mimic. 

"Well, all I can say is you're crazy, yelling like that, for nothing. "

"It isn't nothing. "

"Isn't, huh? If that isn't nothing, what is?" They were growingincoherent. "What d'you mean, screeching like a maniac? Like a wildwoman? The neighbours'll think I've killed you. What d'you mean, anyway!"

"I mean I'm tired of watching it, that's what. Sick and tired. "

"Y'are, huh? Well, young lady, just let me tell _you_ something--"

He told her. There followed one of those incredible quarrels, assickening as they are human, which can take place only between twopeople who love each other; who love each other so well that each knowswith cruel certainty the surest way to wound the other; and who stab, and tear, and claw at these vulnerable spots in exact proportion totheir love. 

Ugly words. Bitter words. Words that neither knew they knew flew betweenthem like sparks between steel striking steel. 

From him--"Trouble with you is you haven't got enough to do. That's thetrouble with half you women. Just lay around the house, rotting. I'm afool, slaving on the road to keep a good-for-nothing--"

"I suppose you call sitting around hotel lobbies slaving! I suppose thehouse runs itself! How about my evenings? Sitting here alone, nightafter night, when you're on the road. "

Finally, "Well, if you don't like it, " he snarled, and lifted his chairby the back and slammed it down, savagely, "if you don't like it, whydon't you get out, h'm? Why don't you get out?"

And from her, her eyes narrowed to two slits, her cheeks scarlet:

"Why, thanks. I guess I will. "

Ten minutes later he had flung out of the house to catch the 8. 19 forManitowoc. He marched down the street, his shoulders swingingrhythmically to the weight of the burden he carried--his black leatherhand-bag and the shiny tan sample case, battle-scarred, both, from manyencounters with ruthless porters and 'bus men and bell boys. For fouryears, as he left for his semi-monthly trip, he and Terry had observed acertain little ceremony (as had the neighbours). She would stand in thedoorway watching him down the street, the heavier sample-case bangingoccasionally at his shin. The depot was only three blocks away. Terrywatched him with fond, but unillusioned eyes, which proves that shereally loved him. He was a dapper, well-dressed fat man, with a weaknessfor pronounced patterns in suitings, and addicted to brown derbies. Oneweek on the road, one week at home. That was his routine. The wholesalegrocery trade liked Platt, and he had for his customers the fondnessthat a travelling salesman has who is successful in his territory. Before his marriage to Terry Sheehan his little red address book hadbeen overwhelming proof against the theory that nobody loves a fat man. 

Terry, standing in the doorway, always knew that when he reached thecorner, just where Schroeder's house threatened to hide him from view, he would stop, drop the sample case, wave his hand just once, pick upthe sample case and go on, proceeding backward for a step or two, untilSchroeder's house made good its threat. It was a comic scene in theeyes of the onlooker, perhaps because a chubby Romeo offends the senseof fitness. The neighbours, lurking behind their parlour curtains, hadlaughed at first. But after awhile they learned to look for that littlescene, and to take it unto themselves, as if it were a personal thing. Fifteen-year wives whose husbands had long since abandoned floweryfarewells used to get a vicarious thrill out of it, and to eye Terrywith a sort of envy. 

This morning Orville Platt did not even falter when he reachedSchroeder's corner. He marched straight on, looking steadily ahead, theheavy bags swinging from either hand. Even if he had stopped--though sheknew he wouldn't--Terry Platt would not have seen him. She remainedseated at the disordered breakfast table, a dreadfully still figure, andsinister; a figure of stone and fire; of ice and flame. Over and over inher mind she was milling the things she might have said to him, and hadnot. She brewed a hundred vitriolic cruelties that she might have flungin his face. She would concoct one biting brutality, and dismiss it fora second, and abandon that for a third. She was too angry to cry--adangerous state in a woman. She was what is known as cold mad, so thather mind was working clearly and with amazing swiftness, and yet asthough it were a thing detached; a thing that was no part of her. 

She sat thus for the better part of an hour, motionless except for oneforefinger that was, quite unconsciously, tapping out a popular andcheap little air that she had been strumming at the piano the eveningbefore, having bought it down town that same afternoon. It had struckOrville's fancy, and she had played it over and over for him. Her rightforefinger was playing the entire tune, and something in the back of herhead was following it accurately, though the separate thinking processwas going on just the same. Her eyes were bright, and wide, and hot. Suddenly she became conscious of the musical antics of her finger. Shefolded it in with its mates, so that her hand became a fist. She stoodup and stared down at the clutter of the breakfast table. The egg--thatfateful second egg--had congealed to a mottled mess of yellow and white. The spoon lay on the cloth. His coffee, only half consumed, showed tanwith a cold grey film over it. A slice of toast at the left of his plateseemed to grin at her with the semi-circular wedge that he had bittenout of it. 

Terry stared down at this congealing remnant. Then she laughed, a hard, high little laugh, pushed a plate away contemptuously with her hand, andwalked into the sitting room. On the piano was the piece of music(Bennie Gottschalk's great song hit, "Hicky Bloo") which she had beenplaying the night before. She picked it up, tore it straight across, once, placed the pieces back to back and tore it across again. Then shedropped the pieces to the floor. 

"You bet I'm going, " she said, as though concluding a train of thought. "You just bet I'm going. Right now!"

And Terry went. She went for much the same reason as that given by theladye of high degree in the old English song--she who had left her lordand bed and board to go with the raggle-taggle gipsies-O! The thing thatwas sending Terry Platt away was much more than a conjugal quarrelprecipitated by a soft-boiled egg and a flap of the arm. It went so muchdeeper that if psychology had not become a cant word we might drag itinto the explanation. It went so deep that it's necessary to delve backto the days when Theresa Platt was Terry Sheehan to get the realsignificance of it, and of the things she did after she went. 

When Mrs. Orville Platt had been Terry Sheehan she had played the piano, afternoons and evenings, in the orchestra of the Bijou theatre, on Cassstreet, Wetona, Wisconsin. Any one with a name like Terry Sheehan would, perforce, do well anything she might set out to do. There was nothing ofgenius in Terry, but there was something of fire, and much that wasIrish. The combination makes for what is known as imagination inplaying. Which meant that the Watson Team, Eccentric Song and DanceArtists, never needed a rehearsal when they played the Bijou. RubyWatson used merely to approach Terry before the Monday performance, sheet-music in hand, and say, "Listen, dearie. We've got some newbusiness I want to wise you to. Right here it goes '_Tum_ dee-dee _dum_dee-dee _tum dum dum_. See? Like that. And then Jim vamps. Get me?"

Terry, at the piano, would pucker her pretty brow a moment. Then, "Likethis, you mean?"

"That's it! You've got it. "

"All right. I'll tell the drum. "

She could play any tune by ear, once heard. She got the spirit of athing, and transmitted it. When Terry played a march number you tappedthe floor with your foot, and unconsciously straightened your shoulders. When she played a home-and-mother song that was heavy on the minor wailyou hoped that the man next to you didn't know you were crying (which heprobably didn't, because he was weeping, too). 

At that time motion pictures had not attained their present virulence. Vaudeville, polite or otherwise, had not yet been crowded out by theubiquitous film. The Bijou offered entertainment of the cigar-box trampvariety, interspersed with trick bicyclists, soubrettes in slightlysoiled pink, trained seals, and Family Fours with lumpy legs who tossedeach other about and struck Goldbergian attitudes. 

Contact with these gave Terry Sheehan a semi-professional tone. The moreconservative of her townspeople looked at her askance. There never hadbeen an evil thing about Terry, but Wetona considered her rather fly. Terry's hair was very black, and she had a fondness for those little, close-fitting scarlet velvet turbans. A scarlet velvet turban would havemade Martha Washington look fly. Terry's mother had died when the girlwas eight, and Terry's father had been what is known as easy-going. Agood-natured, lovable, shiftless chap in the contracting business. Hedrove around Wetona in a sagging, one-seated cart and never made anymoney because he did honest work and charged as little for it as men whodid not. His mortar stuck, and his bricks did not crumble, and hislumber did not crack. Riches are not acquired in the contractingbusiness in that way. Ed Sheehan and his daughter were great friends. When he died (she was nineteen) they say she screamed once, like abanshee, and dropped to the floor. 

After they had straightened out the muddle of books in Ed Sheehan'sgritty, dusty little office Terry turned her piano-playing talent topractical account. At twenty-one she was still playing at the Bijou, andinto her face was creeping the first hint of that look of sophisticationwhich comes from daily contact with the artificial world of thefootlights. It is the look of those who must make believe as a business, and are a-weary. You see it developed into its highest degree in theface of a veteran comedian. It is the thing that gives the look of utterpathos and tragedy to the relaxed expression of a circus clown. 

There are, in a small, Mid-West town like Wetona, just two kinds ofgirls. Those who go down town Saturday nights, and those who don't. Terry, if she had not been busy with her job at the Bijou, would havecome in the first group. She craved excitement. There was little chanceto satisfy such craving in Wetona, but she managed to find certainmeans. The travelling men from the Burke House just across the streetused to drop in at the Bijou for an evening's entertainment. Theyusually sat well toward the front, and Terry's expert playing, and thegloss of her black hair, and her piquant profile as she sometimes lookedup toward the stage for a signal from one of the performers, caughttheir fancy, and held it. 

Terry did not accept their attentions promiscuously. She was too decenta girl for that. But she found herself, at the end of a year or two, with a rather large acquaintance among these peripatetic gentlemen. Youoccasionally saw one of them strolling home with her. Sometimes she wentdriving with one of them of a Sunday afternoon. And she rather enjoyedtaking Sunday dinner at the Burke Hotel with a favoured friend. Shethought those small-town hotel Sunday dinners the last word in elegance. The roast course was always accompanied by an aqueous, semi-frozenconcoction which the bill of fare revealed as Roman punch. It added aroyal touch to the repast, even when served with roast pork. I don't saythat any of these Lotharios snatched a kiss during a Sunday afternoondrive. Or that Terry slapped him promptly. But either seems extremelylikely. 

Terry was twenty-two when Orville Platt, making his initial Wisconsintrip for the wholesale grocery house he represented, first beheldTerry's piquant Irish profile, and heard her deft manipulation of thekeys. Orville had the fat man's sense of rhythm and love of music. Hehad a buttery tenor voice, too, of which he was rather proud. 

He spent three days in Wetona that first trip, and every evening saw himat the Bijou, first row, centre. He stayed through two shows each time, and before he had been there fifteen minutes Terry was conscious of himthrough the back of her head. In fact I think that, in all innocence, she rather played up to him. Orville Platt paid no more heed to thestage, and what was occurring thereon, than if it had not been. He satlooking at Terry, and waggling his head in time to the music. Not thatTerry was a beauty. But she was one of those immaculately clean types. That look of fragrant cleanliness was her chief charm. Her clear, smoothskin contributed to it, and the natural pencilling of her eyebrows. Butthe thing that accented it, and gave it a last touch, was the way inwhich her black hair came down in a little point just in the centre ofher forehead, where hair meets brow. It grew to form what is known as acow-lick. (A prettier name for it is widow's peak. ) Your eye lighted onit, pleased, and from it travelled its gratified way down her whitetemples, past her little ears, to the smooth black coil at the nape ofher neck. It was a trip that rested you. 

At the end of the last performance on the second night of his visit tothe Bijou, Orville waited until the audience had begun to file out. Thenhe leaned forward over the rail that separated orchestra from audience. 

"Could you, " he said, his tones dulcet, "could you oblige me with thename of that last piece you played?"

Terry was stacking her music. "George!" she called, to the drum. "Gentleman wants to know the name of that last piece. " And prepared toleave. 

"'My Georgia Crackerjack', " said the laconic drum. 

Orville Platt took a hasty side-step in the direction of the door towardwhich Terry was headed. "It's a pretty thing, " he said, fervently. "Anawful pretty thing. Thanks. It's beautiful. "

Terry flung a last insult at him over her shoulder: "Don't thank _me_for it. I didn't write it. "

Orville Platt did not go across the street to the hotel. He wandered upCass street, and into the ten-o'clock quiet of Main street, and down asfar as the park and back. "Pretty as a pink! And play!. . . And good, too. Good. "

A fat man in love. 

At the end of six months they were married. Terry was surprised into it. Not that she was not fond of him. She was; and grateful to him, as well. For, pretty as she was, no man had ever before asked Terry to be hiswife. They had made love to her. They had paid court to her. They hadsent her large boxes of stale drug-store chocolates, and called herendearing names as they made cautious declaration such as:

"I've known a lot of girls, but you've got something different. I don'tknow. You've got so much sense. A fellow can chum around with you. Little pal. "

Orville's headquarters were Wetona. They rented a comfortable, seven-room house in a comfortable, middle-class neighbourhood, and Terrydropped the red velvet turbans and went in for picture hats and paradiseaigrettes. Orville bought her a piano whose tone was so good that to herear, accustomed to the metallic discords of the Bijou instrument, itsounded out of tune. She played a great deal at first, but unconsciouslyshe missed the sharp spat of applause that used to follow her publicperformance. She would play a piece, brilliantly, and then her handswould drop to her lap. And the silence of her own sitting room wouldfall flat on her ears. It was better on the evenings when Orville washome. He sang, in his throaty, fat man's tenor, to Terry's expertaccompaniment. 

"This is better than playing for those bum actors, isn't it, hon?" Andhe would pinch her ear. 

"Sure"--listlessly. 

But after the first year she became accustomed to what she termedprivate life. She joined an afternoon sewing club, and was active in theladies' branch of the U. C. T. She developed a knack at cooking, too, andOrville, after a week or ten days of hotel fare in small Wisconsintowns, would come home to sea-foam biscuits, and real soup, and honestpies and cake. Sometimes, in the midst of an appetising meal he wouldlay down his knife and fork and lean back in his chair, and regard thecool and unruffled Terry with a sort of reverence in his eyes. Then hewould get up, and come around to the other side of the table, and tipher pretty face up to his. 

"I'll bet I'll wake up, some day, and find out it's all a dream. Youknow this kind of thing doesn't really happen--not to a dub like me. "

One year; two; three; four. Routine. A little boredom. Some impatience. She began to find fault with the very things she had liked in him: hissuper-neatness; his fondness for dashing suit patterns; his throatytenor; his worship of her. And the flap. Oh, above all, that flap! Thatlittle, innocent, meaningless mannerism that made her tremble withnervousness. She hated it so that she could not trust herself to speakof it to him. That was the trouble. Had she spoken of it, laughingly orin earnest, before it became an obsession with her, that hideousbreakfast quarrel, with its taunts, and revilings, and open hate, mightnever have come to pass. For that matter, any one of those foreignfellows with the guttural names and the psychoanalytical minds couldhave located her trouble in one _séance_. 

Terry Platt herself didn't know what was the matter with her. She wouldhave denied that anything was wrong. She didn't even throw her handsabove her head and shriek: "I want to live! I want to live! I want tolive!" like a lady in a play. She only knew she was sick of sewing atthe Wetona West-End Red Cross shop; sick of marketing, of home comforts, of Orville, of the flap. 

Orville, you may remember, left at 8. 19. The 11. 23 bore TerryChicagoward. She had left the house as it was--beds unmade, roomsunswept, breakfast table uncleared. She intended never to come back. 

Now and then a picture of the chaos she had left behind would flashacross her order-loving mind. The spoon on the table-cloth. Orville'spajamas dangling over the bathroom chair. The coffee-pot on the gasstove. 

"Pooh! What do I care?"

In her pocketbook she had a tidy sum saved out of the housekeepingmoney. She was naturally thrifty, and Orville had never been niggardly. Her meals when Orville was on the road, had been those sketchy, haphazard affairs with which women content themselves when theirhousehold is manless. At noon she went into the dining car and ordered aflaunting little repast of chicken salad and asparagus, and Neapolitanice cream. The men in the dining car eyed her speculatively and withappreciation. Then their glance dropped to the third finger of her lefthand, and wandered away. She had meant to remove it. In fact, she hadtaken it off and dropped it into her bag. But her hand felt so queer, sounaccustomed, so naked, that she had found herself slipping the narrowband on again, and her thumb groped for it, gratefully. 

It was almost five o'clock when she reached Chicago. She felt nouncertainty or bewilderment. She had been in Chicago three or four timessince her marriage. She went to a down town hotel. It was too late, shetold herself, to look for a more inexpensive room that night. When shehad tidied herself she went out. The things she did were the childish, aimless things that one does who finds herself in possession of suddenliberty. She walked up State Street, and stared in the windows; cameback, turned into Madison, passed a bright little shop in the window ofwhich taffy--white and gold--was being wound endlessly and fascinatinglyabout a double-jointed machine. She went in and bought a sackful, andwandered on down the street, munching. 

She had supper at one of those white-tiled sarcophagi that emblazonChicago's down town side streets. It had been her original intention todine in state in the rose-and-gold dining room of her hotel. She hadeven thought daringly of lobster. But at the last moment she recoiledfrom the idea of dining alone in that wilderness of tables so obviouslymeant for two. 

After her supper she went to a picture show. She was amazed to findthere, instead of the accustomed orchestra, a pipe-organ that panted andthrobbed and rumbled over lugubrious classics. The picture was about afaithless wife. Terry left in the middle of it. 

She awoke next morning at seven, as usual, started up wildly, lookedaround, and dropped back. Nothing to get up for. The knowledge did notfill her with a rush of relief. She would have her breakfast in bed! Shetelephoned for it, languidly. But when it came she got up and ate itfrom the table, after all. Terry was the kind of woman to whom a pinkgingham all-over apron, and a pink dust-cap are ravishingly becoming atseven o'clock in the morning. That sort of woman congenitally cannotenjoy her breakfast in bed. 

That morning she found a fairly comfortable room, more within her means, on the north side in the boarding house district. She unpacked and hungup her clothes and drifted down town again, idly. It was noon when shecame to the corner of State and Madison streets. It was a maelstrom thatcaught her up, and buffeted her about, and tossed her helplessly thisway and that. The corner of Broadway and Forty-second streets has beenexploited in song and story as the world's most hazardous humanwhirlpool. I've negotiated that corner. I've braved the square in frontof the American Express Company's office in Paris, June, before the War. I've crossed the Strand at 11 p. M. When the theatre crowds are just out. And to my mind the corner of State and Madison streets between twelveand one, mid-day, makes any one of these dizzy spots look bosky, sylvan, and deserted. 

The thousands jostled Terry, and knocked her hat awry, and dug her withunheeding elbows, and stepped on her feet. 

"Say, look here!" she said, once futilely. They did not stop to listen. State and Madison has no time for Terrys from Wetona. It goes its way, pellmell. If it saw Terry at all it saw her only as a prettyish person, in the wrong kind of suit and hat, with a bewildered, resentful look onher face. 

Terry drifted on down the west side of State Street, with the hurryingcrowd. State and Monroe. A sound came to Terry's ears. A sound familiar, beloved. To her ear, harassed with the roar and crash, with the shrillscream of the crossing policemen's whistle, with the hiss of feetshuffling on cement, it was a celestial strain. She looked up, towardthe sound. A great second-story window opened wide to the street. In ita girl at a piano, and a man, red-faced, singing through a megaphone. And on a flaring red and green sign:

 BERNIE GOTTSCHALK'S MUSIC HOUSE!

 COME IN! HEAR BERNIE GOTTSCHALK'S LATEST HIT! THE HEART-THROB SONG THAT HAS GOT 'EM ALL! THE SONG THAT MADE THE KAISER CRAWL!

 "_I COME FROM PARIS, ILLINOIS, BUT OH! YOU PARIS, FRANCE!

 I USED TO WEAR BLUE OVERALLS BUT NOW ITS KHAKI PANTS_. "

 COME IN! COME IN!

Terry accepted. 

She followed the sound of the music. Around the corner. Up a littleflight of stairs. She entered the realm of Euterpe; Euterpe with herback hair frizzed; Euterpe with her flowing white robe replaced bysoiled white boots that failed to touch the hem of an empire-waistedblue serge; Euterpe abandoning her lyre for jazz. She sat at the piano, a red-haired young lady whose familiarity with the piano had bredcontempt. Nothing else could have accounted for her treatment of it. Herfingers, tipped with sharp-pointed grey and glistening nails, clawed thekeys with a dreadful mechanical motion. There were stacks ofmusic-sheets on counters, and shelves, and dangling from overhead wires. The girl at the piano never ceased playing. She played mostly byrequest. A prospective purchaser would mumble something in the ear ofone of the clerks. The fat man with the megaphone would bawl out, "'Hicky Bloo!' Miss Ryan. " And Miss Ryan would oblige. She made ahideous rattle and crash and clatter of sound compared to which anIndian tom-tom would have seemed as dulcet as the strumming of a lute ina lady's boudoir. 

Terry joined the crowds about the counter. The girl at the piano was notlooking at the keys. Her head was screwed around over her left shoulderand as she played she was holding forth animatedly to a girl friend whohad evidently dropped in from some store or office during the lunchhour. Now and again the fat man paused in his vocal efforts toreprimand her for her slackness. She paid no heed. There was somethinggruesome, uncanny, about the way her fingers went their own way over thedefenceless keys. Her conversation with the frowzy little girl went on. 

"Wha'd he say?" (Over her shoulder). 

"Oh, he laffed. "

"Well, didja go?"

"Me! Well, whutya think I yam, anyway?"

"I woulda took a chanst. "

The fat man rebelled. 

"Look here! Get busy! What are you paid for? Talkin' or playin'? Huh?"

The person at the piano, openly reproved thus before her friend, liftedher uninspired hands from the keys and spake. When she had finished sherose. 

"But you can't leave now, " the megaphone man argued. "Right in the rushhour. "

"I'm gone, " said the girl. The fat man looked about, helplessly. Hegazed at the abandoned piano, as though it must go on of its own accord. Then at the crowd. "Where's Miss Schwimmer?" he demanded of a clerk. 

"Out to lunch. "

Terry pushed her way to the edge of the counter and leaned over. "I canplay for you, " she said. 

The man looked at her. "Sight?"

"Yes. "

"Come on. "

Terry went around to the other side of the counter, took off her hatand coat, rubbed her hands together briskly, sat down and began to play. The crowd edged closer. 

It is a curious study, this noonday crowd that gathers to sate itsmusic-hunger on the scraps vouchsafed it by Bernie Gottschalk's MusicHouse. Loose-lipped, slope-shouldered young men with bad complexions andslender hands. Girls whose clothes are an unconscious satire onpresent-day fashions. On their faces, as they listen to the music, is alook of peace and dreaming. They stand about, smiling a wistful halfsmile. It is much the same expression that steals over the face of asmoker who has lighted his after-dinner cigar, or of a drug victim whois being lulled by his opiate. The music seems to satisfy a somethingwithin them. Faces dull, eyes lustreless, they listen in a sort oftrance. 

Terry played on. She played as Terry Sheehan used to play. She played asno music hack at Bernie Gottschalk's had ever played before. The crowdswayed a little to the sound of it. Some kept time with little jerks ofthe shoulder--the little hitching movement of the rag-time dancer whoseblood is filled with the fever of syncopation. Even the crowd flowingdown State Street must have caught the rhythm of it, for the room soonfilled. 

At two o'clock the crowd began to thin. Business would be slack, now, until five, when it would again pick up until closing time at six. 

The fat vocalist put down his megaphone, wiped his forehead, andregarded Terry with a warm blue eye. He had just finished singing "I'veWandered Far from Dear Old Mother's Knee. " (Bernie Gottschalk Inc. Chicago. New York. You can't get bit with a Gottschalk hit. 15 centseach. )

"Girlie, " he said, emphatically, "You sure--can--play!" He came over toher at the piano and put a stubby hand on her shoulder. "Yessir! Thoselittle fingers--"

Terry just turned her head to look down her nose at the moist handresting on her shoulder. "Those little fingers are going to meet yourface--suddenly--if you don't move on. "

"Who gave you your job?" demanded the fat man. 

"Nobody. I picked it myself. You can have it if you want it. "

"Can't you take a joke?"

"Label yours. "

As the crowd dwindled she played less feverishly, but there was nothingslipshod about her performance. The chubby songster found time toproffer brief explanations in asides. "They want the patriotic stuff. Itused to be all that Hawaiian dope, and Wild Irish Rose junk, and songsabout wanting to go back to every place from Dixie to Duluth. But nowseems it's all these here flag raisers. Honestly, I'm so sick of 'em Igot a notion to enlist to get away from it. "

Terry eyed him with, withering briefness. "A little training wouldn'truin your figure. "

She had never objected to Orville's _embonpoint_. But then, Orville wasa different sort of fat man; pink-cheeked, springy, immaculate. 

At four o'clock, as she was in the chorus of "Isn't There Another Joanof Arc?" a melting masculine voice from the other side of the countersaid, "Pardon me. What's that you're playing?"

Terry told him. She did not look up. 

"I wouldn't have known it. Played like that--a second Marseillaise. Ifthe words--what are the words? Let me see a--"

"Show the gentleman a 'Joan', " Terry commanded briefly, over hershoulder. The fat man laughed a wheezy laugh. Terry glanced around, still playing, and encountered the gaze of two melting masculine eyesthat matched the melting masculine voice. The songster waved a handuniting Terry and the eyes in informal introduction. 

"Mr. Leon Sammett, the gentleman who sings the Gottschalk songs whereversongs are heard. And Mrs. --that is--and Mrs. Sammett--"

Terry turned. A sleek, swarthy world-old young man with the fashionableconcave torso, and alarmingly convex bone-rimmed glasses. Through themhis darkly luminous gaze glowed upon Terry. To escape their warmth shesent her own gaze past him to encounter the arctic stare of the largeblonde person who had been included so lamely in the introduction. Andat that the frigidity of that stare softened, melted, dissolved. 

"Why Terry Sheehan! What in the world!"

Terry's eyes bored beneath the layers of flabby fat. "It's--why, it'sRuby Watson, isn't it? Eccentric Song and Dance--"

She glanced at the concave young man and faltered. He was not Jim, ofthe Bijou days. From him her eyes leaped back to the fur-bedeckedsplendour of the woman. The plump face went so painfully red that themakeup stood out on it, a distinct layer, like thin ice covering flowingwater. As she surveyed that bulk Terry realised that while Ruby mightstill claim eccentricity, her song and dance days were over. "That'sancient history, m'dear. I haven't been working for three years. What'reyou doing in this joint? I'd heard you'd done well for yourself. Thatyou were married. "

"I am. That is I--well, I am. I--"

At that the dark young man leaned over and patted Terry's hand that layon the counter. He smiled. His own hand was incredibly slender, long, and tapering. 

"That's all right, " he assured her, and smiled. "You two girls can havea reunion later. What I want to know is can you play by ear?"

"Yes, but--"

He leaned far over the counter. "I knew it the minute I heard you play. You've got the touch. Now listen. See if you can get this, and fake thebass. "

He fixed his sombre and hypnotic eyes on Terry. His mouth screwed upinto a whistle. The tune--a tawdry but haunting little melody--camethrough his lips. And Terry's quick ear sensed that every note was flat. She turned back to the piano. "Of course you know you flatted everynote, " she said. 

This time it was the blonde woman who laughed, and the man who flushed. Terry cocked her head just a little to one side, like a knowing bird, looked up into space beyond the piano top, and played the lilting littlemelody with charm and fidelity. The dark young man followed her with awagging of the head and little jerks of both outspread hands. Hisexpression was beatific, enraptured. He hummed a little under his breathand any one who was music wise would have known that he was just ahalf-beat behind her all the way. 

When she had finished he sighed deeply, ecstatically. He bent his leanframe over the counter and, despite his swart colouring, seemed toglitter upon her--his eyes, his teeth, his very finger-nails. 

"Something led me here. I never come up on Tuesdays. But something--"

"You was going to complain, " put in his lady, heavily, "about that TeddySykes at the Palace Gardens singing the same songs this week that youbeen boosting at the Inn. "

He put up a vibrant, peremptory hand. "Bah! What does that matter now!What does anything matter now! Listen Miss--ah--Miss?--"

"Pl--Sheehan. Terry Sheehan. "

He gazed off a moment into space. "H'm. 'Leon Sammett in Songs. MissTerry Sheehan at the Piano. ' That doesn't sound bad. Now listen, MissSheehan. I'm singing down at the University Inn. The Gottschalk songhits. I guess you know my work. But I want to talk to you, private. It'ssomething to your interest. I go on down at the Inn at six. Will youcome and have a little something with Ruby and me? Now?"

"Now?" faltered Terry, somewhat helplessly. Things seemed to be movingrather swiftly for her, accustomed as she was to the peaceful routine ofthe past four years. 

"Get your hat. It's your life chance. Wait till you see your name intwo-foot electrics over the front of every big-time house in thecountry. You've got music in you. Tie to me and you're made. " He turnedto the woman beside him. "Isn't that so, Rube?"

"Sure. Look at _me_!" One would not have thought there could be so muchsubtle vindictiveness in a fat blonde. 

Sammett whipped out a watch. "Just three-quarters of an hour. Come on, girlie. "

His conversation had been conducted in an urgent undertone, with sideglances at the fat man with the megaphone. Terry approached him now. 

"I'm leaving now, " she said. 

"Oh, no you're not. Six o'clock is your quitting time. "

In which he touched the Irish in Terry. "Any time I quit is my quittingtime. " She went in quest of hat and coat much as the girl had done whoseplace she had taken early in the day. The fat man followed her, protesting. Terry, pinning on her hat tried to ignore him. But he laidone plump hand on her arm and kept it there, though she tried to shakehim off. 

"Now, listen to me. That boy wouldn't mind putting his heel on your faceif he thought it would bring him up a step. I know'm. Y'see that walkingstick he's carrying? Well, compared to the yellow stripe that's in him, that cane is a lead pencil. He's a song tout, that's all he is. " Then, more feverishly, as Terry tried to pull away: "Wait a minute. You're adecent girl. I want to--Why, he can't even sing a note without you giveit to him first. He can put a song over, yes. But how? By flashin' thattoothy grin, of his and talkin' every word of it. Don't you--"

But Terry freed herself with a final jerk and whipped around thecounter. The two, who had been talking together in an undertone, turnedto welcome her. "We've got a half hour. Come on. It's just over to Clarkand up a block or so. "

If you know Chicago at all, you know the University Inn, that gloriouslyintercollegiate institution which welcomes any graduate of any schoolof experience, and guarantees a post-graduate course in less time thanany similar haven of knowledge. Down a flight of stairs and into theunwonted quiet that reigns during the hour of low potentiality, betweenfive and six, the three went, and seated themselves at a table in anobscure corner. A waiter brought them things in little glasses, thoughno order had been given. The woman who had been Ruby Watson was sosilent as to be almost wordless. But the man talked rapidly. He talkedwell, too. The same quality that enabled him, voiceless though he was, to boost a song to success, was making his plea sound plausible inTerry's ears now. 

"I've got to go and make up in a few minutes. So get this. I'm not goingto stick down in this basement eating house forever. I've got too muchtalent. If I only had a voice--I mean a singing voice. But I haven't. But then, neither has Georgie Cohan, and I can't see that it's wreckedhis life any. Look at Elsie Janis! But she sings. And they like it! Nowlisten. I've got a song. It's my own. That bit you played for me up atGottschalk's is part of the chorus. But it's the words that'll go big. They're great. It's an aviation song, see? Airship stuff. They'reyelling that it's the airyoplanes that're going to win this war. Well, I'll help 'em. This song is going to put the aviator where he belongs. It's going to be the big song of the war. It's going to make 'Tipperary'sound like a Moody and Sankey hymn. It's the--"

Ruby lifted her heavy-lidded eyes and sent him a meaning look. "Getdown to business, Leon. I'll tell her how good you are while you'remaking up. "

He shot her a malignant glance, but took her advice. "Now what I've beenlooking for for years is somebody who has got the music knack to give methe accompaniment just a quarter of a jump ahead of my voice, see? I canfollow like a lamb, but I've got to have that feeler first. It's morethan a knack. It's a gift. And you've got it. I know it when I see it. Iwant to get away from this cabaret thing. There's nothing in it for aman of my talent. I'm gunning for vaudeville. But they won't book mewithout a tryout. And when they hear my voice they--Well, if me and youwork together we can fool 'em. The song's great. And my makeup's one ofthese av-iation costumes to go with the song, see? Pants tight in theknee and baggy on the hips. And a coat with one of those full skirtwhaddyoucall'ems--"

"Peplums, " put in Ruby, placidly. 

"Sure. And the girls'll be wild about it. And the words!" he began tosing, gratingly off-key:

 "Put on your sky clothes, Put on your fly clothes And take a trip with me. We'll sail so high Up in the sky We'll drop a bomb from Mercury. "

"Why, that's awfully cute!" exclaimed Terry. Until now her opinion ofMr. Sammett's talents had not been on a level with his. 

"Yeh, but wait till you hear the second verse. That's only part of thechorus. You see, he's supposed to be talking to a French girl. He says:

 I'll parlez-vous in Français plain, You'll answer, '_Cher Américain_, We'll both. . . . . . . . . . . "

The six o'clock lights blazed up, suddenly. A sad-looking group of mentrailed in and made for a corner where certain bulky, shapeless bundleswere soon revealed as those glittering and tortuous instruments which goto make a jazz band. 

"You better go, Lee. The crowd comes in awful early now, with all thosebuyers in town. "

Both hands on the table he half rose, reluctantly, still talking. "I'vegot three other songs. They make Gottschalk's stuff look sick. All Iwant's a chance. What I want you to do is accompaniment. On the stage, see? Grand piano. And a swell set. I haven't quite made up my mind toit. But a kind of an army camp room, see? And maybe you dressed asLiberty. Anyway, it'll be new, and a knock-out. If only we can get awaywith the voice thing. Say, if Eddie Foy, all those years never had a--"

The band opened with a terrifying clash of cymbal, and thump of drum. "Back at the end of my first turn, " he said as he fled. Terry followedhis lithe, electric figure. She turned to meet the heavy-lidded gaze ofthe woman seated opposite. She relaxed, then, and sat back with a littlesigh. "Well! If he talks that way to the managers I don't see--"

Ruby laughed a mirthless little laugh. "Talk doesn't get it over withthe managers, honey. You've got to deliver. "

"Well, but he's--that song _is_ a good one. I don't say it's as good ashe thinks it is, but it's good. "

"Yes, " admitted the woman, grudgingly, "it's good. "

"Well, then?"

The woman beckoned a waiter; he nodded and vanished, and reappeared witha glass that was twin to the one she had just emptied. "Does he looklike he knew French? Or could make a rhyme?"

"But didn't he? Doesn't he?"

"The words were written by a little French girl who used to skate downhere last winter, when the craze was on. She was stuck on a Chicago kidwho went over to fly for the French. "

"But the music?"

"There was a Russian girl who used to dance in the cabaret and she--"

Terry's head came up with a characteristic little jerk. "I don't believeit!"

"Better. " She gazed at Terry with the drowsy look that was so differentfrom the quick, clear glance of the Ruby Watson who used to dance sonimbly in the Old Bijou days. "What'd you and your husband quarrelabout, Terry?"

Terry was furious to feel herself flushing. "Oh, nothing. Hejust--I--it was--Say, how did you know we'd quarrelled?"

And suddenly all the fat woman's apathy dropped from her like a garmentand some of the old sparkle and animation illumined her heavy face. Shepushed her glass aside and leaned forward on her folded arms, so thather face was close to Terry's. 

"Terry Sheehan, I know you've quarrelled, and I know just what it wasabout. Oh, I don't mean the very thing it was about; but the kind ofthing. I'm going to do something for you, Terry, that I wouldn't takethe trouble to do for most women. But I guess I ain't had all thesoftness knocked out of me yet, though it's a wonder. And I guess Iremember too plain the decent kid you was in the old days. What was thename of that little small-time house me and Jim used to play? Bijou, that's it; Bijou. "

The band struck up a new tune. Leon Sammett--slim, sleek, lithe in hisevening clothes--appeared with a little fair girl in pink chiffon. Thewoman reached across the table and put one pudgy, jewelled hand onTerry's arm. "He'll be through in ten minutes. Now listen to me. I leftJim four years ago, and there hasn't been a minute since then, day ornight, when I wouldn't have crawled back to him on my hands and knees ifI could. But I couldn't. He wouldn't have me now. How could he? How do Iknow you've quarrelled? I can see it in your eyes. They look just theway mine have felt for four years, that's how. I met up with this boy, and there wasn't anybody to do the turn for me that I'm trying to do foryou. Now get this. I left Jim because when he ate corn on the cob healways closed his eyes and it drove me wild. Don't laugh. "

"I'm not laughing, " said Terry. 

"Women are like that. One night--we was playing Fond du Lac; I rememberjust as plain--we was eating supper and Jim reached for one of those bigyellow ears, and buttered and salted it, and me kind of hanging on tothe edge of the table with my nails. Seemed to me if he shut his eyeswhen he put his teeth into that ear of corn I'd scream. And he did. AndI screamed. And that's all. "

Terry sat staring at her with a wide-eyed stare, like a sleep walker. Then she wet her lips, slowly. "But that's almost the very--"

"Kid, go on back home. I don't know whether it's too late or not, but goanyway. If you've lost him I suppose it ain't any more than you deserve, but I hope to God you don't get your desserts this time. He's almostthrough. If he sees you going he can't quit in the middle of his song tostop you. He'll know I put you wise, and he'll prob'ly half kill me forit. But it's worth it. You get. "

And Terry--dazed, shaking, but grateful--fled. Down the noisy aisle, upthe stairs, to the street. Back to her rooming house. Out again, withher suitcase, and into the right railroad station somehow, at last. Notanother Wetona train until midnight. She shrank into a remote corner ofthe waiting room and there she huddled until midnight watching theentrances like a child who is fearful of ghosts in the night. 

The hands of the station clock seemed fixed and immovable. The hourbetween eleven and twelve was endless. She was on the train. It wasalmost morning. It was morning. Dawn was breaking. She was home! She hadthe house key clutched tightly in her hand long before she turnedSchroeder's corner. Suppose he had come home! Suppose he had jumped atown and come home ahead of his schedule. They had quarrelled oncebefore, and he had done that. 

Up the front steps. Into the house. Not a sound. She stood there amoment in the early morning half-light. She peered into the dining room. The table, with its breakfast débris, was as she had left it. In thekitchen the coffee pot stood on the gas stove. She was home. She wassafe. She ran up the stairs, got out of her clothes and into crispgingham morning things. She flung open windows everywhere. Down-stairsonce more she plunged into an orgy of cleaning. Dishes, table, stove, floor, rugs. She washed, scoured, flapped, swabbed, polished. By eighto'clock she had done the work that would ordinarily have taken untilnoon. The house was shining, orderly, and redolent of soapsuds. 

During all this time she had been listening, listening, with hersub-conscious ear. Listening for something she had refused to namedefinitely in her mind, but listening, just the same; waiting. 

And then, at eight o'clock, it came. The rattle of a key in the lock. The boom of the front door. Firm footsteps. 

He did not go to meet her, and she did not go to meet him. They cametogether and were in each other's arms. She was weeping. 

"Now, now, old girl. What's there to cry about? Don't, honey; don't. It's all right. "

She raised her head then, to look at him. How fresh, and rosy, and bighe seemed, after that little sallow, yellow restaurant rat. 

"How did you get here? How did you happen--?"

"Jumped all the way from Ashland. Couldn't get a sleeper, so I sat upall night. I had to come back and square things with you, Terry. My mindjust wasn't on my work. I kept thinking how I'd talked--how I'dtalked--"

"Oh, Orville, don't! I can't bear--Have you had your breakfast?"

"Why, no. The train was an hour late. You know that Ashland train. "

But she was out of his arms and making for the kitchen. "You go andclean up. I'll have hot biscuits and everything in fifteen minutes. Youpoor boy. No breakfast!"

She made good her promise. It could not have been more than twentyminutes later when he was buttering his third feathery, golden brownbiscuit. But she had eaten nothing. She watched him, and listened, andagain her eyes were sombre, but for a different reason. He broke openhis egg. His elbow came up just a fraction of an inch. Then heremembered, and flushed like a schoolboy, and brought it down again, carefully. And at that she gave a little tremulous cry, and rushedaround the table to him. 

"Oh, Orville!" She took the offending elbow in her two arms, and bentand kissed the rough coat sleeve. 

"Why, Terry! Don't, honey. Don't!"

"Oh, Orville, listen--"

"Yes. "

"Listen, Orville--"

"I'm listening, Terry. "

"I've got something to tell you. There's something you've got to know. "

"Yes, I know it, Terry. I knew you'd out with it, pretty soon, if I justwaited. "

She lifted an amazed face from his shoulder then, and stared at him. "But how could you know? You couldn't! How could you?"

He patted her shoulder then, gently. "I can always tell. When you havesomething on your mind you always take up a spoon of coffee, and look atit, and kind of joggle it back and forth in the spoon, and then dribbleit back into the cup again, without once tasting it. It used to get menervous when we were first married watching you. But now I know it justmeans you're worried about something, and I wait, and pretty soon--"

"Oh, Orville!" she cried, then. "Oh, Orville!"

"Now, Terry. Just spill it, hon. Just spill it to daddy. And you'll feelbetter. "

VI

THE WOMAN WHO TRIED TO BE GOOD

Before she tried to be a good woman she had been a very bad woman--sobad that she could trail her wonderful apparel up and down Main Street, from the Elm Tree Bakery to the railroad tracks, without once having aman doff his hat to her or a woman bow. You passed her on the streetwith a surreptitious glance, though she was well worth looking at--inher furs and laces and plumes. She had the only full-length sealskincoat in our town, and Ganz' shoe store sent to Chicago for her shoes. Hers were the miraculously small feet you frequently see in stout women. 

Usually she walked alone; but on rare occasions, especially roundChristmas time, she might have been seen accompanied by some silent, dull-eyed, stupid-looking girl, who would follow her dumbly in and outof stores, stopping now and then to admire a cheap comb or a chain setwith flashy imitation stones--or, queerly enough, a doll with yellowhair and blue eyes and very pink cheeks. But, alone or in company, herappearance in the stores of our town was the signal for a sudden jump inthe cost of living. The storekeepers mulcted her; and she knew it andpaid in silence, for she was of the class that has no redress. Sheowned the House With the Closed Shutters, near the freight depot--didBlanche Devine. And beneath her silks and laces and furs there was ascarlet letter on her breast. 

In a larger town than ours she would have passed unnoticed. She did notlook like a bad woman. Of course she used too much perfumed whitepowder, and as she passed you caught the oversweet breath of a certainheavy scent. Then, too, her diamond eardrops would have made any woman'sfeatures look hard; but her plump face, in spite of its heaviness, worean expression of good-humoured intelligence, and her eyeglasses gaveher somehow a look of respectability. We do not associate vice witheyeglasses. So in a large city she would have passed for a well-dressedprosperous, comfortable wife and mother, who was in danger of losing herfigure from an overabundance of good living; but with us she was a towncharacter, like Old Man Givins, the drunkard, or the weak-minded Binnsgirl. When she passed the drug-store corner there would be a sniggeringamong the vacant-eyed loafers idling there, and they would leer at eachother and jest in undertones. 

So, knowing Blanche Devine as we did, there was something resembling ariot in one of our most respectable neighbourhoods when it was learnedthat she had given up her interest in the house near the freight depotand was going to settle down in the white cottage on the corner and begood. All the husbands in the block, urged on by righteously indignantwives, dropped in on Alderman Mooney after supper to see if the thingcould not be stopped. The fourth of the protesting husbands to arrivewas the Very Young Husband, who lived next door to the corner cottagethat Blanche Devine had bought. The Very Young Husband had a Very YoungWife, and they were the joint owners of Snooky. Snooky wasthree-going-on-four, and looked something like an angel--only healthierand with grimier hands. The whole neighbourhood borrowed her and triedto spoil her; but Snooky would not spoil. 

Alderman Mooney was down in the cellar fooling with the furnace. He wasin his furnace overalls--a short black pipe in his mouth. Threeprotesting husbands had just left. As the Very Young Husband, followingMrs. Mooney's directions, cautiously descended the cellar stairs, Alderman Mooney looked up from his tinkering. He peered through a hazeof pipe-smoke. 

"Hello!" he called, and waved the haze away with his open palm. "Come ondown! Been tinkering with this blamed furnace since supper. She don'tdraw like she ought. 'Long toward spring a furnace always gets balky. How many tons you used this winter?"

"Oh--ten, " said the Very Young Husband shortly. Alderman Mooneyconsidered it thoughtfully. The Young Husband leaned up against the sideof the cistern, his hands in his pockets. "Say, Mooney, is that rightabout Blanche Devine's having bought the house on the corner?"

"You're the fourth man that's been in to ask me that this evening. I'mexpecting the rest of the block before bedtime. She's bought it allright. "

The Young Husband flushed and kicked at a piece of coal with the toe ofhis boot. 

"Well, it's a darned shame!" he began hotly. "Jen was ready to cry atsupper. This'll be a fine neighbourhood for Snooky to grow up in! What'sa woman like that want to come into a respectable street for anyway? Iown my home and pay my taxes--"

Alderman Mooney looked up. 

"So does she, " he interrupted. "She's going to improve the place--paintit, and put in a cellar and a furnace, and build a porch, and lay acement walk all round. "

The Young Husband took his hands out of his pockets in order toemphasize his remarks with gestures. 

"What's that got to do with it? I don't care if she puts in diamonds forwindows and sets out Italian gardens and a terrace with peacocks on it. You're the alderman of this ward, aren't you? Well, it was up to you tokeep her out of this block! You could have fixed it with an injunctionor something. I'm going to get up a petition--that's what I'm going--"

Alderman Mooney closed the furnace door with a bang that drowned therest of the threat. He turned the draft in a pipe overhead and brushedhis sooty palms briskly together like one who would put an end to aprofitless conversation. 

"She's bought the house, " he said mildly, "and paid for it. And it'shers. She's got a right to live in this neighbourhood as long as sheacts respectable. "

The Very Young Husband laughed. 

"She won't last! They never do. "

Alderman Mooney had taken his pipe out of his mouth and was rubbing histhumb over the smooth bowl, looking down at it with unseeing eyes. Onhis face was a queer look--the look of one who is embarrassed because heis about to say something honest. 

"Look here! I want to tell you something: I happened to be up in themayor's office the day Blanche signed for the place. She had to gothrough a lot of red tape before she got it--had quite a time of it, shedid! And say, kid, that woman ain't so--bad. "

The Very Young Husband exclaimed impatiently:

"Oh, don't give me any of that, Mooney! Blanche Devine's a towncharacter. Even the kids know what she is. If she's got religion orsomething, and wants to quit and be decent, why doesn't she go toanother town--Chicago or some place--where nobody knows her?"

That motion of Alderman Mooney's thumb against the smooth pipebowlstopped. He looked up slowly. 

"That's what I said--the mayor too. But Blanche Devine said she wantedto try it here. She said this was home to her. Funny--ain't it? Saidshe wouldn't be fooling anybody here. They know her. And if she movedaway, she said, it'd leak out some way sooner or later. It does, shesaid. Always! Seems she wants to live like--well, like other women. Sheput it like this: She says she hasn't got religion, or any of that. Shesays she's no different than she was when she was twenty. She says thatfor the last ten years the ambition of her life has been to be able togo into a grocery store and ask the price of, say, celery; and, if theclerk charged her ten when it ought to be seven, to be able to sasshim with a regular piece of her mind--and then sail out and tradesomewhere else until he saw that she didn't have to stand anything fromstorekeepers, any more than any other woman that did her own marketing. She's a smart woman, Blanche is! She's saved her money. God knows Iain't taking her part--exactly; but she talked a little, and the mayorand me got a little of her history. "

A sneer appeared on the face of the Very Young Husband. He had beenknown before he met Jen as a rather industrious sower of that seed knownas wild oats. He knew a thing or two, did the Very Young Husband, inspite of his youth! He always fussed when Jen wore even a V-neckedsummer gown on the street. 

"Oh, she wasn't playing for sympathy, " west on Alderman Mooney inanswer to the sneer. "She said she'd always paid her way and alwaysexpected to. Seems her husband left her without a cent when she waseighteen--with a baby. She worked for four dollars a week in a cheapeating house. The two of 'em couldn't live on that. Then the baby--"

"Good night!" said the Very Young Husband. "I suppose Mrs. Mooney'sgoing to call?"

"Minnie! It was her scolding all through supper that drove me down tomonkey with the furnace. She's wild--Minnie is. " He peeled off hisoveralls and hung them on a nail. The Young Husband started to ascendthe cellar stairs. Alderman Mooney laid a detaining finger on hissleeve. "Don't say anything in front of Minnie! She's boiling! Minnieand the kids are going to visit her folks out West this summer; so Iwouldn't so much as dare to say 'Good morning!' to the Devine woman. Anyway a person wouldn't talk to her, I suppose. But I kind of thoughtI'd tell you about her. "

"Thanks!" said the Very Young Husband dryly. 

In the early spring, before Blanche Devine moved in, there camestonemasons, who began to build something. It was a great stonefireplace that rose in massive incongruity at the side of the littlewhite cottage. Blanche Devine was trying to make a home for herself. Weno longer build fireplaces for physical warmth--we build them for thewarmth of the soul; we build them to dream by, to hope by, to home by. 

Blanche Devine used to come and watch them now and then as the workprogressed. She had a way of walking round and round the house, lookingup at it pridefully and poking at plaster and paint with her umbrella orfingertip. One day she brought with her a man with a spade. He spaded upa neat square of ground at the side of the cottage and a long ridge nearthe fence that separated her yard from that of the very young couplenext door. The ridge spelled sweet peas and nasturtiums to oursmall-town eyes. 

On the day that Blanche Devine moved in there was wild agitation amongthe white-ruffled bedroom curtains of the neighbourhood. Later oncertain odours, as of burning dinners, pervaded the atmosphere. BlancheDevine, flushed and excited, her hair slightly askew, her diamondeardrops flashing, directed the moving, wrapped in her great furcoat; but on the third morning we gasped when she appeared out-of-doors, carrying a little household ladder, a pail of steaming water and sundryvoluminous white cloths. She reared the little ladder against the sideof the house mounted it cautiously, and began to wash windows: withhousewifely thoroughness. Her stout figure was swathed in a grey sweaterand on her head was a battered felt hat--the sort of window-washingcostume that has been worn by women from time immemorial. We noticedthat she used plenty of hot water and clean rags, and that she rubbedthe glass until it sparkled, leaning perilously sideways on the ladderto detect elusive streaks. Our keenest housekeeping eye could find nofault with the way Blanche Devine washed windows. 

By May, Blanche Devine had left off her diamond eardrops--perhaps it wastheir absence that gave her face a new expression. When she went downtown we noticed that her hats were more like the hats the other women inour town wore; but she still affected extravagant footgear, as is rightand proper for a stout woman who has cause to be vain of her feet. Wenoticed that her trips down town were rare that spring and summer. Sheused to come home laden with little bundles; and before supper she wouldchange her street clothes for a neat, washable housedress, as is ourthrifty custom. Through her bright windows we could see her movingbriskly about from kitchen to sitting room; and from the smells thatfloated out from her kitchen door, she seemed to be preparing for hersolitary supper the same homely viands that were frying or stewing orbaking in our kitchens. Sometimes you could detect the delectable scentof browning hot tea biscuit. It takes a brave, courageous, determinedwoman to make tea biscuit for no one but herself. 

Blanche Devine joined the church. On the first Sunday morning she cameto the service there was a little flurry among the ushers at thevestibule door. They seated her well in the rear. The second Sundaymorning a dreadful thing happened. The woman next to whom they seatedher turned, regarded her stonily for a moment, then rose agitatedly andmoved to a pew across the aisle. Blanche Devine's face went a dull redbeneath her white powder. She never came again--though we saw theminister visit her once or twice. She always accompanied him to the doorpleasantly, holding it well open until he was down the little flight ofsteps and on the sidewalk. The minister's wife did not call--but, then, there are limits to the duties of a minister's wife. 

She rose early, like the rest of us; and as summer came on we used tosee her moving about in her little garden patch in the dewy, goldenmorning. She wore absurd pale-blue kimonos that made her stout figureloom immense against the greenery of garden and apple tree. Theneighbourhood women viewed these negligées with Puritan disapproval asthey smoothed down their own prim, starched gingham skirts. They said itwas disgusting--and perhaps it was; but the habit of years is not easilyovercome. Blanche Devine--snipping her sweet peas; peering anxiously atthe Virginia creeper that clung with such fragile fingers to thetrellis; watering the flower baskets that hung from her porch--wasblissfully unconscious of the disapproving eyes. I wish one of us hadjust stopped to call good morning to her over the fence, and to say inour neighbourly, small town way: "My, ain't this a scorcher! So earlytoo! It'll be fierce by noon!" But we did not. 

I think perhaps the evenings must have been the loneliest for her. Thesummer evenings in our little town are filled with intimate, human, neighbourly sounds. After the heat of the day it is infinitely pleasantto relax in the cool comfort of the front porch, with the life of thetown eddying about us. We sew and read out there until it grows dusk. Wecall across-lots to our next-door neighbour. The men water the lawns andthe flower boxes and get together in little quiet groups to discuss thenew street paving. I have even known Mrs. Hines to bring her cherriesout there when she had canning to do, and pit them there on the frontporch partially shielded by her porch vine, but not so effectually thatshe was deprived of the sights and sounds about her. The kettle in herlap and the dishpan full of great ripe cherries on the porch floor byher chair, she would pit and chat and peer out through the vines, thered juice staining her plump bare arms. 

I have wondered since what Blanche Devine thought of us those lonesomeevenings--those evenings filled with little friendly sights and sounds. It is lonely, uphill business at best--this being good. It must havebeen difficult for her, who had dwelt behind closed shutters so long, toseat herself on the new front porch for all the world to stare at; butshe did sit there--resolutely--watching us in silence. 

She seized hungrily upon the stray crumbs of conversation that fell toher. The milkman and the iceman and the butcher boy used to hold dailyconversation with her. They--sociable gentlemen--would stand on herdoorstep, one grimy hand resting against the white of her doorpost, exchanging the time of day with Blanche in the doorway--a tea towel inone hand, perhaps, and a plate in the other. Her little house was amiracle of cleanliness. It was no uncommon sight to see her down on herknees on the kitchen floor, wielding her brush and rag like the rest ofus. In canning and preserving time there floated out from her kitchenthe pungent scent of pickled crab apples; the mouth-watering, nostril-pricking smell that meant sweet pickles; or the cloying, tantalising, divinely sticky odour that meant raspberry jam. Snooky, from her side of the fence, often used to peer through the pickets, gazing in the direction of the enticing smells next door. Early oneSeptember morning there floated out from Blanche Devine's kitchen thatclean, fragrant, sweet scent of fresh-baked cookies--cookies with butterin them, and spice, and with nuts on top. Just by the smell of them yourmind's eye pictured them coming from the oven--crisp brown circlets, crumbly, toothsome, delectable. Snooky, in her scarlet sweater and cap, sniffed them from afar and straightway deserted her sandpile to take herstand at the fence. She peered through the restraining bars, standing ontiptoe. Blanche Devine, glancing up from her board and rolling-pin, sawthe eager golden head. And Snooky, with guile in her heart, raised onefat, dimpled hand above the fence and waved it friendlily. BlancheDevine waved back. Thus encouraged, Snooky's two hands wigwaggedfrantically above the pickets. Blanche Devine hesitated a moment, herfloury hand on her hip. Then she went to the pantry shelf and took out aclean white saucer. She selected from the brown jar on the table threeof the brownest, crumbliest, most perfect cookies, with a walnut meatperched atop of each, placed them temptingly on the saucer and, descending the steps, came swiftly across the grass to the triumphantSnooky. Blanche Devine held out the saucer, her lips smiling, her eyestender. Snooky reached up with one plump white arm. 

"Snooky!" shrilled a high voice. "Snooky!" A voice of horror and ofwrath. "Come here to me this minute! And don't you dare to touch those!"Snooky hesitated rebelliously, one pink finger in her pouting mouth. "Snooky! Do you hear me?"

And the Very Young Wife began to descend the steps of her back porch. Snooky, regretful eyes on the toothsome dainties, turned away aggrieved. The Very Young Wife, her lips set, her eyes flashing, advanced andseized the shrieking Snooky by one writhing arm and dragged her awaytoward home and safety. 

Blanche Devine stood there at the fence, holding the saucer in her hand. The saucer tipped slowly, and the three cookies slipped off and fell tothe grass. Blanche Devine followed them with her eyes and stood staringat them a moment. Then she turned quickly, went into the house and shutthe door. 

It was about this time we noticed that Blanche Devine was away much ofthe time. The little white cottage would be empty for a week. We knewshe was out of town because the expressman would come for her trunk. Weused to lift our eyebrows significantly. The newspapers and handbillswould accumulate in a dusty little heap on the porch; but when shereturned there was always a grand cleaning, with the windows open, andBlanche--her head bound turbanwise in a towel--appearing at a windowevery few minutes to shake out a dustcloth. She seemed to put anenormous amount of energy into those cleanings--as if they were a sortof safety valve. 

As winter came on she used to sit up before her grate fire long, longafter we were asleep in our beds. When she neglected to pull down theshades we could see the flames of her cosy fire dancing gnomelike on thewall. 

There came a night of sleet and snow, and wind and rattling hail--one ofthose blustering, wild nights that are followed by morning-paper reportsof trains stalled in drifts, mail delayed, telephone and telegraph wiresdown. It must have been midnight or past when there came a hammering atBlanche Devine's door--a persistent, clamorous rapping. Blanche Devine, sitting before her dying fire half asleep, started and cringed when sheheard it; then jumped to her feet, her hand at her breast--her eyesdarting this way and that, as though seeking escape. 

She had heard a rapping like that before. It had meant bluecoatsswarming up the stairway, and frightened cries and pleadings, and wildconfusion. So she started forward now, quivering. And then sheremembered, being wholly awake now--she remembered, and threw up herhead and smiled a little bitterly and walked toward the door. Thehammering continued, louder than ever. Blanche Devine flicked on theporch light and opened the door. The half-clad figure of the Very YoungWife next door staggered into the room. She seized Blanche Devine's armwith both her frenzied hands and shook her, the wind and snow beating inupon both of them. 

"The baby!" she screamed in a high, hysterical voice. "The baby! Thebaby--"

Blanche Devine shut the door and shook the Young Wife smartly by theshoulders. 

"Stop screaming, " she said quietly. "Is she sick?"

The Young Wife told her, her teeth chattering:

"Come quick! She's dying! Will's out of town. I tried to get the doctor. The telephone wouldn't--I saw your light! For God's sake--"

Blanche Devine grasped the Young Wife's arm, opened the door, andtogether they sped across the little space that separated the twohouses. Blanche Devine was a big woman, but she took the stairs like agirl and found the right bedroom by some miraculous woman instinct. Adreadful choking, rattling sound was coming from Snooky's bed. 

"Croup, " said Blanche Devine, and began her fight. 

It was a good fight. She marshalled her little inadequate forces, madeup of the half-fainting Young Wife and the terrified and awkward hiredgirl. 

"Get the hot water on--lots of it!" Blanche Devine pinned up hersleeves. "Hot cloths! Tear up a sheet--or anything! Got an oilstove? Iwant a teakettle boiling in the room. She's got to have the steam. Ifthat don't do it we'll raise an umbrella over her and throw a sheetover, and hold the kettle under till the steam gets to her that way. Gotany ipecac?"

The Young Wife obeyed orders, whitefaced and shaking. Once BlancheDevine glanced up at her sharply. 

"Don't you dare faint!" she commanded. 

And the fight went on. Gradually the breathing that had been sofrightful became softer, easier. Blanche Devine did not relax. It wasnot until the little figure breathed gently in sleep that Blanche Devinesat back satisfied. Then she tucked a cover ever so gently at the sideof the bed, took a last satisfied look at the face on the pillow, andturned to look at the wan, dishevelled Young Wife. 

"She's all right now. We can get the doctor when morning comes--though Idon't know's you'll need him. "

The Young Wife came round to Blanche Devine's side of the bed and stoodlooking up at her. 

"My baby died, " said Blanche Devine simply. The Young Wife gave a littleinarticulate cry, put her two hands on Blanche Devine's broad shouldersand laid her tired head on her breast. 

"I guess I'd better be going, " said Blanche Devine. 

The Young Wife raised her head. Her eyes were round with fright. 

"Going! Oh, please stay! I'm so afraid. Suppose she should take sickagain! That awful--awful breathing--"

"I'll stay if you want me to. "

"Oh, please! I'll make up your bed and you can rest--"

"I'm not sleepy. I'm not much of a hand to sleep anyway. I'll sit uphere in the hall, where there's a light. You get to bed. I'll watch andsee that everything's all right. Have you got something I can read outhere--something kind of lively--with a love story in it?"

So the night went by. Snooky slept in her little white bed. The VeryYoung Wife half dozed in her bed, so near the little one. In the hall, her stout figure looming grotesque in wall-shadows, sat Blanche Devinepretending to read. Now and then she rose and tiptoed into the bedroomwith miraculous quiet, and stooped over the little bed and listened andlooked--and tiptoed away again, satisfied. 

The Young Husband came home from his business trip next day with talesof snowdrifts and stalled engines. Blanche Devine breathed a sigh ofrelief when she saw him from her kitchen window. She watched the housenow with a sort of proprietary eye. She wondered about Snooky; but sheknew better than to ask. So she waited. The Young Wife next door hadtold her husband all about that awful night--had told him with tears andsobs. The Very Young Husband had been very, very angry with her--angryand hurt, he said, and astonished! Snooky could not have been so sick!Look at her now! As well as ever. And to have called such a woman! Well, really he did not want to be harsh; but she must understand that shemust never speak to the woman again. Never!

So the next day the Very Young Wife happened to go by with the YoungHusband. Blanche Devine spied them from her sitting-room window, and shemade the excuse of looking in her mailbox in order to go to the door. She stood in the doorway and the Very Young Wife went by on the arm ofher husband. She went by--rather white-faced--without a look or a wordor a sign!

And then this happened! There came into Blanche Devine's face a lookthat made slits of her eyes, and drew her mouth down into an ugly, narrow line, and that made the muscles of her jaw tense and hard. It wasthe ugliest look you can imagine. Then she smiled--if having one's lipscurl away from one's teeth can be called smiling. 

Two days later there was great news of the white cottage on the corner. The curtains were down; the furniture was packed; the rugs were rolled. The wagons came and backed up to the house and took those things thathad made a home for Blanche Devine. And when we heard that she hadbought back her interest in the House With the Closed Shutters, near thefreight depot, we sniffed. 

"I knew she wouldn't last!" we said. 

"They never do!" said we. 

VII

THE GIRL WHO WENT RIGHT

There is a story--Kipling, I think--that tells of a spirited horsegalloping in the dark suddenly drawing up tense, hoofs bunched, slimflanks quivering, nostrils dilated, ears pricked. Urging being of noavail the rider dismounts, strikes a match, advances a cautious step orso, and finds himself at the precipitous brink of a newly formedcrevasse. 

So it is with your trained editor. A miraculous sixth sense guides him. A mysterious something warns him of danger lurking within the seeminglyinnocent oblong white envelope. Without slitting the flap, withoutpausing to adjust his tortoise-rimmed glasses, without clearing histhroat, without lighting his cigarette--he knows. 

The deadly newspaper story he scents in the dark. Cub reporter. Crustycity editor. Cub fired. Stumbles on to a big story. Staggers intonewspaper office wild-eyed. Last edition. "Hold the presses!" CrustyC. E. Stands over cub's typewriter grabbing story line by line. Evenforeman of pressroom moved to tears by tale. "Boys, this ain't just astory this kid's writin'. This is history!" Story finished. Cub faints. C. E. Makes him star reporter. 

The athletic story: "I could never marry a mollycoddle like you, HaroldHammond!" Big game of the year. Team crippled. Second half. Halfbackhurt. Harold Hammond, scrub, into the game. Touchdown! Broken leg. Fiveto nothing. "Harold, can you ever, ever forgive me?"

The pseudo-psychological story: She had been sitting before the fire fora long, long time. The flame had flickered and died down to asmouldering ash. The sound of his departing footsteps echoed andre-echoed through her brain. But the little room was very, very still. 

The shop-girl story: Torn boots and temptation, tears and snears, pathosand bathos, all the way from Zola to the vice inquiry. 

Having thus attempted to hide the deadly commonplaceness of this storywith a thin layer of cynicism, perhaps even the wily editor may betricked into taking the leap. 

 * * * * *

Four weeks before the completion of the new twelve-story addition thestore advertised for two hundred experienced saleswomen. RachelWiletzky, entering the superintendent's office after a wait of threehours, was Applicant No. 179. The superintendent did not look up asRachel came in. He scribbled busily on a pad of paper at his desk, thusobserving rules one and two in the proper conduct of superintendentswhen interviewing applicants. Rachel Wiletzky, standing by his desk, did not cough or wriggle or rustle her skirts or sag on one hip. A senseof her quiet penetrated the superintendent's subconsciousness. Heglanced up hurriedly over his left shoulder. Then he laid down hispencil and sat up slowly. His mind was working quickly enough though. Inthe twelve seconds that intervened between the laying down of the penciland the sitting up in his chair he had hastily readjusted all hiswell-founded preconceived ideas on the appearance of shop-girlapplicants. 

Rachel Wiletzky had the colouring and physique of a dairymaid. It wasthe sort of colouring that you associate in your mind with lush greenfields, and Jersey cows, and village maids, in Watteau frocks, balancingbrimming pails aloft in the protecting curve of one rounded upraisedarm, with perhaps a Maypole dance or so in the background. Altogether, had the superintendent been given to figures of speech, he might havesaid that Rachel was as much out of place among the preceding onehundred and seventy-eight bloodless, hollow-chested, stoop-shoulderedapplicants as a sunflower would be in a patch of dank white fungi. 

He himself was one of those bleached men that you find on the officefloor of department stores. Grey skin, grey eyes, greying hair, carefulgrey clothes--seemingly as void of pigment as one of those sunlessthings you disclose when you turn over a board that has long lain on themouldy floor of a damp cellar. It was only when you looked closely thatyou noticed a fleck of golden brown in the cold grey of each eye, and astreak of warm brown forming an unquenchable forelock that theconquering grey had not been able to vanquish. It may have been asomething within him corresponding to those outward bits of humancolouring that tempted him to yield to a queer impulse. He whipped fromhis breast-pocket the grey-bordered handkerchief, reached up swiftly andpassed one white corner of it down the length of Rachel Wiletzky'sKillarney-rose left cheek. The rude path down which the handkerchief hadtravelled deepened to red for a moment before both rose-pink cheeksbloomed into scarlet. The superintendent gazed rather ruefully fromunblemished handkerchief to cheek and back again. 

"Why--it--it's real!" he stammered. 

Rachel Wiletzky smiled a good-natured little smile that had in it a dashof superiority. 

"If I was putting it on, " she said, "I hope I'd have sense enough toleave something to the imagination. This colour out of a box would takea spiderweb veil to tone it down. "

Not much more than a score of words. And yet before the half were spokenyou were certain that Rachel Wiletzky's knowledge of lush green fieldsand bucolic scenes was that gleaned from the condensed-milk ads thatglare down at one from billboards and street-car chromos. Hers was theghetto voice--harsh, metallic, yet fraught with the resonant music oftragedy. 

"H'm--name?" asked the grey superintendent. He knew that vocal quality. 

A queer look stole into Rachel Wiletzky's face, a look of cunning anddetermination and shrewdness. 

"Ray Willets, " she replied composedly. "Double l. "

"Clerked before, of course. Our advertisement stated--"

"Oh yes, " interrupted Ray Willets hastily, eagerly. "I can sell goods. My customers like me. And I don't get tired. I don't know why, but Idon't. "

The superintendent glanced up again at the red that glowed higher withthe girl's suppressed excitement. He took a printed slip from the littlepile of paper that lay on his desk. 

"Well, anyway, you're the first clerk I ever saw who had so much redblood that she could afford to use it for decorative purposes. Step intothe next room, answer the questions on this card and turn it in. You'llbe notified. "

Ray Willets took the searching, telltale blank that put its questions sopertinently. "Where last employed?" it demanded. "Why did you leave? Doyou live at home?"

Ray Willets moved slowly away toward the door opposite. Thesuperintendent reached forward to press the button that would summonApplicant No. 180. But before his finger touched it Ray Willets turnedand came back swiftly. She held the card out before his surprised eyes. 

"I can't fill this out. If I do I won't get the job. I work over at theHalsted Street Bazaar. You know--the Cheap Store. I lied and sent word Iwas sick so I could come over here this morning. And they dock you fortime off whether you're sick or not. "

The superintendent drummed impatiently with his fingers. "I can't listento all this. Haven't time. Fill out your blank, and if--"

All that latent dramatic force which is a heritage of her race came tothe girl's aid now. 

"The blank! How can I say on a blank that I'm leaving because I want tobe where real people are? What chance has a girl got over there on theWest Side? I'm different. I don't know why, but I am. Look at my face!Where should I get red cheeks from? From not having enough to eat halfthe time and sleeping three in a bed?"

She snatched off her shabby glove and held one hand out before the man'sface. 

"From where do I get such hands? Not from selling hardware over atTwelfth and Halsted. Look at it! Say, couldn't that hand sell silk andlace?"

Some one has said that to make fingers and wrists like those which RayWillets held out for inspection it is necessary to have had at leastfive generations of ancestors who have sat with their hands folded intheir laps. Slender, tapering, sensitive hands they were, pink-tipped, temperamental. Wistful hands they were, speaking hands, an inheritance, perhaps, from some dreamer ancestor within the old-world ghetto, somelong-haired, velvet-eyed student of the Talmud dwelling within the palewith its squalor and noise, and dreaming of unseen things beyond theconfining gates--things rare and exquisite and fine. 

"Ashamed of your folks?" snapped the superintendent. 

"N-no--No! But I want to be different. I am different! Give me a chance, will you? I'm straight. And I'll work. And I can sell goods. Try me. "

That all-pervading greyness seemed to have lifted from the man at thedesk. The brown flecks in the eyes seemed to spread and engulf thesurrounding colourlessness. His face, too, took on a glow that seemed tocome from within. It was like the lifting of a thick grey mist on afoggy morning, so that the sun shines bright and clear for a briefmoment before the damp curtain rolls down again and effaces it. 

He leaned forward in his chair, a queer half-smile on his face. 

"I'll give you your chance, " he said, "for one month. At the end of thattime I'll send for you. I'm not going to watch you. I'm not going tohave you watched. Of course your sale slips will show the office whetheryou're selling goods or not. If you're not they'll discharge you. Butthat's routine. What do you want to sell?"

"What do I want to--Do you mean--Why, I want to sell the lacythings. "

"The lacy--"

Ray, very red-cheeked, made the plunge. "The--the lawnjeree, you know. The things with ribbon and handwork and yards and yards of real lace. I've seen 'em in the glass case in the French Room. Seventy-nine dollarsmarked down from one hundred. "

The superintendent scribbled on a card. "Show this Monday morning. MissJevne is the head of your department. You'll spend two hours a day inthe store school of instruction for clerks. Here, you're forgetting yourglove. "

The grey look had settled down on him again as he reached out to pressthe desk button. Ray Willets passed out at the door opposite the onethrough which Rachel Wiletzky had entered. 

Some one in the department nick-named her Chubbs before she had spenthalf a day in the underwear and imported lingerie. At the store schoolshe listened and learned. She learned how important were things of whichHalsted Street took no cognisance. She learned to make out a sale slipas complicated as an engineering blueprint. She learned that a clerkmust develop suavity and patience in the same degree as a customer waxeswaspish and insulting, and that the spectrum's colours do not exist inthe costume of the girl-behind-the-counter. For her there are only blackand white. These things she learned and many more, and remembered them, for behind the rosy cheeks and the terrier-bright eyes burned theindomitable desire to get on. And the finished embodiment of all of RayWillets' desires and ambitions was daily before her eyes in the presenceof Miss Jevne, head of the lingerie and negligées. 

Of Miss Jevne it might be said that she was real where Ray wasartificial, and artificial where Ray was real. Everything that MissJevne wore was real. She was as modish as Ray was shabby, as slim as Raywas stocky, as artificially tinted and tinctured as Ray was naturallyrosy-cheeked and buxom. It takes real money to buy clothes as real asthose worn by Miss Jevne. The soft charmeuse in her graceful gown wasreal and miraculously draped. The cobweb-lace collar that so delicatelytraced its pattern against the black background of her gown was real. Sowas the ripple of lace that cascaded down the front of her blouse. Thestraight, correct, hideously modern lines of her figure bespoke a realeighteen-dollar corset. Realest of all, there reposed on Miss Jevne'sbosom a bar pin of platinum and diamonds--very real diamonds set in aseverely plain but very real bar of precious platinum. So if you exceptMiss Jevne's changeless colour, her artificial smile, her glitteringhair and her undulating head-of-the-department walk, you can see thateverything about Miss Jevne was as real as money can make one. 

Miss Jevne, when she deigned to notice Ray Willets at all, called her"girl, " thus: "Girl, get down one of those Number Seventeens forme--with the pink ribbons. " Ray did not resent the tone. She thoughtabout Miss Jevne as she worked. She thought about her at night when shewas washing and ironing her other shirtwaist for next day's wear. In theHalsted Street Bazaar the girls had been on terms of dreadful intimacywith those affairs in each other's lives which popularly are supposed tobe private knowledge. They knew the sum which each earned per week; howmuch they turned in to help swell the family coffers and how much theywere allowed to keep for their own use. They knew each time a girl spenta quarter for a cheap sailor collar or a pair of near-silk stockings. Ray Willets, who wanted passionately to be different, whose hands soloved the touch of the lacy, silky garments that made up the lingerieand negligee departments, recognised the perfection of Miss Jevne'sfaultless realness--recognised it, appreciated it, envied it. It worriedher too. How did she do it? How did one go about attaining the samedegree of realness?

Meanwhile she worked. She learned quickly. She took care always to becheerful, interested, polite. After a short week's handling of lacysilken garments she ceased to feel a shock when she saw Miss Jevnedisplaying a _robe-de-nuit_ made up of white cloud and sea-foam andlanguidly assuring the customer that of course it wasn't to be expectedthat you could get a fine handmade lace at that price--onlytwenty-seven-fifty. Now if she cared to look at something reallyfine--made entirely by hand--why--

The end of the first ten days found so much knowledge crammed into RayWillets' clever, ambitious little head that the pink of her cheeks haddeepened to carmine, as a child grows flushed and too bright-eyed whenoverstimulated and overtired. 

Miss Myrtle, the store beauty, strolled up to Ray, who was straighteninga pile of corset covers and _brassieres_. Miss Myrtle was the store'sstar cloak-and-suit model. Tall, svelte, graceful, lovely in line andcontour, she was remarkably like one of those exquisite imbeciles thatRossetti used to love to paint. Hers were the great cowlike eyes, thewonderful oval face, the marvellous little nose, the perfect lips andchin. Miss Myrtle could don a forty-dollar gown, parade it before apossible purchaser, and make it look like an imported model at onehundred and twenty-five. When Miss Myrtle opened those exquisite lipsand spoke you got a shock that hurt. She laid one cool slim finger onRay's ruddy cheek. 

"Sure enough!" she drawled nasally. "Whereja get it anyway, kid? Youmust of been brought up on peaches 'n' cream and slept in a pink cloudsomewheres. "

"Me!" laughed Ray, her deft fingers busy straightening a bow here, aruffle of lace there. "Me! The L-train runs so near my bed that if itwas ever to get a notion to take a short cut it would slice off my legsto the knees. "

"Live at home?" Miss Myrtle's grasshopper mind never dwelt long on onesubject. 

"Well, sure, " replied Ray. "Did you think I had a flat up on the Drive?"

"I live at home too, " Miss Myrtle announced impressively. She wasleaning indolently against the table. Her eyes followed the deft, quickmovements of Ray's slender, capable hands. Miss Myrtle always leanedwhen there was anything to lean on. Involuntarily she fell into meltingposes. One shoulder always drooped slightly, one toe always trailed abit like the picture on the cover of the fashion magazines, one hand andarm always followed the line of her draperies while the other was raisedto hip or breast or head. 

Ray's busy hands paused a moment. She looked up at the picturesqueMyrtle. "All the girls do, don't they?"

"Huh?" said Myrtle blankly. 

"Live at home, I mean? The application blank says--"

"Say, you've got clever hands, ain't you?" put in Miss Myrtleirrelevantly. She looked ruefully at her own short, stubby, unintelligent hands, that so perfectly reflected her character in thatmarvellous way hands have. "Mine are stupid-looking. I'll bet you'll geton. " She sagged to the other hip with a weary gracefulness. "I ain'tgot no brains, " she complained. 

"Where do they live then?" persisted Ray. 

"Who? Oh, I live at home"--again virtuously--"but I've got some heart ifI am dumb. My folks couldn't get along without what I bring home everyweek. A lot of the girls have flats. But that don't last. Now Jevne--"

"Yes?" said Ray eagerly. Her plump face with its intelligent eyes wasall aglow. 

Miss Myrtle lowered her voice discreetly. "Her own folks don't knowwhere she lives. They says she sends 'em money every month, but with theunderstanding that they don't try to come to see her. They live way overon the West Side somewhere. She makes her buying trip to Europe everyyear. Speaks French and everything. They say when she started to earnreal money she just cut loose from her folks. They was a drag on her andshe wanted to get to the top. "

"Say, that pin's real, ain't it?"

"Real? Well, I should say it is! Catch Jevne wearing anything that'sphony. I saw her at the theatre one night. Dressed! Well, you'd havethought that birds of paradise were national pests, like Englishsparrows. Not that she looked loud. But that quiet, rich elegance, youknow, that just smells of money. Say, but I'll bet she has her lonesomeevenings!"

Ray Willets' eyes darted across the long room and rested upon theshining black-clad figure of Miss Jevne moving about against theluxurious ivory-and-rose background of the French Room. 

"She--she left her folks, h'm?" she mused aloud. 

Miss Myrtle, the brainless, regarded the tips of her shabby boots. 

"What did it get her?" she asked as though to herself. "I know what itdoes to a girl, seeing and handling stuff that's made for millionaires, you get a taste for it yourself. Take it from me, it ain't thesix-dollar girl that needs looking after. She's taking her little payenvelope home to her mother that's a widow and it goes to buy milk forthe kids. Sometimes I think the more you get the more you want. Somebody ought to turn that vice inquiry on to the tracks of thatthirty-dollar-a-week girl in the Irish crochet waist and the diamond barpin. She'd make swell readin'. "

There fell a little silence between the two--a silence of which neitherwas conscious. Both were thinking, Myrtle disjointedly, purposelessly, all unconscious that her slow, untrained mind had groped for a great andvital truth and found it; Ray quickly, eagerly, connectedly, a new anddaring resolve growing with lightning rapidity. 

"There's another new baby at our house, " she said aloud suddenly. "Itcries all night pretty near. "

"Ain't they fierce?" laughed Myrtle. "And yet I dunno--"

She fell silent again. Then with the half-sign with which we waken fromday dreams she moved away in response to the beckoning finger of asaleswoman in the evening-coat section. Ten minutes later her exquisiteface rose above the soft folds of a black charmeuse coat that rippledaway from her slender, supple body in lines that a sculptor dreams ofand never achieves. 

Ray Willets finished straightening her counter. Trade was slow. Shemoved idly in the direction of the black-garbed figure that flittedabout in the costly atmosphere of the French section. It must be a veryspecial customer to claim Miss Jevne's expert services. Ray glanced inthrough the half-opened glass and ivory-enamel doors. 

"Here, girl, " called Miss Jevne. Ray paused and entered. Miss Jevne wasfrowning. "Miss Myrtle's busy. Just slip this on. Careful now. Keep yourarms close to your head. "

She slipped a marvellously wrought garment over Ray's sleek head. Fluffydrifts of equally exquisite lingerie lay scattered about on chairs, overmirrors, across showtables. On one of the fragile little ivory-and-rosechairs, in the centre of the costly little room, sat a large, blonde, perfumed woman who clanked and rustled and swished as she moved. Hereyes were white-lidded and heavy, but strangely bright. One unglovedhand was very white too, but pudgy and covered so thickly with gems thatyour eye could get no clear picture of any single stone or setting. 

Ray, clad in the diaphanous folds of the _robe-de-nuit_ that was sobeautifully adorned with delicate embroideries wrought by the patient, needle-scarred fingers of some silent, white-faced nun in a far-awayconvent, paced slowly up and down the short length of the room that thecritical eye of this coarse, unlettered creature might behold thewonders woven by this weary French nun, and, beholding, approve. 

"It ain't bad, " spake the blonde woman grudgingly. "How much did yousay?"

"Ninety-five, " Miss Jevne made answer smoothly. "I selected it myselfwhen I was in France my last trip. A bargain. "

She slid the robe carefully over Ray's head. The frown came once more toher brow. She bent close to Ray's ear. "Your waist's ripped under theleft arm. Disgraceful!"

The blonde woman moved and jangled a bit in her chair. "Well, I'll takeit, " she sighed. "Look at the colour on that girl! And it's real too. "She rose heavily and came over to Ray, reached up and pinched her cheekappraisingly with perfumed white thumb and forefinger. 

"That'll do, girl, " said Miss Jevne sweetly. "Take this along and changethese ribbons from blue to pink. "

Ray Willets bore the fairy garment away with her. She bore it tenderly, almost reverently. It was more than a garment. It represented in hermind a new standard of all that was beautiful and exquisite anddesirable. 

Ten days before the formal opening of the new twelve-story additionthere was issued from the superintendent's office an order that made alittle flurry among the clerks in the sections devoted to women's dress. The new store when thrown open would mark an epoch in the retaildrygoods business of the city, the order began. Thousands were to bespent on perishable decorations alone. The highest type of patronage wasto be catered to. Therefore the women in the lingerie, negligée, millinery, dress, suit and corset sections were requested to wear duringopening week a modest but modish black one-piece gown that would blendwith the air of elegance which those departments were to maintain. 

Ray Willets of the lingerie and negligée sections read her order slipslowly. Then she reread it. Then she did a mental sum in simplearithmetic. A childish sum it was. And yet before she got her answer thesolving of it had stamped on her face a certain hard, set, resolutelook. 

The store management had chosen Wednesday to be the opening day. Byeight-thirty o'clock Wednesday morning the French lingerie, millineryand dress sections, with their women clerks garbed in modest but modishblack one-piece gowns, looked like a levee at Buckingham when the courtis in mourning. But the ladies-in-waiting, grouped about here andthere, fell back in respectful silence when there paced down the aislethe queen royal in the person of Miss Jevne. There is a certain sort ofblack gown that is more startling and daring than scarlet. Miss Jevne'swas that style. Fast black you might term it. Miss Jevne was aware ofthe flurry and flutter that followed her majestic progress down theaisle to her own section. She knew that each eye was caught in the tipof the little dog-eared train that slipped and slunk and wriggled alongthe ground, thence up to the soft drapery caught so cunningly just belowthe knee, up higher to the marvelously simple sash that swayed with eachstep, to the soft folds of black against which rested the very realdiamond and platinum bar pin, up to the lace at her throat, and thenstopping, blinking and staring again gazed fixedly at the string ofpearls that lay about her throat, pearls rosily pink, mistily grey. Anaura of self-satisfaction enveloping her, Miss Jevne disappeared behindthe rose-garlanded portals of the new cream-and-mauve French section. And there the aura vanished, quivering. For standing before one of theplate-glass cases and patting into place with deft fingers the satin bowof a hand-wrought chemise was Ray Willets, in her shiny little blackserge skirt and the braver of her two white shirtwaists. 

Miss Jevne quickened her pace. Ray turned. Her bright brown eyes grewbrighter at sight of Miss Jevne's wondrous black. Miss Jevne, her trainwound round her feet like an actress' photograph, lifted her eyebrowsto an unbelievable height. 

"Explain that costume!" she said. 

"Costume?" repeated Ray, fencing. 

Miss Jevne's thin lips grew thinner. "You understood that women in thisdepartment were to wear black one-piece gowns this week!"

Ray smiled a little twisted smile. "Yes, I understood. "

"Then what--"

Ray's little smile grew a trifle more uncertain. "--I had themoney--last week--I was going to--The baby took sick--the heat I guess, coming so sudden. We had the doctor--and medicine--I--Say, your ownfolks come before black one-piece dresses!"

Miss Jevne's cold eyes saw the careful patch under Ray's left arm wherea few days before the torn place had won her a reproof. It was the laststraw. 

"You can't stay in this department in that rig!"

"Who says so?" snapped Ray with a flash of Halsted Street bravado. "Ifmy customers want a peek at Paquin I'll send 'em to you. "

"I'll show you who says so!" retorted Miss Jevne, quite losing sight ofthe queen business. The stately form of the floor manager was visibleamong the glass showcases beyond. Miss Jevne sought him agitatedly. Allthe little sagging lines about her mouth showed up sharply, defyingyears of careful massage. 

The floor manager bent his stately head and listened. Then, led by MissJevne, he approached Ray Willets, whose deft fingers, trembling a verylittle now, were still pretending to adjust the perfect pink-satin bow. 

The manager touched her on the arm not unkindly. "Report for work in thekitchen utensils, fifth floor, " he said. Then at sight of the girl'sface: "We can't have one disobeying orders, you know. The rest of theclerks would raise a row in no time. "

Down in the kitchen utensils and household goods there was no ruledemanding modest but modish one-piece gowns. In the kitchenware onecould don black sateen sleevelets to protect one's clean white waistwithout breaking the department's tenets of fashion. You could even pina handkerchief across the front of your waist, if your job was that ofdusting the granite ware. 

At first Ray's delicate fingers, accustomed to the touch of soft, sheerwhite stuff and ribbon and lace and silk, shrank from contact with meatgrinders, and aluminum stewpans, and egg beaters, and waffle irons, andpie tins. She handled them contemptuously. She sold them listlessly. After weeks of expatiating to customers on the beauties and excellenciesof gossamer lingerie she found it difficult to work up enthusiasm overthe virtues of dishpans and spice boxes. By noon she was less resentful. By two o'clock she was saying to a fellow clerk:

"Well, anyway, in this section you don't have to tell a woman howgraceful and charming she's going to look while she's working thewashing machine. "

She was a born saleswoman. In spite of herself she became interestedin the buying problems of the practical and plain-visaged housewiveswho patronised this section. By three o'clock she was lookingthoughtful--thoughtful and contented. 

Then came the summons. The lingerie section was swamped! Report to MissJevne at once! Almost regretfully Ray gave her customer over to an idleclerk and sought out Miss Jevne. Some of that lady's statuesqueness wasgone. The bar pin on her bosom rose and fell rapidly. She espied Ray andmet her halfway. In her hand she carried a soft black something whichshe thrust at Ray. 

"Here, put that on in one of the fitting rooms. Be quick about it. It'syour size. The department's swamped. Hurry now!"

Ray took from Miss Jevne the black silk gown, modest but modish. Therewas no joy in Ray's face. Ten minutes later she emerged in the limp andclinging little frock that toned down her colour and made her plumpnessseem but rounded charm. 

The big store will talk for many a day of that afternoon and the threeafternoons that followed, until Sunday brought pause to the thousands offeet beating a ceaseless tattoo up and down the thronged aisles. On theMonday following thousands swarmed down upon the store again, but not insuch overwhelming numbers. There were breathing spaces. It was duringone of these that Miss Myrtle, the beauty, found time for a briefmoment's chat with Ray Willets. 

Ray was straightening her counter again. She had a passion for order. Myrtle eyed her wearily. Her slender shoulders had carried an endlessnumber and variety of garments during those four days and her feet hadpaced weary miles that those garments might the better be displayed. 

"Black's grand on you, " observed Myrtle. "Tones you down. " She glancedsharply at the gown. "Looks just like one of our eighteen-dollar models. Copy it?"

"No, " said Ray, still straightening petticoats and corset covers. Myrtlereached out a weary, graceful arm and touched one of the lacy pilesadorned with cunning bows of pink and blue to catch the shopping eye. 

"Ain't that sweet!" she exclaimed. "I'm crazy about that shadow lace. It's swell under voiles. I wonder if I could take one of them home tocopy it. "

Ray glanced up. "Oh, that!" she said contemptuously. "That's just acheap skirt. Only twelve-fifty. Machine-made lace. Imitationembroidery--"

She stopped. She stared a moment at Myrtle with the fixed and wide-eyedgaze of one who does not see. 

"What'd I just say to you?"

"Huh?" ejaculated Myrtle, mystified. 

"What'd I just say?" repeated Ray. 

Myrtle laughed, half understanding. "You said that was a cheap junkskirt at only twelve-fifty, with machine lace and imitation--"

But Ray Willets did not wait to hear the rest. She was off down theaisle toward the elevator marked "Employées. " The superintendent'soffice was on the ninth floor. She stopped there. The greysuperintendent was writing at his desk. He did not look up as Rayentered, thus observing rules one and two in the proper conduct ofsuperintendents when interviewing employees. Ray Willets, standing byhis desk, did not cough or wriggle or rustle her skirts or sag on onehip. A consciousness of her quiet penetrated the superintendent's mind. He glanced up hurriedly over his left shoulder. Then he laid down hispencil and sat up slowly. 

"Oh, it's you!" he said. 

"Yes, it's me, " replied Ray Willets simply. "I've been here a monthto-day. "

"Oh, yes. " He ran his fingers through his hair so that the brownforelock stood away from the grey. "You've lost some of your roses, " hesaid, and tapped his cheek. "What's the trouble?"

"I guess it's the dress, " explained Ray, and glanced down at the foldsof her gown. She hesitated a moment awkwardly. "You said you'd send forme at the end of the month. You didn't. "

"That's all right, " said the grey superintendent. "I was pretty sure Ihadn't made a mistake. I can gauge applicants pretty fairly. Let'ssee--you're in the lingerie, aren't you?"

"Yes. "

Then with a rush: "That's what I want to talk to you about. I've changedmy mind. I don't want to stay in the lingeries. I'd like to betransferred to the kitchen utensils and household goods. "

"Transferred! Well, I'll see what I can do. What was the name now? Iforget. "

A queer look stole into Ray Willets' face, a look of determination andshrewdness. 

"Name?" she said. "My name is Rachel Wiletzky. "

VIII

THE HOOKER-UP-THE-BACK

Miss Sadie Corn was not a charmer, but when you handed your room-key toher you found yourself stopping to chat a moment. If you were the rightkind you showed her your wife's picture in the front of your watch. Ifyou were the wrong kind, with your scant hair carefully combed to hidethe bald spot, you showed her the newspaper clipping that you carried inyour vest pocket. Following inspection of the first, Sadie Corn wouldsay: "Now that's what I call a sweet face! How old is the youngest?"Upon perusal the second was returned with dignity and: "Is that supposedto be funny?" In each case Sadie Corn had you placed for life. 

She possessed the invaluable gift of the floor clerk, did SadieCorn--that of remembering names and faces. Though you had registered atthe Hotel Magnifique but the night before, for the first time, SadieCorn would look up at you over her glasses as she laid your key in itsproper row, and say: "Good morning, Mr. Schultz! Sleep well?"

"Me!" you would stammer, surprised and gratified. "Me! Fine!H'm--Thanks!" Whereupon you would cross your right foot over your leftnonchalantly and enjoy that brief moment's chat with Floor Clerk NumberTwo. You went back to Ishpeming, Michigan, with three new impressions:The first was that you were becoming a personage of considerableimportance. The second was that the Magnifique realised this great truthand was grateful for your patronage. The third was that New York was afriendly little hole after all!

Miss Sadie Corn was dean of the Hotel Magnifique's floor clerks. Theprimary requisite in successful floor clerkship is homeliness. Thesecond is discreet age. The third is tact. And for the benefit of thosewho think the duties of a floor clerk end when she takes your key whenyou leave your room, and hands it back as you return, it may bementioned that the fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh requisites arediplomacy, ingenuity, unlimited patience and a comprehensive knowledgeof human nature. Ambassadors have been known to keep their jobs on lessthan that. 

She had come to the Magnifique at thirty-three, a plain, spare, sallowwoman, with a quiet, capable manner, a pungent trick of the tongue onoccasion, a sparse fluff of pale-coloured hair, and big, bony-knuckledhands, such as you see on women who have the gift of humanness. She wasforty-eight now--still plain, still spare, still sallow. Those bony, big-knuckled fingers had handed keys to potentates, and pork-packers, and millinery buyers from Seattle; and to princes incognito, and paupersmuch the same--the difference being that the princes dressed down tothe part, while the paupers dressed up to it. 

Time, experience, understanding and the daily dealing with ever-changinghumanity had brought certain lines into Sadie Corn's face. So skilfullywere they placed that the unobservant put them down as wrinkles on thecountenance of a homely, middle-aged woman; but he who read as he ransaw that the lines about the eyes were quizzical, shrewd lines, whichcome from the practice of gauging character at a glance; that themouth-markings meant tolerance and sympathy and humour; that theforehead furrows had been carved there by those master chisellers, suffering and sacrifice. 

In the last three or four years Sadie Corn had taken to wearing a littlelavender-and-white crocheted shawl about her shoulders on cool days, andwhen Two-fifty-seven, who was a regular, caught his annual heavy coldlate in the fall, Sadie would ask him sharply whether he had on hiswinter flannels. On his replying in the negative she would rebuke himscathingly and demand a bill of sizable denomination; and when her watchwas over she would sally forth to purchase four sets of men's winterunderwear. As captain of the Magnifique's thirty-four floor clerks SadieCorn's authority extended from the parlours to the roof, but herespecial domain was floor two. Ensconced behind her little desk in acorner, blocked in by mailracks, pantry signals, pneumatic-tube chutesand telephone, with a clear view of the elevators and stairway, SadieCorn was mistress of the moods, manners and morals of the Magnifique'ssecond floor. 

It was six thirty p. M. On Monday of Automobile Show Week when Sadie Corncame on watch. She came on with a lively, well-developed case ofneuralgia over her right eye and extending down into her back teeth. With its usual spitefulness the attack had chosen to make its appearanceduring her long watch. It never selected her short-watch days, when shewas on duty only from eleven a. M. Until six-thirty p. M. 

Now with a peppermint bottle held close to alternately sniffing nostrilsSadie Corn was running her eye over the complex report sheet of thefloor clerk who had just gone off watch. The report was even moredetailed and lengthy than usual. Automobile Show Week meant that thealways prosperous Magnifique was filled to the eaves and turning themaway. It meant twice the usual number of inside telephone calls anentrooms too hot, rooms too cold, radiators hammering, radiators hissing, windows that refused to open, windows that refused to shut, packagesundelivered, hot water not forthcoming. As the human buffers betweenguests and hotel management, it was the duty of Sadie Corn and herdiplomatic squad to pacify the peevish, to smooth the path of thepaying. 

Down the hall strolled Donahue, the house detective--Donahue theleisurely. Donahue the keen-eyed, Donahue the guileless--looking in hisevening clothes for all the world like a prosperous diner-out. He smiledbenignly upon Sadie Corn, and Sadie Corn had the bravery to smile backin spite of her neuralgia, knowing well that men have no sympathy withthat anguishing ailment and no understanding of it. 

"Everything serene, Miss Corn?" inquired Donahue. 

"Everything's serene, " said Sadie Corn. "Though Two-thirty-threetelephoned a minute ago to say that if the valet didn't bring his pantsfrom the presser in the next two seconds he'd come down the hall as heis and get 'em. Perhaps you'd better stay round. "

Donahue chuckled and passed on. Half way down the hall he retraced hissteps, and stopped again before Sadie Corn's busy desk. He balanced amoment thoughtfully from toe to heel, his chin lifted inquiringly: "Keepyour eye on Two-eighteen and Two-twenty-three this morning?"

"Like a lynx!" answered Sadie. 

"Anything?"

"Not a thing. I guess they just scraped acquaintance in the Alley afterdinner, like they sometimes do. A man with eyelashes like his alwaysspeaks to any woman alone who isn't pockmarked and toothless. Twominutes after he's met a girl his voice takes on the 'cello note. I knowhis kind. Why, say, he even tried waving those eyelashes of his at mefirst time he turned in his key; and goodness knows I'm so homely thatpretty soon I'll be ripe for bachelor floor thirteen. You know as wellas I that to qualify for that job a floor clerk's got to look like agargoyle. "

"Maybe they're all right, " said Donahue thoughtfully. "If it's just aflirtation, why--anyway, watch 'em this evening. The day watch listenedin and says they've made some date for to-night. "

He was off down the hall again with his light, quick step that still hadthe appearance of leisureliness. 

The telephone at Sadie's right buzzed warningly. Sadie picked up thereceiver and plunged into the busiest half hour of the evening. Fromthat moment until seven o'clock her nimble fingers and eyes and brainand tongue directed the steps of her little world. She held thetelephone receiver at one ear and listened to the demands of incomingand outgoing guests with the other. She jotted down reports, dealt outmail and room-keys, kept her neuralgic eye on stairs and elevators andhalls, her sound orb on tube and pantry signals, while through andbetween and above all she guided the stream of humanity that trickledpast her desk--bellhops, Polish chambermaids, messenger boys, guests, waiters, parlour maids. 

Just before seven there disembarked at floor two out of thecream-and-gold elevator one of those visions that have helped to makeFifth Avenue a street of the worst-dressed women in the world. Thevision was Two-eighteen, and her clothes were of the kind that preparedyou for the shock that you got when you looked at her face. Plume metfur, and fur met silk, and silk met lace, and lace met gold--and thewhole met and ran into a riot of colour, and perfume--and littlejangling, swishing sounds. Just by glancing at Two-eighteen's feet intheir inadequate openwork silk and soft kid you knew that Two-eighteen'slips would be carmined. 

She came down the corridor and stopped at Sadie Corn's desk. Sadie Cornhad her key ready for her. Two-eighteen took it daintily betweenwhite-gloved fingers. 

"I'll want a maid in fifteen minutes, " she said. "Tell them to send methe one I had yesterday. The pretty one. She isn't so clumsy as some. "

Sadie Corn jotted down a note without looking up. 

"Oh, Julia? Sorry--Julia's busy, " she lied. 

Two-eighteen knew she lied, because at that moment there came round thebend in the broad, marble stairway that led up from the parlour floorthe trim, slim figure of Julia herself. 

Two-eighteen took a quick step forward. "Here, girl! I'll want you tohook me in fifteen minutes, " she said. 

"Very well, ma'am, " replied Julia softly. 

There passed between Sadie Corn and Two-eighteen a--well, you couldhardly call it a look, it was so fleeting, so ephemeral; that electric, pregnant, meaning something that flashes between two women who dislikeand understand each other. Then Two-eighteen was off down the hall toher room. 

Julia stood at the head of the stairway just next to Sadie's deskand watched Two-eighteen until the bend in the corridor hid her. Julia, of the lady's-maid staff, could never have qualified for theposition of floor clerk, even if she had chosen to bury herself inlavender-and-white crocheted shawls to the tip of her marvellous littleGreek nose. In her frilly white cap, her trim black gown, her immaculatecollar and cuffs and apron, Julia looked distractingly like the youngperson who, in the old days of the furniture-dusting drama, was wont toinform you that it was two years since young master went away--all buther feet. The feather-duster person was addicted to French-heeled, beaded slippers. Not so Julia. Julia was on her feet for ten hours or soa day. When you subject your feet to ten-hour tortures you are apt topass by French-heeled effects in favour of something flat-heeled, laced, with an easy, comfortable crack here and there at the sides, andstockings with white cotton soles. 

Julia, at the head of the stairway, stood looking after Two-eighteenuntil the tail of her silken draperies had whisked round the corner. Then, still staring, Julia spoke resentfully:

"Life for her is just one darned pair of long white kid gloves afteranother! Look at her! Why is it that kind of a face is always wearingthe sables and diamonds?"

"Sables and diamonds, " replied Sadie Corn, sniffing essence ofpeppermint, "seem a small enough reward for having to carry round a muglike that!"

Julia came round to the front of Sadie Corn's desk. Her eyes werebrooding, her lips sullen. 

"Oh, I don't know!" she said bitterly. "Being pretty don't get youanything--just being pretty! When I first came I used to wonder at thosewomen that paint their faces and colour their hair, and wear skirts thatare too tight and waists that are too low. But--I don't know! Thistown's so big and so--so kind of uninterested. When you see everybodywearing clothes that are more gorgeous than yours, and diamonds bigger, and limousines longer and blacker and quieter, it gives you a kind offever. You--you want to make people look at you too. "

Sadie Corn leaned back in her chair. The peppermint bottle was held ather nose. It may have been that which caused her eyes to narrow to mereslits as she gazed at the drooping Julia. She said nothing. SuddenlyJulia seemed to feel the silence. She looked down at Sadie Corn. As by amiracle all the harsh, sullen lines in the girl's face vanished, to bereplaced by a lovely compassion. 

"Your neuralgy again, dearie?" she asked in pretty concern. 

Sadie sniffed long and audibly at the peppermint bottle. 

"If you ask me I think there's some imp inside of my head trying to pushmy right eye out with his thumb. Anyway it feels like that. "

"Poor old dear!" breathed Julia. "It's the weather. Have them send youup a pot of black tea. "

"When you've got neuralgy over your right eye, " observed Sadie Corngrimly, "there's just one thing helps--that is to crawl into bed in aflannel nightgown, with the side of your face resting on the red rubberbosom of a hot-water bottle. And I can't do it; so let's talk aboutsomething cheerful. Seen Jo to-day?"

There crept into Julia's face a wave of colour--not the pink ofpleasure, but the dull red of pain. She looked away from Sadie's eyesand down at her shabby boots. The sullen look was in her face once more. 

"No; I ain't seen him, " she said. 

"What's the trouble?" Sadie asked. 

"I've been busy, " replied Julia airily. Then, with a forced vivacity:"Though it's nothing to Auto Show Week last year. I remember that week Ihooked up until my fingers were stiff. You know the way the dressesfastened last winter. Some of 'em ought to have had a map to go by, theywere that complicated. And now, just when I've got so's I can hook anydress that was ever intended for the human form--"

"Wasn't it Jo who said they ought to give away an engineering blueprintwith every dress, when you told him about the way they hooked?" put inSadie. "What's the trouble between you and--"

Julia rattled on, unheeding:

"You wouldn't believe what a difference there's been since these newpeasant styles have come in! And the Oriental craze! Hook down the side, most of 'em--and they can do 'em themselves if they ain't too fat. "

"Remember Jo saying they ought to have a hydraulic press for some ofthose skintight dames, when your fingers were sore from trying tosqueeze them into their casings? By the way, what's the trouble betweenyou and--"

"Makes an awful difference in my tips!" cut in Julia deftly. "I don'tbelieve I've hooked up six this evening, and two of them sprung thehaven't-anything-but-a-five-dollar-bill-see-you-to-morrow! Women aredevils! I wish--"

Sadie Corn leaned forward, placed her hand on Julia's arm, and turnedthe girl about so that she faced her. Julia tried miserably to escapeher keen eyes and failed. 

"What's the trouble between you and Jo?" she demanded for the fourthtime. "Out with it or I'll telephone down to the engine room and ask himmyself. "

"Oh, well, if you want to know--" She paused, her eyelids droopingagain; then, with a rush: "Me and Jo have quarrelled again--for good, this time. I'm through!"

"What about?"

"I s'pose you'll say I'm to blame. Jo's mother's sick again. She's gotto go to the hospital and have another operation. You know what thatmeans--putting off the wedding again until God knows when! I'm sick ofit--putting off and putting off! I told him we might as well quit and bedone with it. We'll never get married at this rate. Soon's Jo getsenough put by to start us on, something happens. Last three times it'sbeen his ma. Pretty soon I'll be as old and wrinkled and homely as--"

"As me!" put in Sadie calmly. "Well, I don't know's that's the worstthing that can happen to you. I'm happy. I had my plans, too, when I wasa girl like you--not that I was ever pretty; but I had my trials. Funnyhow the thing that's easy and the thing that's right never seem to bethe same!"

"Oh, I'm fond of Jo's ma, " said Julia, a little shamefacedly. "We getalong all right. She knows how it is, I guess; and feels--well, in theway. But when Jo told me, I was tired I guess. We had words. I told himthere were plenty waiting for me if he was through. I told him I couldhave gone out with a real swell only last Saturday if I'd wanted to. What's a girl got her looks for if not to have a good time?"

"Who's this you were invited out by?" asked Sadie Corn. 

"You must have noticed him, " said Julia, dimpling. "He's as handsome asan actor. Name's Venner. He's in two-twenty-three. "

There came the look of steel into Sadie Corn's eyes. 

"Look here, Julia! You've been here long enough to know that you're notto listen to the talk of the men guests round here. Two-twenty-threeisn't your kind--and you know it! If I catch you talking to him againI'll--"

The telephone at her elbow sounded sharply. She answered it absently, her eyes, with their expression of pain and remonstrance, stillunshrinking before the onslaught of Julia's glare. Then her expressionchanged. A look of consternation came into her face. 

"Right away, madam!" she said, at the telephone. "Right away! You won'thave to wait another minute. " She hung up the receiver and waved Juliaaway with a gesture. "It's Two-eighteen. You promised to be there infifteen minutes. She's been waiting and her voice sounds like a saw. Better be careful how you handle her. "

Julia's head, with its sleek, satiny coils of black hair that waved awayso bewitchingly from the cream of her skin, came up with a jerk. 

"I'm tired of being careful of other people's feelings. Let somebody becareful of mine for a change. " She walked off down the hall, the littlehead still held high. A half dozen paces and she turned. "What was ityou said you'd do to me if you caught me talking to him again?" shesneered. 

A miserable twinge of pain shot through Sadie Corn's eye, to be followedby a wave of nausea that swept over her. They alone were responsible forher answer. 

"I'll report you!" she snapped, and was sorry at once. 

Julia turned again, walked down the corridor and round the corner in thedirection of two-eighteen. 

Long after Julia had disappeared Sadie Corn stared afterher--miserable, regretful. 

Julia knocked once at the door of two-eighteen and turned the knobbefore a high, shrill voice cried:

"Come!"

Two-eighteen was standing in the centre of the floor in scant satinknickerbockers and tight brassière. The blazing folds of a cerise satingown held in her hands made a great, crude patch of colour in theneutral-tinted bedroom. The air was heavy with scent. Hair, teeth, eyes, fingernails--Two-eighteen glowed and glistened. Chairs and bed held oddsand ends. 

"Where've you been, girl?" shrilled Two-eighteen. "I've been waitinglike a fool! I told you to be here in fifteen minutes. "

"My stop-watch isn't working right, " replied Julia impudently and tookthe cerise satin gown in her two hands. 

She made a ring of the gown's opening, and through that cerise frame hereyes met those of Two-eighteen. 

"Careful of my hair!" Two-eighteen warned her, and ducked her head tothe practised movement of Julia's arms. The cerise gown dropped to hershoulders without grazing a hair. Two-eighteen breathed a sigh ofrelief. She turned to face the mirror. 

"It starts at the left, three hooks; then to the centre; then backfour--under the arm and down the middle again. That chiffon comes overlike a drape. "

She picked up a buffer from the litter of ivory and silver on thedresser and began to polish her already glittering nails, turning herhead this way and that, preening her neck, biting her scarlet lips todeepen their crimson, opening her eyes wide and half closing themlanguorously. Julia, down on her knees in combat with the trickiest ofthe hooks, glanced up and saw. Two-eighteen caught the glance in themirror. She stopped her idle polishing and preening to study the glowingand lovely little face that looked up at her. A certain queer expressiongrew in her eyes--a speculative, eager look. 

"Tell me, little girl, " she said, "What do you do round here?"

Julia turned from the mirror to the last of the hooks, her fingersworking nimbly. 

"Me? My regular job is working. Don't jerk, please. I've fastened thisone three times. "

"Working!" laughed Two-eighteen, fingering the diamonds at her throat. "What does a pretty girl like you want to do that for?"

"Hook off here, " said Julia. "Shall I sew it?"

"Pin it!" snapped Two-eighteen. 

Julia's tidy nature revolted. 

"It'll take just a minute to catch it with thread--"

Two-eighteen whirled about in one of the sudden hot rages of her kind:

"Pin it, you fool! Pin it! I told you I was late!"

Julia paused a moment, the red surging into her face. Then in silenceshe knelt and wove a pin deftly in and out. When she rose from herknees her face was quite white. 

"There, that's the girl!" said Two-eighteen blithely, her rageforgotten. "Just pat this over my shoulders. "

She handed a powder-puff to Julia and turned her back to the broadmirror, holding a hand-glass high as she watched the powder-laden puffleaving a snowy coat on the neck and shoulders and back so generouslydisplayed in the cherry-coloured gown. Julia's face was set and hard. 

"Oh, now, don't sulk!" coaxed Two-eighteen good-naturedly, all of asudden. "I hate sulky girls. I like people to be cheerful round me. "

"I'm not used to being yelled at, " Julia said resentfully. 

Two-eighteen patted her cheek lightly. "You come out with me to-morrowand I'll buy you something pretty. Don't you like pretty clothes?"

"Yes; but--"

"Of course you do. Every girl does--especially pretty ones like you. Howdo you like this dress? Don't you think it smart?"

She turned squarely to face Julia, trying on her the tricks she hadpractised in the mirror. A little cruel look came into Julia's face. 

"Last year's, isn't it?" she asked coolly. 

"This!" cried Two-eighteen, stiffening. "Last year's! I got it yesterdayon Fifth Avenue, and paid two hundred and fifty for it. What do you--"

"Oh, I believe you, " drawled Julia. "They can tell a New Yorker from anout-of-towner every time. You know the really new thing is the Bulgarianeffect!"

"Well, of all the nerve!" began Two-eighteen, turning to the mirror in asort of fright. "Of all the--"

What she saw there seemed to reassure. She raised one hand to push thegown a little more off the left shoulder. 

"Will there be anything else?" inquired Julia, standing aloof. 

Two-eighteen turned reluctantly from the mirror and picked up a jewelledgold-mesh bag that lay on the bed. From it she extracted a coin and heldit out to Julia. It was a generous coin. Julia looked at it. Hersmouldering wrath burst into flame. 

"Keep it!" she said savagely, and was out of the room and down the hall. 

Sadie Corn, at her desk, looked up quickly as Julia turned the corner. Julia, her head held high, kept her eyes resolutely away from Sadie. 

"Oh, Julia, I want to talk to you!" said Sadie Corn as Julia reached thestairway. Julia began to descend the stairs, unheeding. Sadie Corn roseand leaned over the railing, her face puckered with anxiety. "Now, Julia, girl, don't hold that up against me! I didn't mean it. You knowthat. You wouldn't be mad at a poor old woman that's half crazy withneuralgy!" Julia hesitated, one foot poised to take the next step. "Comeon up, " coaxed Sadie Corn, "and tell me what Two-eighteen's wearingthis evening. I'm that lonesome, with nothing to do but sit here andwatch the letter-ghosts go flippering down the mailchute! Come on!"

"What made you say you'd report me?" demanded Julia bitterly. 

"I'd have said the same thing to my own daughter if I had one. You knowyourself I'd bite my tongue out first!"

"Well!" said Julia slowly, and relented. She came up the stairs almostshyly. "Neuralgy any better?"

"Worse!" said Sadie Corn cheerfully. 

Julia leaned against the desk sociably and glanced down the hall. 

"Would you believe it, " she snickered, "she's wearing red! With thathair! She asked me if I didn't think she looked too pale. I wanted totell her that if she had any more colour, with that dress, they'd belikely to use the chemical sprinklers on her when she struck the Alley. "

"Sh-sh-sh!" breathed Sadie in warning. Two-eighteen, in her shimmering, flame-coloured costume, was coming down the hall toward the elevators. She walked with the absurd and stumbling step that her scant skirtnecessitated. With each pace the slashed silken skirt parted to reveal ashameless glimpse of cerise silk stocking. In her wake came Venner, ofTwo-twenty-three--a strange contrast in his black and white. 

Sadie and Julia watched them from the corner nook. Opposite the deskTwo-eighteen stopped and turned to Julia. 

"Just run into my room and pick things up and hang them away, will you?"she said. "I didn't have time--and I hate things all about when I comein dead tired. "

The little formula of service rose automatically to Julia's lips. 

"Very well, madam, " she said. 

Her eyes and Sadie's followed the two figures until they had steppedinto the cream-and-gold elevator and had vanished. Sadie, peppermintbottle at nose, spoke first:

"She makes one of those sandwich men with a bell, on Sixth Avenue, looklike a shrinking violet!"

Julia's lower lip was caught between her teeth. The scent that hadenveloped Two-eighteen as she passed was still in the air. Julia'snostrils dilated as she sniffed it. Her breath came a little quickly. Sadie Corn sat very still, watching her. 

"Look at her!" said Julia, her voice vibrant. "Look at her! Old andhomely, and all made up! I powdered her neck. Her skin's like tripe. 

"Now Julia--" remonstrated Sadie Corn soothingly. 

"I don't care, " went on Julia with a rush. "I'm young. And I'm prettytoo. And I like pretty things. It ain't fair! That was one reason why Ibroke with Jo. It wasn't only his mother. I told him he couldn't evergive me the things I want anyway. You can't help wanting 'em--seeingthem all round every day on women that aren't half as good-looking asyou are! I want low-cut dresses too. My neck's like milk. I want silkunderneath, and fur coming up on my coat collar to make my cheeks lookpink. I'm sick of hooking other women up. I want to stand in front of amirror, looking at myself, polishing my pink nails with a silver thingand having somebody else hook me up!"

In Sadie Corn's eyes there was a mist that could not be traced toneuralgia or peppermint. 

"Julia, girl, " said Sadie Corn, "ever since the world began there's beenhookers and hooked. And there always will be. I was born a hooker. Sowere you. Time was when I used to cry out against it too. But shucks! Iknow better now. I wouldn't change places. Being a hooker gives you suchan all-round experience like of mankind. The hooked only get a frontview. They only see faces and arms and chests. But the hookers--they seethe necks and shoulderblades of this world, as well as faces. It'smighty broadening--being a hooker. It's the hookers that keep this worldtogether, Julia, and fastened up right. It wouldn't amount to much if ithad to depend on such as that!" She nodded her head in the direction thecerise figure had taken. "The height of her ambition is to get thecuticle of her nails trained back so perfectly that it won't have to becut; and she don't feel decently dressed to be seen in public unlessshe's wearing one of those breastplates of orchids. Envy her! Why, Julia, don't you know that as you were standing here in your black dressas she passed she was envying you!"

"Envying me!" said Julia, and laughed a short laugh that had little ofmirth in it. "You don't understand, Sadie!"

Sadie Corn smiled a rather sad little smile. 

"Oh, yes, I do understand. Don't think because a woman's homely, andalways has been, that she doesn't have the same heartaches that a prettywoman has. She's built just the same inside. "

Julia turned her head to stare at her wide-eyed. It was a long andtrying stare, as though she now saw Sadie Corn for the first time. 

Sadie, smiling up at the girl, stood it bravely. Then, with a suddenlittle gesture, Julia patted the wrinkled, sallow cheek and was off downthe hall and round the corner to two-eighteen. 

The lights still blazed in the bedroom. Julia closed the door and stoodwith her back to it, looking about the disordered chamber. In thatmarvellous way a room has of reflecting the very personality of itsabsent owner, room two-eighteen bore silent testimony to the manner ofwoman who had just left it. The air was close and overpoweringly sweetwith perfume--sachet, powder--the scent of a bedroom after a vain andselfish woman has left it. The litter of toilet articles lay scatteredabout on the dresser. Chairs and bed held garments of lace and silk. Abewildering negligée hung limply over a couch; and next it stood apatent-leather slipper, its mate on the floor. 

Julia saw these things in one accustomed glance. Then she advanced tothe middle of the room and stooped to pick up a pink wadded bedroomslipper from where it lay under the bed. And her hand touched a coat ofvelvet and fur that had been flung across the counterpane--touched itand rested there. 

The coat was of stamped velvet and fur. Great cuffs of fur there were, and a sumptuous collar that rolled from neck to waist. There was alining of vivid orange. Julia straightened up and stood regarding thegarment, her hands on her hips. 

"I wonder if it's draped in the back, " she said to herself, and pickedit up. It was draped in the back--bewitchingly. She held it at arm'slength, turning it this way and that. Then, as though obeying somepowerful force she could not resist, Julia plunged her arms into thesatin of the sleeves and brought the great soft revers up about herthroat. The great, gorgeous, shimmering thing completely hid her grubbylittle black gown. She stepped to the mirror and stood surveying herselfin a sort of ecstasy. Her cheeks glowed rose-pink against the dark fur, as she had known they would. Her lovely little head, with its coils ofblack hair, rose flowerlike from the clinging garment. She was stillstanding there, lips parted, eyes wide with delight, when the dooropened and closed--and Venner, of two-twenty-three, strode into theroom. 

"You little beauty!" exclaimed Two-twenty-three. 

Julia had wheeled about. She stood staring at him, eyes and lips widewith fright now. One hand clutched the fur at her breast. 

"Why, what--" she gasped. 

Two-twenty-three laughed. 

"I knew I'd find you here. I made an excuse to come up. Old NutcrackerFace in the hall thinks I went to my own room. " He took two quick stepsforward. "You raving little Cinderella beauty, you!"--And he gatheredJulia, coat and all, into his arms. 

"Let me go!" panted Julia, fighting with all the strength of her youngarms. "Let me go!"

"You'll have coats like this, " Two-twenty-three was saying in herear--"a dozen of them! And dresses too; and laces and furs! You'll beten times the beauty you are now! And that's saying something. Listen!You meet me to-morrow--"

There came a ring--sudden and startling--from the telephone on the wallnear the door. The man uttered something and turned. Julia pushed himaway, loosened the coat with fingers that shook and dropped it to thefloor. It lay in a shimmering circle about the tired feet in their worn, cracked boots. And one foot was raised suddenly and kicked the silkengarment into a heap. 

The telephone bell sounded again. Venner, of two-twenty-three, plungedhis hand into his pocket, took out something and pressed it in Julia'spalm, shutting her fingers over it. Julia did not need to open them andlook to see--she knew by the feel of the crumpled paper, stiff andcrackling. He was making for the door, with some last instructions thatshe did not hear, before she spoke. The telephone bell had stopped itsinsistent ringing. 

Julia raised her arm and hurled at him with all her might theyellow-backed paper he had thrust in her hand. 

"I'll--I'll get my man to whip you for this!" she panted. "Jo'll pullthose eyelashes of yours out and use 'em for couplings. You miserablelittle--"

The outside door opened again, striking Two-twenty-three squarely in theback. He crumpled up against the wall with an oath. 

Sadie Corn, in the doorway, gave no heed to him. Her eyes searchedJulia's flushed face. What she saw there seemed to satisfy her. Sheturned to him then grimly. 

"What are you doing here?" Sadie asked briskly. 

Two-twenty-three muttered something about the wrong room by mistake. Julia laughed. 

"He lies!" she said, and pointed to the floor. "That bill belongs tohim. "

Sadie Corn motioned to him. 

"Pick it up!" she said. 

"I don't--want it!" snarled Two-twenty-three. 

"Pick--it--up!" articulated Sadie Corn very carefully. He came forward, stooped, put the bill in his pocket. "You check out to-night!" saidSadie Corn. Then, at a muttered remonstrance from him: "Oh, yes, youwill! So will Two-eighteen. Huh? Oh, I guess she will! Say, what do youthink a floor clerk's for? A human keyrack? I'll give you until twelve. I'm off watch at twelve-thirty. " Then, to Julia, as he slunk off: "Whydidn't you answer the phone? That was me ringing!"

A sob caught Julia in the throat, but she turned it into a laugh. 

"I didn't hardly hear it. I was busy promising him a licking from Jo. "

Sadie Corn opened the door. 

"Come on down the hall. I've left no one at the desk. It was Jo I wastelephoning you for. "

Julia grasped her arm with gripping fingers. 

"Jo! He ain't--"

Sadie Corn took the girl's hand in hers. 

"Jo's all right! But Jo's mother won't bother you any more, Sadie. You'll never need to give up your housekeeping nest-egg for her again. Jo told me to tell you. "

Julia stared at her for one dreadful moment, her fist, with the knucklesshowing white, pressed against her mouth. A little moan came from herthat, repeated over and over, took the form of words:

"Oh, Sadie, if I could only take back what I said to Jo! If I could onlytake back what I said to Jo! He'll never forgive me now! And I'll neverforgive myself!"

"He'll forgive you, " said Sadie Corn; "but you'll never forgiveyourself. That's as it should be. That, you know, is our punishment forwhat we say in thoughtlessness and anger. "

They turned the corridor corner. Standing before the desk near thestairway was the tall figure of Donahue, house detective. Donahue hadalways said that Julia was too pretty to be a hotel employé. 

"Straighten up, Julia!" whispered Sadie Corn. "And smile if it killsyou--unless you want to make me tell the whole of it to Donahue. "

Donahue, the keen-eyed, balancing, as was his wont, from toe to heel andback again, his chin thrust out inquiringly, surveyed the pair. 

"Off watch?" inquired Donahue pleasantly, staring at Julia's eyes. "What's wrong with Julia?"

"Neuralgy!" said Sadie Corn crisply. "I've just told her to quit rubbingher head with peppermint. She's got the stuff into her eyes. "

She picked up the bottle on her desk and studied its label, frowning. "Run along downstairs, Julia. I'll see if they won't send you some hottea. "

Donahue, hands clasped behind him, was walking off in his leisurely, light-footed way. 

"Everything serene?" he called back over his big shoulder. 

The neuralgic eye closed and opened, perhaps with another twinge. 

"Everything's serene!" said Sadie Corn. 

IX

THE GUIDING MISS GOWD

It has long been the canny custom of writers on travel bent to defraythe expense of their journeyings by dashing off tales filled withforeign flavour. Dickens did it, and Dante. It has been tried all theway from Tasso to Twain; from Raskin to Roosevelt. A pleasing custom itis and thrifty withal, and one that has saved many a one but poorlyprepared for the European robber in uniform the moist and unpleasanttask of swimming home. 

Your writer spends seven days, say, in Paris. Result? The Latin Quarterstory. _Oh, mes enfants!_ That Parisian student-life story! There is thebeautiful young American girl--beautiful, but as earnest and good as sheis beautiful, and as talented as she is earnest and good. And wedded, beit understood, to her art--preferably painting or singing. From NewYork! Her name must be something prim, yet winsome. Lois will do--Lois, _la belle Américaine_. Then the hero--American too. Madly in love withLois. Tall he is and always clean-limbed--not handsome, but with one ofthose strong, rugged faces. His name, too, must be strong and plain, yetsnappy. David is always good. The villain is French, fascinating, andwears a tiny black moustache to hide his mouth, which is cruel. 

The rest is simple. A little French restaurant--Henri's. Know you notHenri's? _Tiens!_ But Henri's is not for the tourist. A dim little shopand shabby, modestly tucked away in the shadows of the Rue Brie. But thefood! Ah, the--whadd'you-call'ems--in the savoury sauce, that is Henri'ssecret! The tender, broiled _poularde_, done to a turn! The bottle ofred wine! _Mais oui_; there one can dine under the watchful glare ofRosa, the plump, black-eyed wife of the _concierge_. With a snowy apronabout her buxom waist, and a pot of red geraniums somewhere, and asleek, lazy cat contentedly purring in the sunny window!

Then Lois starving in a garret. Temptation! _Sacré bleu! Zut!_ Also _nomd'un nom!_ Enter David. _Bon!_ Oh, David, take me away! Take me back todear old Schenectady. Love is more than all else, especially when no onewill buy your pictures. 

The Italian story recipe is even simpler. A pearl necklace; a low, clearwhistle. Was it the call of a bird or a signal? His-s-s-st! Again! Ablack cape; the flash of steel in the moonlight; the sound of a splashin the water; a sickening gurgle; a stifled cry! Silence! His-st!_Vendetta!_

There is the story made in Germany, filled with students and steins andscars; with beer and blonde, blue-eyed _Mädchen_ garbed--the _Mädchen_, that is--in black velvet bodice, white chemisette, scarlet skirt withtwo rows of black ribbon at the bottom, and one yellow braid over theshoulder. Especially is this easily accomplished if actually written inthe _Vaterland_, German typewriting machines being equipped with_umlauts_. 

And yet not one of these formulas would seem to fit the story of MaryGowd. Mary Gowd, with her frumpy English hat and her dreadful Englishfringe, and her brick-red English cheeks, which not even the enervatingItalian sun, the years of bad Italian food or the damp and dim littleRoman room had been able to sallow. Mary Gowd, with her shabby blue suitand her mangy bit of fur, and the glint of humour in her pale blue eyes. Many, many times that same glint of humour had saved English Mary Gowdfrom seeking peace in the muddy old Tiber. 

Her card read imposingly thus: Mary M. Gowd, Cicerone. Certificated andLicensed Lecturer on Art and Archaeology. Via del Babbuino, Roma. 

In plain language Mary Gowd was a guide. Now, Rome is swarming withguides; but they are men guides. They besiege you in front of Cook's. They perch at the top of the Capitoline Hill, ready to pounce on youwhen you arrive panting from your climb up the shallow steps. They liein wait in the doorway of St. Peter's. Bland, suave, smiling, quiet, butinsistent, they dog you from the Vatican to the Catacombs. 

Hundreds there are of these little men--undersized, even in this landof small men--dapper, agile, low-voiced, crafty. In his inner coatpocket each carries his credentials, greasy, thumb-worn documents, butprecious. He glances at your shoes--this insinuating one--or at yourhat, or at any of those myriad signs by which he marks you for his own. Then up he steps and speaks to you in the language of your country, beyou French, German, English, Spanish or American. 

And each one of this clan--each slim, feline little man in blue serge, white-toothed, gimlet-eyed, smooth-tongued, brisk--hated Mary Gowd. Theyhated her with the hate of an Italian for an outlander--with the hate ofan Italian for a woman who works with her brain--with the hate of anItalian who sees another taking the bread out of his mouth. All this, coupled with the fact that your Italian is a natural-born hater, mayindicate that the life of Mary Gowd had not the lyric lilt that life iscommonly reputed to have in sunny Italy. 

Oh, there is no formula for Mary Gowd's story. In the first place, thetale of how Mary Gowd came to be the one woman guide in Rome runs likemelodrama. And Mary herself, from her white cotton gloves, darned at thefingers, to her figure, which mysteriously remained the same in spite offifteen years of scant Italian fare, does not fit gracefully into therôle of heroine. 

Perhaps that story, scraped to bedrock, shorn of all floral features, may gain in force what it loses in artistry. 

She was twenty-two when she came to Rome--twenty-two and art-mad. Shehad been pretty, with that pink-cheesecloth prettiness of the provincialEnglish girl, who degenerates into blowsiness at thirty. Since seventeenshe had saved and scrimped and contrived for this modest Roman holiday. She had given painting lessons--even painted on loathsome china--thatthe little hoard might grow. And when at last there was enough she hadcome to this Rome against the protests of the fussy English father andthe spinster English sister. 

The man she met quite casually one morning in the SistineChapel--perhaps he bumped her elbow as they stood staring up at theglorious ceiling. A thousand pardons! Ah, an artist too? In five minutesthey were chattering like mad--she in bad French and exquisite English;he in bad English and exquisite French. He knew Rome--its pictures, itsglories, its history--as only an Italian can. And he taught her art, andhe taught her Italian, and he taught her love. 

And so they were married, or ostensibly married, though Mary did notknow the truth until three months later when he left her quite ascasually as he had met her, taking with him the little hoard, and Mary'sEnglish trinkets, and Mary's English roses, and Mary's broken pride. 

So! There was no going back to the fussy father or the spinster sister. She came very near resting her head on Father Tiber's breast in thosedays. She would sit in the great galleries for hours, staring at thewonder-works. Then, one day, again in the Sistine Chapel, a fussy littleAmerican woman had approached her, her eyes snapping. Mary wassketching, or trying to. 

"Do you speak English?"

"I am English, " said Mary. 

The feathers in the hat of the fussy little woman quivered. 

"Then tell me, is this ceiling by Raphael?"

"Ceiling!" gasped Mary Gowd. "Raphael!"

Then, very gently, she gave the master's name. 

"Of course!" snapped the excited little American. "I'm one of a party ofeight. We're all school-teachers And this guide"--she waved a hand inthe direction of a rapt little group standing in the agonising positionthe ceiling demands--"just informed us that the ceiling is by Raphael. And we're paying him ten lire!"

"Won't you sit here?" Mary Gowd made a place for her. "I'll tell you. "

And she did tell her, finding a certain relief from her pain inunfolding to this commonplace little woman the glory of the masterpieceamong masterpieces. 

"Why--why, " gasped her listener, who had long since beckoned the otherseven with frantic finger, "how beautifully you explain it! How much youknow! Oh, why can't they talk as you do?" she wailed, her eyes full ofcontempt for the despised guide. 

"I am happy to have helped you, " said Mary Gowd. 

"Helped! Why, there are hundreds of Americans who would give anything tohave some one like you to be with them in Rome. "

Mary Gowd's whole body stiffened. She stared fixedly at the gratefullittle American school-teacher. 

"Some one like me--"

The little teacher blushed very red. 

"I beg your pardon. I wasn't thinking. Of course you don't need to doany such work, but I just couldn't help saying--"

"But I do need work, " interrupted Mary Gowd. She stood up, her cheekspink again for the moment, her eyes bright. "I thank you. Oh, I thankyou!"

"You thank me!" faltered the American. 

But Mary Gowd had folded her sketchbook and was off, through thevestibule, down the splendid corridor, past the giant Swiss guard, tothe noisy, sunny Piazza di San Pietro. 

That had been fifteen years ago. She had taken her guide's examinationsand passed them. She knew her Rome from the crypt of St. Peter's to thetop of the Janiculum Hill; from the Campagna to Tivoli. She read andstudied and learned. She delved into the past and brought up strange andinteresting truths. She could tell you weird stories of those whitemarble men who lay so peacefully beneath St. Peter's dome, their ringedhands crossed on their breasts. She learned to juggle dates with an easethat brought gasps from her American clients, with their history thatwent back little more than one hundred years. 

She learned to designate as new anything that failed to have its originstamped B. C. ; and the Magnificent Augustus, he who boasted of findingRome brick and leaving it marble, was a mere _nouveau riche_ with hismiserable A. D. 14. 

She was as much at home in the Thermae of Caracalla as you in yourwhite-and-blue-tiled bath. She could juggle the history of emperors withone hand and the scandals of half a dozen kings with the other. No ruinwas too unimportant for her attention--no picture too faded for herresearch. She had the centuries at her tongue's end. Michelangelo andCanova were her brothers in art, and Rome was to her as your back-gardenpatch is to you. 

Mary Gowd hated this Rome as only an English woman can who has spentfifteen years in that nest of intrigue. She fought the whole race ofRoman guides day after day. She no longer turned sick and faint whenthey hissed after her vile Italian epithets that her American or Englishclients quite failed to understand. Quite unconcernedly she would jamdown the lever of the taximeter the wily Italian cabby had pulled onlyhalfway so that the meter might register double. And when thatfoul-mouthed one crowned his heap of abuse by screaming "_Camorrista!Camor-r-rista!_" at her, she would merely shrug her shoulders and say"_Andate presto!_" to show him she was above quarrelling with a cabman. 

She ate eggs and bread, and drank the red wine, never having conqueredher disgust for Italian meat since first she saw the filthy carcasses, fly-infested, dust-covered, loathsome, being carted through the swarmingstreets. 

It was six o'clock of an evening early in March when Mary Gowd went hometo the murky little room in the Via Babbuino. She was too tired tonotice the sunset. She was too tired to smile at the red-eyed baby ofthe cobbler's wife, who lived in the rear. She was too tired to ask Tinafor the letters that seldom came. It had been a particularly trying day, spent with a party of twenty Germans, who had said "_Herrlich!_" whenshe showed them the marvels of the Vatican and "_Kolossal!_" at thegrandeur of the Colosseum and, for the rest, had kept their noses buriedin their Baedekers. 

She groped her way cautiously down the black hall. Tina had a habit ofleaving sundry brushes, pans or babies lying about. After the warmth ofthe March sun outdoors the house was cold with that clammy, penetrating, tomblike chill of the Italian home. 

"Tina!" she called. 

From the rear of the house came a cackle of voices. Tina was gossiping. There was no smell of supper in the air. Mary Gowd shrugged patientshoulders. Then, before taking off the dowdy hat, before removing thewhite cotton gloves, she went to the window that overlooked the noisyVia Babbuino, closed the massive wooden shutters, fastened the heavywindows and drew the thick curtains. Then she stood a moment, eyes shut. In that little room the roar of Rome was tamed to a dull humming. MaryGowd, born and bred amid the green of Northern England, had never becomehardened to the maddening noises of the Via Babbuino: The rattle andclatter of cab wheels; the clack-clack of thousands of iron-shod hoofs;the shrill, high cry of the street venders; the blasts of motor hornsthat seemed to rend the narrow street; the roar and rumble of theelectric trams; the wail of fretful babies; the chatter of gossipingwomen; and above and through and below it all the cracking of thecabman's whip--that sceptre of the Roman cabby, that wand which is onepart whip and nine parts crack. Sometimes it seemed to Mary Gowd thather brain was seared and welted by the pistol-shot reports of thoseeternal whips. 

She came forward now and lighted a candle that stood on the table andanother on the dresser. Their dim light seemed to make dimmer the darklittle room. She looked about with a little shiver. Then she sank intothe chintz-covered chair that was the one bit of England in the sombrechamber. She took off the dusty black velvet hat, passed a hand over herhair with a gesture that was more tired than tidy, and sat back, hereyes shut, her body inert, her head sagging on her breast. 

The voices in the back of the house had ceased. From the kitchen camethe slipslop of Tina's slovenly feet. Mary Gowd opened her eyes and satup very straight as Tina stood in the doorway. There was nothingpicturesque about Tina. Tina was not one of those olive-tinted, melting-eyed daughters of Italy that one meets in fiction. Looking ather yellow skin and her wrinkles and her coarse hands, one wonderedwhether she was fifty, or sixty, or one hundred, as is the way withItalian women of Tina's class at thirty-five. 

Ah, the signora was tired! She smiled pityingly. Tired! Not at all, MaryGowd assured her briskly. She knew that Tina despised her because sheworked like a man. 

"Something fine for supper?" Mary Gowd asked mockingly. Her Italian waslike that of the Romans themselves, so soft, so liquid, so perfect. 

Tina nodded vigorously, her long earrings shaking. 

"_Vitello_"--she began, her tongue clinging lovingly to the double _l_sound--"_Vee-tail-loh_--"

"Ugh!" shuddered Mary Gowd. That eternal veal and mutton, pinkish, flabby, sickening!

"What then?" demanded the outraged Tina. 

Mary Gowd stood up, making gestures, hat in hand. 

"Clotted cream, with strawberries, " she said in English, an unknownlanguage, which always roused Tina to fury. "And a steak--a real steakof real beef, three inches thick and covered with onions fried inbutter. And creamed chicken, and English hothouse tomatoes, and freshpeaches and little hot rolls, and coffee that isn't licorice and ink, and--and--"

Tina's dangling earrings disappeared in her shoulders. Her outspreadpalms were eloquent. 

"Crazy, these English!" said the shoulders and palms. "Mad!"

Mary Gowd threw her hat on the bed, pushed aside a screen and busiedherself with a little alcohol stove. 

"I shall prepare an omelet, " she said over her shoulder in Italian. "Also, I have here bread and wine. "

"Ugh!" granted Tina. 

"Ugh, veal!" grunted Mary Gowd. Then, as Tina's flapping feet turnedaway: "Oh, Tina! Letters?"

Tina fumbled at the bosom of her gown, thought deeply and drew out acrumpled envelope. It had been opened and clumsily closed again. Fifteenyears ago Mary Gowd would have raged. Now she shrugged philosophicshoulders. Tina stole hairpins, opened letters that she could not hopeto decipher, rummaged bureau drawers, rifled cupboards and fingeredbooks; but then, so did most of the other Tinas in Rome. What use tocomplain?

Mary Gowd opened the thumb-marked letter, bringing it close to thecandlelight. As she read, a smile appeared. 

"Huh! Gregg, " she said, "Americans!" She glanced again at the hotelletterhead on the stationery--the best hotel in Naples. "Americans--andrich!"

The pleased little smile lingered as she beat the omelet briskly for hersupper. 

The Henry D. Greggs arrived in Rome on the two o'clock train fromNaples. And all the Roman knights of the waving palm espied them fromafar and hailed them with whoops of joy. The season was still young andthe Henry D. Greggs looked like money--not Italian money, which isreckoned in lire, but American money, which mounts grandly to dollars. The postcard men in the Piazza delle Terme sped after their motor taxi. The swarthy brigand, with his wooden box of tawdry souvenirs, markedthem as they rode past. The cripple who lurked behind a pillar in thecolonnade threw aside his coat with a practised hitch of his shoulder toreveal the sickeningly maimed arm that was his stock in trade. 

Mr. And Mrs. Henry D. Gregg had left their comfortable home in Batavia, Illinois, with its sleeping porch, veranda and lawn, and seven-passengercar; with its two glistening bathrooms, and its Oriental rugs, and itslaundry in the basement, and its Sunday fried chicken and ice cream, because they felt that Miss Eleanora Gregg ought to have the benefit offoreign travel. Miss Eleanora Gregg thought so too: in fact, she hadthought so first. 

Her name was Eleanora, but her parents called her Tweetie, which reallydid not sound so bad as it might if Tweetie had been one whit lesspretty. Tweetie was so amazingly, Americanly pretty that she could havetriumphed over a pet name twice as absurd. 

The Greggs came to Rome, as has been stated, at two P. M. Wednesday. Bytwo P. M. Thursday Tweetie had bought a pair of long, dangling earrings, a costume with a Roman striped collar and sash, and had learned to lollback in her cab in imitation of the dashing, black-eyed, sallow womenshe had seen driving on the Pincio. By Thursday evening she was teasingPapa Gregg for a spray of white aigrets, such as those same languorousladies wore in feathery mists atop their hats. 

"But, Tweet, " argued Papa Gregg, "what's the use? You can't take themback with you. Custom-house regulations forbid it. "

The rather faded but smartly dressed Mrs. Gregg asserted herself:

"They're barbarous! We had moving pictures at the club showing howthey're torn from the mother birds. No daughter of mine--"

"I don't care!" retorted Tweetie. "They're perfectly stunning; and I'mgoing to have them. "

And she had them--not that the aigret incident is important; but it mayserve to place the Greggs in their respective niches. 

At eleven o'clock Friday morning Mary Gowd called at the Gregg's hotel, according to appointment. In far-away Batavia, Illinois, Mrs. Gregg hadheard of Mary Gowd. And Mary Gowd, with her knowledge of everythingRoman--from the Forum to the best place at which to buy pearls--was tobe the staff on which the Greggs were to lean. 

"My husband, " said Mrs. Gregg; "my daughter Twee--er--Eleanora. We'veheard such wonderful things of you from my dear friend Mrs. MelvillePeters, of Batavia. "

"Ah, yes!" exclaimed Mary Gowd. "A most charming person, Mrs. Peters. "

"After she came home from Europe she read the most wonderful paper onRome before the Women's West End Culture Club, of Batavia. We'reaffiliated with the National Federation of Women's Clubs, as youprobably know; and--"

"Now, Mother, " interrupted Henry Gregg, "the lady can't be interested inyour club. "

"Oh, but I am!" exclaimed Mary Gowd very vivaciously. "Enormously!"

Henry Gregg eyed her through his cigar smoke with suddenly narrowedlids. 

"M-m-m! Well, let's get to the point anyway. I know Tweetie here isdying to see St. Peter's, and all that. "

Tweetie had settled back inscrutably after one comprehensive, disdainfullook at Mary Gowd's suit, hat, gloves and shoes. Now she sat up, herbewitching face glowing with interest. 

"Tell me, " she said, "what do they call those officers with the longpale-blue capes and the silver helmets and the swords? And the ones indark-blue uniform with the maroon stripe at the side of the trousers?And do they ever mingle with the--that is, there was one of the bluecapes here at tea yesterday--"

Papa Gregg laughed a great, comfortable laugh. 

"Oh, so that's where you were staring yesterday, young lady! I thoughtyou acted kind of absent-minded. " He got up to walk over and pinchTweetie's blushing cheek. 

So it was that Mary Gowd began the process of pouring the bloody, religious, wanton, pious, thrilling, dreadful history of Rome into thepretty and unheeding ear of Tweetie Gregg. 

On the fourth morning after that introductory meeting Mary Gowd arrivedat the hotel at ten, as usual, to take charge of her party for the day. She encountered them in the hotel foyer, an animated little groupcentred about a very tall, very dashing, very black-mustachioed figurewho wore a long pale blue cape thrown gracefully over one shoulder asonly an Italian officer can wear such a garment. He was looking downinto the brilliantly glowing face of the pretty Eleanora, and the prettyEleanora was looking up at him; and Pa and Ma Gregg were standing by, placidly pleased. 

A grim little line appeared about Miss Gowd's mouth. Blue Cape's blackeyes saw it, even as he bent low over Mary Gowd's hand at the words ofintroduction. 

"Oh, Miss Gowd, " pouted Tweetie, "it's too bad you haven't a telephone. You see, we shan't need you to-day. "

"No?" said Miss Gowd, and glanced at Blue Cape. 

"No; Signor Caldini says it's much too perfect a day to go poking aboutamong old ruins and things. "

Henry D. Gregg cleared his throat and took up the explanation. "Seemsthe--er--Signor thinks it would be just the thing to take a touring carand drive to Tivoli, and have a bite of lunch there. "

"And come back in time to see the Colosseum by moonlight!" put inTweetie ecstatically. 

"Oh, yes!" said Mary Gowd. 

Pa Gregg looked at his watch. 

"Well, I'll be running along, " he said. Then, in answer to something inMary Gowd's eyes: "I'm not going to Tivoli, you see. I met a man fromChicago here at the hotel. He and I are going to chin awhile thismorning. And Mrs. Gregg and his wife are going on a shopping spree. Say, ma, if you need any more money speak up now, because I'm--"

Mary Gowd caught his coat sleeve. 

"One moment!"

Her voice was very low. "You mean--you mean Miss Eleanora will go toTivoli and to the Colosseum alone--with--with Signor Caldini?"

Henry Gregg smiled indulgently. 

"The young folks always run round alone at home. We've got our own carat home in Batavia, but Tweetie's beaus are always driving up for herin--"

Mary Gowd turned her head so that only Henry Gregg could hear what shesaid. 

"Step aside for just one moment. I must talk to you. "

"Well, what?"

"Do as I say, " whispered Mary Gowd. 

Something of her earnestness seemed to convey a meaning to Henry Gregg. 

"Just wait a minute, folks, " he said to the group of three, and joinedMary Gowd, who had chosen a seat a dozen paces away. "What's thetrouble?" he asked jocularly. "Hope you're not offended because Tweetsaid we didn't need you to-day. You know young folks--"

"They must not go alone, " said Mary Gowd. 

"But--"

"This is not America. This is Italy--this Caldini is an Italian. "

"Why, look here; Signor Caldini was introduced to us last night. Hisfolks really belong to the nobility. "

"I know; I know, " interrupted Mary Gowd. "I tell you they cannot goalone. Please believe me! I have been fifteen years in Rome. Noble ornot, Caldini is an Italian. I ask you"--she had clasped her hands andwas looking pleadingly up into his face--"I beg of you, let me go withthem. You need not pay me to-day. You--"

Henry Gregg looked at her very thoughtfully and a little puzzled. Thenhe glanced over at the group again, with Blue Cape looking down soeagerly into Tweetie's exquisite face and Tweetie looking up so raptlyinto Blue Cape's melting eyes and Ma Gregg standing so placidly by. Heturned again to Mary Gowd's earnest face. 

"Well, maybe you're right. They do seem to use chaperons inEurope--duennas, or whatever you call 'em. Seems a nice kind of chap, though. "

He strolled back to the waiting group. From her seat Mary Gowd heardMrs. Gregg's surprised exclamation, saw Tweetie's pout, understoodCaldini's shrug and sneer. There followed a little burst ofconversation. Then, with a little frown which melted into a smile forBlue Cape, Tweetie went to her room for motor coat and trifles that thelong day's outing demanded. Mrs. Gregg, still voluble, followed. 

Blue Cape, with a long look at Mary Gowd, went out to confer with theporter about the motor. Papa Gregg, hand in pockets, cigar tilted, eyesnarrowed, stood irresolutely in the centre of the great, gaudy foyer. Then, with a decisive little hunch of his shoulders, he came back towhere Mary Gowd sat. 

"Did you say you've been fifteen years in Rome?"

"Fifteen years, " answered Mary Gowd. 

Henry D. Gregg took his cigar from his mouth and regarded itthoughtfully. 

"Well, that's quite a spell. Must like it here. " Mary Gowd said nothing. "Can't say I'm crazy about it--that is, as a place to live. I said toMother last night: 'Little old Batavia's good enough for Henry D. ' Ofcourse it's a grand education, travelling, especially for Tweetie. Funny, I always thought the fruit in Italy was regular hothousestuff--thought the streets would just be lined with trees all hung withbig, luscious oranges. But, Lord! Here we are at the best hotel in Rome, and the fruit is worse than the stuff the pushcart men at home feed totheir families--little wizened bananas and oranges. Still, it's grandhere in Rome for Tweetie. I can't stay long--just ran away from businessto bring 'em over; but I'd like Tweetie to stay in Italy until shelearns the lingo. Sings, too--Tweetie does; and she and Ma think they'llhave her voice cultivated over here. They'll stay here quite a while, Iguess. "

"Then you will not be here with them?" asked Mary Gowd. 

"Me? No. "

They sat silent for a moment. 

"I suppose you're crazy about Rome, " said Henry Gregg again. "There's alot of culture here, and history, and all that; and--"

"I hate Rome!" said Mary Gowd. 

Henry Gregg stared at her in bewilderment. 

"Then why in Sam Hill don't you go back to England?"

"I'm thirty-seven years old. That's one reason why. And I look older. Oh, yes, I do. Thanks just the same. There are too many women in Englandalready--too many half-starving shabby genteel. I earn enough to live onhere--that is, I call it living. You couldn't. In the bad season, whenthere are no tourists, I live on a lire a day, including my rent. "

Henry Gregg stood up. 

"My land! Why don't you come to America?" He waved his arms. "America!"

Mary Gowd's brick-red cheeks grew redder. 

"America!" she echoed. "When I see American tourists here throwingpennies in the Fountain of Trevi, so that they'll come back to Rome, Iwant to scream. By the time I save enough money to go to America I'll bean old woman and it will be too late. And if I did contrive to scrapetogether enough for my passage over I couldn't go to the United Statesin these clothes. I've seen thousands of American women here. If theylook like that when they're just travelling about, what do they wear athome!"

"Clothes?" inquired Henry Gregg, mystified. "What's wrong with yourclothes?"

"Everything! I've seen them look at my suit, which hunches in the backand strains across the front, and is shiny at the seams. And my gloves!And my hat! Well, even though I am English I know how frightful my hatis. "

"You're a smart woman, " said Henry D. Gregg. 

"Not smart enough, " retorted Mary Gowd, "or I shouldn't be here. "

The two stood up as Tweetie came toward them from the lift. Tweetiepouted again at sight of Mary Gowd, but the pout cleared as Blue Cape, his arrangements completed, stood in the doorway, splendid hat in hand. 

It was ten o'clock when the three returned from Tivoli and theColosseum--Mary Gowd silent and shabbier than ever from the dust of theroad; Blue Cape smiling; Tweetie frankly pettish. Pa and Ma Gregg werelistening to the after-dinner concert in the foyer. 

"Was it romantic--the Colosseum, I mean--by moonlight?" asked Ma Gregg, patting Tweetie's cheek and trying not to look uncomfortable as BlueCape kissed her hand. 

"Romantic!" snapped Tweetie. "It was as romantic as Main Street onCircus Day. Hordes of people tramping about like buffaloes. Simplyswarming with tourists--German ones. One couldn't find a single ruin tosit on. Romantic!" She glared at the silent Mary Gowd. 

There was a strange little glint in Mary Gowd's eyes, and the grim linewas there about the mouth again, grimmer than it had been in themorning. 

"You will excuse me?" she said. "I am very tired. I will say goodnight. "

"And I, " announced Caldini. 

Mary Gowd turned swiftly to look at him. 

"You!" said Tweetie Gregg. 

"I trust that I may have the very great happiness to see you in themorning, " went on Caldini in his careful English. "I cannot permitSignora Gowd to return home alone through the streets of Rome. " He bowedlow and elaborately over the hands of the two women. 

"Oh, well; for that matter--" began Henry Gregg gallantly. 

Caldini raised a protesting, white-gloved hand. 

"I cannot permit it. "

He bowed again and looked hard at Mary Gowd. Mary Gowd returned thelook. The brick-red had quite faded from her cheeks. Then, with a nod, she turned and walked toward the door. Blue Cape, sword clanking, followed her. 

In silence he handed her into the _fiacre_. In silence he seated himselfbeside her. Then he leaned very close. 

"I will talk in this damned English, " he began, "that the pig of a_fiaccheraio_ may not understand. This--this Gregg, he is very rich, like all Americans. And the little Eleanora! _Bellissima!_ You must notstand in my way. It is not good. " Mary Dowd sat silent. "You will helpme. To-day you were not kind. There will be much money--money for me;also for you. "

Fifteen years before--ten years before--she would have died sooner thanlisten to a plan such as he proposed; but fifteen years of Rome bluntsone's English sensibilities. Fifteen years of privation dulls one'smoral sense. And money meant America. And little Tweetie Gregg had notlowered her voice or her laugh when she spoke that afternoon of MaryGowd's absurd English fringe and her red wrists above her too-shortgloves. 

"How much?" asked Mary Gowd. He named a figure. She laughed. 

"More--much more!"

He named another figure; then another. 

"You will put it down on paper, " said Mary Gowd, "and sign yourname--to-morrow. "

They drove the remainder of the way in silence. At her door in the ViaBabbuino:

"You mean to marry her?" asked Mary Gowd. 

Blue Cape shrugged eloquent shoulders:

"I think not, " he said quite simply. 

 * * * * *

It was to be the Appian Way the next morning, with a stop at theCatacombs. Mary Gowd reached the hotel very early, but not so early asCaldini. 

"Think the five of us can pile into one carriage?" boomed Henry Greggcheerily. 

"A little crowded, I think, " said Mary Gowd, "for such a long drive. May I suggest that we three"--she smiled on Henry Gregg and hiswife--"take this larger carriage, while Miss Eleanora and Signor Caldinifollow in the single cab?"

A lightning message from Blue Cape's eyes. 

"Yes; that would be nice!" cooed Tweetie. 

So it was arranged. Mary Gowd rather outdid herself as a guide thatmorning. She had a hundred little intimate tales at her tongue's end. She seemed fairly to people those old ruins again with the men and womenof a thousand years ago. Even Tweetie--little frivolous, indifferentTweetie--was impressed and interested. 

As they were returning to the carriages after inspecting the Baths ofCaracalla, Tweetie even skipped ahead and slipped her hand for a momentinto Mary Gowd's. 

"You're simply wonderful!" she said almost shyly. "You make things soundso real. And--and I'm sorry I was so nasty to you yesterday at Tivoli. "

Mary Dowd looked down at the glowing little face. A foolish little faceit was, but very, very pretty, and exquisitely young and fresh andsweet. Tweetie dropped her voice to a whisper:

"You should hear him pronounce my name. It is like music when he saysit--El-e-a-no-ra; like that. And aren't his kid gloves alwaysbeautifully white? Why, the boys back home--"

Mary Gowd was still staring down at her. She lifted the slim, ringedlittle hand which lay within her white-cotton paw and stared at thattoo. 

Then with a jerk she dropped the girl's hand and squared her shoulderslike a soldier, so that the dowdy blue suit strained more than ever atits seams; and the line that had settled about her mouth the nightbefore faded slowly, as though a muscle too tightly drawn had relaxed. 

In the carriages they were seated as before. The horses started up, withthe smaller cab but a dozen paces behind. Mary Gowd leaned forward. Shebegan to speak--her voice very low, her accent clearly English, herbrevity wonderfully American. 

"Listen to me!" she said. "You must leave Rome to-night!"

"Leave Rome to-night!" echoed the Greggs as though rehearsing a duet. 

"Be quiet! You must not shout like that. I say you must go away. "

Mamma Gregg opened her lips and shut them, wordless for once. HenryGregg laid one big hand on his wife's shaking knees and eyed Mary Gowdvery quietly. 

"I don't get you, " he said. 

Mary Gowd looked straight at him as she said what she had to say:

"There are things in Rome you cannot understand. You could notunderstand unless you lived here many years. I lived here many monthsbefore I learned to step meekly off into the gutter to allow a man topass on the narrow sidewalk. You must take your pretty daughter and goaway. To-night! No--let me finish. I will tell you what happened to mefifteen years ago, and I will tell you what this Caldini has in hismind. You will believe me and forgive me; and promise me that you willgo quietly away. "

When she finished Mrs. Gregg was white-faced and luckily too frightenedto weep. Henry Gregg started up in the carriage, his fistswhite-knuckled, his lean face turned toward the carriage crawlingbehind. 

"Sit down!" commanded Mary Gowd. She jerked his sleeve. "Sit down!"

Henry Gregg sat down slowly. Then he wet his lips slightly and smiled. 

"Oh, bosh!" he said. "This--this is the twentieth century and we'reAmericans, and it's broad daylight. Why, I'll lick the--"

"This is Rome, " interrupted Mary Gowd quietly, "and you will do nothingof the kind, because he would make you pay for that too, and it would bein all the papers; and your pretty daughter would hang her head in shameforever. " She put one hand on Henry Gregg's sleeve. "You do not know!You do not! Promise me you will go. " The tears sprang suddenly to herEnglish blue eyes. "Promise me! Promise me!"

"Henry!" cried Mamma Gregg, very grey-faced. "Promise, Henry!"

"I promise, " said Henry Gregg, and he turned away. 

Mary Gowd sank back in her seat and shut her eyes for a moment. 

"_Presto!_" she said to the half-sleeping driver. Then she waved a gayhand at the carriage in the rear. "_Presto!_" she called, smiling. "_Presto!_"

 * * * * *

At six o'clock Mary Gowd entered the little room in the Via Babbuino. She went first to the window, drew the heavy curtains. The roar of Romewas hushed to a humming. She lighted a candle that stood on the table. Its dim light emphasized the gloom. She took off the battered blackvelvet hat and sank into the chintz-covered English chair. Tina stood inthe doorway. Mary Gowd sat up with a jerk. 

"Letters, Tina?"

Tina thought deeply, fumbled at the bosom of her gown and drew out asealed envelope grudgingly. 

Mary Gowd broke the seal, glanced at the letter. Then, under Tina'sstartled gaze, she held it to the flaming candle and watched it burn. 

"What is it that you do?" demanded Tina. 

Mary Gowd smiled. 

"You have heard of America?"

"America! A thousand--a million time! My brother Luigi--"

"Naturally! This, then"--Mary Gowd deliberately gathered up the ashesinto a neat pile and held them in her hand, a crumpled heap--"this then, Tina, is my trip to America. "

X

SOPHY-AS-SHE-MIGHT-HAVE-BEEN

The key to the heart of Paris is love. He whose key-ring lacks that opensesame never really sees the city, even though he dwell in the shadow ofthe Sorbonne and comprehend the _fiacre_ French of the Paris cabman. Some there are who craftily open the door with a skeleton key; some whoruthlessly batter the panels; some who achieve only a wax impression, which proves to be useless. There are many who travel no farther thanthe outer gates. You will find them staring blankly at the stone walls;and their plaint is:

"What do they find to rave about in this town?"

Sophy Gold had been eight days in Paris and she had not so much aspeeked through the key-hole. In a vague way she realised that she wasseeing Paris as a blind man sees the sun--feeling its warmth, consciousof its white light beating on the eyeballs, but never actually beholdingits golden glory. 

This was Sophy Gold's first trip to Paris, and her heart and soul andbusiness brain were intent on buying the shrewdest possible bill oflingerie and infants' wear for her department at Schiff Brothers', Chicago; but Sophy under-estimated the powers of those three guidingparts. While heart, soul, and brain were bent dutifully andindefatigably on the lingerie and infants'-wear job they also wereregistering a series of kaleidoscopic outside impressions. 

As she drove from her hotel to the wholesale district, and from thewholesale district to her hotel, there had flashed across herconsciousness the picture of the chic little modistes' models and_ouvrières_ slipping out at noon to meet their lovers on the corner, tosit over their _sirop_ or wine at some little near-by café, handsclasped, eyes glowing. 

Stepping out of the lift to ask for her room key, she had come on theblack-gowned floor clerk, deep in murmured conversation with the valet, and she had seemed not to see Sophy at all as she groped subconsciouslyfor the key along the rows of keyboxes. She had seen the workmen intheir absurdly baggy corduroy trousers and grimy shirts strolling alongarm in arm with the women of their class--those untidy women with thetidy hair. Bareheaded and happy, they strolled along, a strange contrastto the glitter of the fashionable boulevard, stopping now and then togaze wide-eyed at a million-franc necklace in a jeweller's window; thenon again with a laugh and a shrug and a caress. She had seen the silentcouples in the Tuileries Gardens at twilight. 

Once, in the Bois de Boulogne, a slim, sallow _élégant_ had bent forwhat seemed an interminable time over a white hand that was stretchedfrom the window of a motor car. He was standing at the curb; in eithergreeting or parting, and his eyes were fastened on other eyes within thecar even while his lips pressed the white hand. 

Then one evening--Sophy reddened now at memory of it--she had turned aquiet corner and come on a boy and a girl. The girl was shabby andsixteen; the boy pale, voluble, smiling. 

Evidently they were just parting. Suddenly, as she passed, the boy hadcaught the girl in his arms there on the street corner in the daylight, and had kissed her--not the quick, resounding smack of casualleave-taking, but a long, silent kiss that left the girl limp. 

Sophy stood rooted to the spot, between horror and fascination. Theboy's arm brought the girl upright and set her on her feet. 

She took a long breath, straightened her hat, and ran on to rejoin hergirl friend awaiting her calmly up the street. She was not even flushed;but Sophy was. Sophy was blushing hotly and burning uncomfortably, sothat her eyes smarted. 

Just after her late dinner on the eighth day of her Paris stay, SophyGold was seated in the hotel lobby. Paris thronged with Americanbusiness buyers--those clever, capable, shrewd-eyed women who swarm onthe city in June and strip it of its choicest flowers, from ball gownsto back combs. Sophy tried to pick them from the multitude that sweptpast her. It was not difficult. The women visitors to Paris in Junedrop easily into their proper slots. 

There were the pretty American girls and their marvellouslyyoung-looking mammas, both out-Frenching the French in their efforts tolook Parisian; there were rows of fat, placid, jewel-laden Argentinemothers, each with a watchful eye on her black-eyed, volcanically calm, be-powdered daughter; and there were the buyers, miraculously dressy innext week's styles in suits and hats--of the old-girl type most of them, alert, self-confident, capable. 

They usually returned to their hotels at six, limping a little, dog-tired; but at sight of the brightly lighted, gay hotel foyer theywould straighten up like war-horses scenting battle and achieve aneffective entrance from the doorway to the lift. 

In all that big, busy foyer Sophy Gold herself was the one persondistinctly out of the picture. One did not know where to place her. Tobegin with, a woman as irrevocably, irredeemably ugly as Sophy was ananachronism in Paris. She belonged to the gargoyle period. You foundyourself speculating on whether it was her mouth or her nose that madeher so devastatingly plain, only to bring up at her eyes and find thatthey alone were enough to wreck any ambitions toward beauty. You knewbefore you saw it that her hair would be limp and straggling. 

You sensed without a glance at them that her hands would be bony, withunlovely knuckles. 

The Fates, grinning, had done all that. Her Chicago tailor and millinerhad completed the work. Sophy had not been in Paris ten minutes beforeshe noticed that they were wearing 'em long and full. Her coat was shortand her skirt scant. Her hat was small. The Paris windows were full oflarge and graceful black velvets of the Lillian Russell school. 

"May I sit here?"

Sophy looked up into the plump, pink, smiling face of one of those verywomen of the buyer type on whom she had speculated ten minutes before--agood-natured face with shrewd, twinkling eyes. At sight of it youforgave her her skittish white-kid-topped shoes. 

"Certainly, " smiled Sophy, and moved over a bit on the little Frenchsettee. 

The plump woman sat down heavily. In five minutes Sophy was consciousshe was being stared at surreptitiously. In ten minutes she wasuncomfortably conscious of it. In eleven minutes she turned her headsuddenly and caught the stout woman's eyes fixed on her, with just thebaffled, speculative expression she had expected to find in them. SophyGold had caught that look in many women's eyes. She smiled grimly now. 

"Don't try it, " she said, "It's no use. "

The pink, plump face flushed pinker. 

"Don't try--"

"Don't try to convince yourself that if I wore my hair differently, ormy collar tighter, or my hat larger, it would make a difference in mylooks. It wouldn't. It's hard to believe that I'm as homely as I look, but I am. I've watched women try to dress me in as many as eleven mentalchanges of costume before they gave me up. "

"But I didn't mean--I beg your pardon--you mustn't think--"

"Oh, that's all right! I used to struggle, but I'm used to it now. Ittook me a long time to realise that this was my real face and the onlykind I could ever expect to have. "

The plump woman's kindly face grew kinder. 

"But you're really not so--"

"Oh, yes, I am. Upholstering can't change me. There are various kinds ofhomely women--some who are hideous in blue maybe, but who soften up inpink. Then there's the one you read about, whose features are lighted upnow and then by one of those rare, sweet smiles that make her plain facealmost beautiful. But once in a while you find a woman who is ugly inany colour of the rainbow; who is ugly smiling or serious, talking or inrepose, hair down low or hair done high--just plain dyed-in-the-wool, sewed-in-the-seam homely. I'm that kind. Here for a visit?"

"I'm a buyer, " said the plump woman. 

"Yes; I thought so. I'm the lingerie and infants'-wear buyer for Schiff, Chicago. "

"A buyer!" The plump woman's eyes jumped uncontrollably again to SophyGold's scrambled features. "Well! My name's Miss Morrissey--EllaMorrissey. Millinery for Abelman's, Pittsburgh. And it's no snap thisyear, with the shops showing postage-stamp hats one day and cart-wheelsthe next. I said this morning that I envied the head of the tinwaredepartment. Been over often?"

Sophy made the shamefaced confession of the novice: "My first trip. "

The inevitable answer came:

"Your first! Really! This is my twentieth crossing. Been coming overtwice a year for ten years. If there's anything I can tell you, justask. The first buying trip to Paris is hard until you know the ropes. Ofcourse you love this town?"

Sophy Gold sat silent a moment, hesitating. Then she turned a puzzledface toward Miss Morrissey. 

"What do people mean when they say they love Paris?"

Ella Morrissey stared. Then a queer look came into her face--a pityingsort of look. The shrewd eyes softened. She groped for words. 

"When I first came over here, ten years ago, I--well, it would have beeneasier to tell you then. I don't know--there's something aboutParis--something in the atmosphere--something in the air. It--it makesyou do foolish things. It makes you feel queer and light and happy. It'snothing you can put your finger on and say 'That's it!' But it's there. "

"Huh!" grunted Sophy Gold. "I suppose I could save myself a lot oftrouble by saying that I feel it; but I don't. I simply don't react tothis town. The only things I really like in Paris are the Tomb ofNapoleon, the Seine at night, and the strawberry tart you get at Vian's. Of course the parks and boulevards are a marvel, but you can't expect meto love a town for that. I'm no landscape gardener. "

That pitying look deepened in Miss Morrissey's eyes. 

"Have you been out in the evening? The restaurants! The French women!The life!"

Sophy Gold caught the pitying look and interpreted it withoutresentment; but there was perhaps an added acid in her tone when shespoke. 

"I'm here to buy--not to play. I'm thirty years old, and it's taken meten years to work my way up to foreign buyer. I've worked. And I wasn'thandicapped any by my beauty. I've made up my mind that I'm going to buythe smoothest-moving line of French lingerie and infants' wear thatSchiff Brothers ever had. "

Miss Morrissey checked her. 

"But, my dear girl, haven't you been round at all?"

"Oh, a little; as much as a woman can go round alone in Paris--even ahomely woman. But I've been disappointed every time. The noise drives mewild, to begin with. Not that I'm not used to noise. I am. I can standfor a town that roars, like Chicago. But this city yelps. I've beengoing round to the restaurants a little. At noon I always picked therestaurant I wanted, so long as I had to pay for the lunch of the_commissionnaire_ who was with me anyway. Can you imagine any man athome letting a woman pay for his meals the way those shrimpy Frenchmendo?

"Well, the restaurants were always jammed full of Americans. The men ofthe party would look over the French menu in a helpless sort of way, andthen they'd say: 'What do you say to a nice big steak with French-friedpotatoes?' The waiter would give them a disgusted look and put in theorder. They might just as well have been eating at a quick lunch place. As for the French women, every time I picked what I took to be a realParisienne coming toward me I'd hear her say as she passed: 'Henry, I'mgoing over to the Galerie Lafayette. I'll meet you at the AmericanExpress at twelve. And, Henry, I think I'll need some more money. '"

Miss Ella Morrissey's twinkling eyes almost disappeared in wrinkles oflaughter; but Sophy Gold was not laughing. As she talked she gazedgrimly ahead at the throng that shifted and glittered and laughed andchattered all about her. 

"I stopped work early one afternoon and went over across the river. Well! They may be artistic, but they all looked as though they needed ashave and a hair-cut and a square meal. And the girls!"

Ella Morrissey raised a plump, protesting palm. 

"Now look here, child, Paris isn't so much a city as a state of mind. Toenjoy it you've got to forget you're an American. Don't look at it froma Chicago, Illinois, viewpoint. Just try to imagine you're a mixture ofMontmartre girl, Latin Quarter model and duchess from the ChampsÉlysées. Then you'll get it. "

"Get it!" retorted Sophy Gold. "If I could do that I wouldn't be buyinglingerie and infants' wear for Schiffs'. I'd be crowding Duse andBernhardt and Mrs. Fiske off the boards. "

Miss Morrissey sat silent and thoughtful, rubbing one fat forefingerslowly up and down her knee. Suddenly she turned. 

"Don't be angry--but have you ever been in love?"

"Look at me!" replied Sophy Gold simply. Miss Morrissey reddened alittle. "As head of the lingerie section I've selected trousseaus for Idon't know how many Chicago brides; but I'll never have to decidewhether I'll have pink or blue ribbons for my own. "

With a little impulsive gesture Ella Morrissey laid one hand on theshoulder of her new acquaintance. 

"Come on up and visit me, will you? I made them give me an inside room, away from the noise. Too many people down here. Besides, I'd like totake off this armour-plate of mine and get comfortable. When a girl getsas old and fat as I am--"

"There are some letters I ought to get out, " Sophy Gold protestedfeebly. 

"Yes; I know. We all have; but there's such a thing as overdoing thisduty to the firm. You get up at six to-morrow morning and slap offthose letters. They'll come easier and sound less tired. "

They made for the lift; but at its very gates:

"Hello, little girl!" cried a masculine voice; and a detaining hand waslaid on Ella Morrissey's plump shoulder. 

That lady recognised the voice and the greeting before she turned toface their source. Max Tack, junior partner in the firm of TackBrothers, Lingerie and Infants' Wear, New York, held out an eager hand. 

"Hello, Max!" said Miss Morrissey not too cordially. "My, aren't youdressy!"

He was undeniably dressy--not that only, but radiant with theself-confidence born of good looks, of well-fitting evening clothes, ofa fresh shave, of glistening nails. Max Tack, of the hard eye and thesoft smile, of the slim figure and the semi-bald head, of the flatteringtongue and the business brain, bent his attention full on the very plainMiss Sophy Gold. 

"Aren't you going to introduce me?" he demanded. 

Miss Morrissey introduced them, buyer fashion--names, businessconnection, and firms. 

"I knew you were Miss Gold, " began Max Tack, the honey-tongued. "Someone pointed you out to me yesterday. I've been trying to meet you eversince. "

"I hope you haven't neglected your business, " said Miss Gold withoutenthusiasm. 

Max Tack leaned closer, his tone lowered. 

"I'd neglect it any day for you. Listen, little one: aren't you goingto take dinner with me some evening?"

Max Tack always called a woman "Little one. " It was part of his businessformula. He was only one of the wholesalers who go to Paris yearlyostensibly to buy models, but really to pay heavy diplomatic court tothose hundreds of women buyers who flock to that city in the interestsof their firms. To entertain those buyers who were interested in goodssuch as he manufactured in America; to win their friendship; to makethem feel under obligation at least to inspect his line when they cameto New York--that was Max Tack's mission in Paris. He performed itadmirably. 

"What evening?" he said now. "How about to-morrow?" Sophy Gold shook herhead. "Wednesday then? You stick to me and you'll see Paris. Thursday?"

"I'm buying my own dinners, " said Sophy Gold. 

Max Tack wagged a chiding forefinger at her. 

"You little rascal!" No one had ever called Sophy Gold a little rascalbefore. "You stingy little rascal! Won't give a poor lonesome fellow anevening's pleasure, eh! The theatre? Want to go slumming?"

He was feeling his way now, a trifle puzzled. Usually he landed a buyerat the first shot. Of course you had to use tact and discrimination. Some you took to supper and to the naughty _revues_. 

Occasionally you found a highbrow one who preferred the opera. Had henot sat through Parsifal the week before? And nearly died! Some wantedto begin at Tod Sloan's bar and work their way up through Montmartre, ending with breakfast at the Pré Catalan. Those were the greedy ones. But this one!

"What's she stalling for--with that face?" he asked himself. 

Sophy Gold was moving toward the lift, the twinkling-eyed Miss Morrisseywith her. 

"I'm working too hard to play. Thanks, just the same. Good-night. "

Max Tack, his face blank, stood staring up at them as the lift began toascend. 

"_Trazyem_, " said Miss Morrissey grandly to the lift man. 

"Third, " replied that linguistic person, unimpressed. 

It turned out to be soothingly quiet and cool in Ella Morrissey's room. She flicked on the light and turned an admiring glance on Sophy Gold. 

"Is that your usual method?"

"I haven't any method, " Miss Gold seated herself by the window. "ButI've worked too hard for this job of mine to risk it by putting myselfunder obligations to any New York firm. It simply means that you've gotto buy their goods. It isn't fair to your firm. "

Miss Morrissey was busy with hooks and eyes and strings. Her utterancewas jerky but concise. At one stage of her disrobing she breathed agreat sigh of relief as she flung a heavy garment from her. 

"There! That's comfort! Nights like this I wish I had that back porch ofour flat to sit on for just an hour. Ma has flower boxes all round it, and I bought one of those hammock couches last year. When I come homefrom the store summer evenings I peel and get into my old blue-and-whitekimono and lie there, listening to the girl stirring the iced tea forsupper, and knowing that Ma has a platter of her swell cold fish withegg sauce!" She relaxed into an armchair. "Tell me, do you always talkto men that way?"

Sophy Gold was still staring out the open window. 

"They don't bother me much, as a rule. "

"Max Tack isn't a bad boy. He never wastes much time on me. I don't buyhis line. Max is all business. Of course he's something of a smarty, andhe does think he's the first verse and chorus of Paris-by-night; but youcan't help liking him. "

"Well, I can, " said Sophy Gold, and her voice was a little bitter, "andwithout half trying. "

"Oh, I don't say you weren't right. I've always made it a rule to steerclear of the ax-grinders myself. There are plenty of girls who takeeverything they can get. I know that Max Tack is just padded withletters from old girls, beginning 'Dear Kid, ' and ending, 'Yours with aworld of love!' I don't believe in that kind of thing, or in acceptingthings. Julia Harris, who buys for three departments in our store, drives up every morning in the French car that Parmentier's gave herwhen she was here last year. That's bad principle and poor taste. But--Well, you're young; and there ought to be something besidesbusiness in your life. "

Sophy Gold turned her face from the window toward Miss Morrissey. Itserved to put a stamp of finality on what she said:

"There never will be. I don't know anything but business. It's the onlything I care about. I'll be earning my ten thousand a year pretty soon. "

"Ten thousand a year is a lot; but it isn't everything. Oh, no, itisn't. Look here, dear; nobody knows better than I how this working andbeing independent and earning your own good money puts the stopper onany sentiment a girl might have in her; but don't let it sour you. Youlose your illusions soon enough, goodness knows! There's no use insmashing 'em out of pure meanness. "

"I don't see what illusions have got to do with Max Tack, " interruptedSophy Gold. 

Miss Morrissey laughed her fat, comfortable chuckle. 

"I suppose you're right, and I guess I've been getting a lee-tle bitnosey; but I'm pretty nearly old enough to be your mother. The girlskind of come to me and I talk to 'em. I guess they've spoiled me. They--"

There came a smart rapping at the door, followed by certain giggling andswishing. Miss Morrissey smiled. 

"That'll be some of 'em now. Just run and open the door, will you, likea nice little thing? I'm too beat out to move. "

The swishing swelled to a mighty rustle as the door opened. Taffeta wasgood this year, and the three who entered were the last in the world toleave you in ignorance of that fact. Ella Morrissey presented her newfriend to the three, giving the department each represented as one wouldmention a title or order. 

"The little plump one in black?--Ladies' and Misses' Ready-to-wear, Gates Company, Portland. . . . That's a pretty hat, Carrie. Get it to-day?Give me a big black velvet every time. You can wear 'em with anything, and yet they're dressy too. Just now small hats are distinctly passy. 

"The handsome one who's dressed the way you always imagined theParisiennes would dress, but don't?--Fancy Goods, Stein & Stack, SanFrancisco. Listen, Fan: don't go back to San Francisco with that stuffon your lips. It's all right in Paris, where all the women do it; butyou know as well as I do that Morry Stein would take one look at you andthen tell you to go upstairs and wash your face. Well, I'm just tellingyou as a friend. 

"That little trick is the biggest lace buyer in the country. . . . No, youwouldn't, would you? Such a mite! Even if she does wear a twenty-eightblouse she's got a forty-two brain--haven't you, Belle? You didn't makea mistake with that blue crêpe de chine, child. It's chic and yet it'sgirlish. And you can wear it on the floor, too, when you get home. It'squiet if it is stunning. "

These five, as they sat there that June evening, knew what your wife andyour sister and your mother would wear on Fifth Avenue or MichiganAvenue next October. On their shrewd, unerring judgment rested thesuccess or failure of many hundreds of feminine garments. The lace forMiss Minnesota's lingerie; the jewelled comb in Miss Colorado's hair;the hat that would grace Miss New Hampshire; the dress for MadamDelaware--all were the results of their farsighted selection. They wereforagers of feminine fal-lals, and their booty would be distributed fromoyster cove to orange grove. 

They were marcelled and manicured within an inch of their lives. Theyrustled and a pleasant perfume clung about them. Their hats were sosmart that they gave you a shock. Their shoes were correct. Their skirtsbunched where skirts should bunch that year or lay smooth wheresmoothness was decreed. They looked like the essence of frivolity--untilyou saw their eyes; and then you noticed that that which is liquid insheltered women's eyes was crystallised in theirs. 

Sophy Gold, listening to them, felt strangely out of it and plainer thanever. 

"I'm taking tango lessons, Ella, " chirped Miss Laces. "Every time I wentto New York last year I sat and twiddled my thumbs while every one elsewas dancing. I've made up my mind I'll be in it this year. "

"You girls are wonders!" Miss Morrissey marvelled. "I can't do it anymore. If I was to work as hard as I have to during the day and then runround the way you do in the evening they'd have to hold services for meat sea. I'm getting old. "

"You--old!" This from Miss Ready-to-Wear. "You're younger now than I'llever be. Oh, Ella, I got six stunning models at Estelle Mornet's. There's a business woman for you! Her place is smart from the groundfloor up--not like the shabby old junk shops the others have. And shegreets you herself. The personal touch! Let me tell you, it counts inbusiness!"

"I'd go slow on those cape blouses if I were you; I don't think they'regoing to take at home. They look like regular Third Avenue style to me. "

"Don't worry. I've hardly touched them. "

They talked very directly, like men, when they discussed clothes; for tothem a clothes talk meant a business talk. 

The telephone buzzed. The three sprang up, rustling. 

"That'll be for us, Ella, " said Miss Fancy Goods. "We told the office tocall us here. The boys are probably downstairs. " She answered the call, turned, nodded, smoothed her gloves and preened her laces. 

Ella Morrissey, in kimonoed comfort, waved a good-bye from her armchair. "Have a good time! You all look lovely. Oh, we met Max Tack downstairs, looking like a grand duke!"

Pert Miss Laces turned at the door, giggling. 

"He says the French aristocracy has nothing on him, because hisgrandfather was one of the original Ten Ikes of New York. "

A final crescendo of laughter, a last swishing of silks, a breath ofperfume from the doorway and they were gone. 

Within the room the two women sat looking at the closed door for amoment. Then Ella Morrissey turned to look at Sophy Gold just as SophyGold turned to look at Ella Morrissey. 

"Well?" smiled Ella. 

Sophy Gold smiled too--a mirthless, one-sided smile. 

"I felt just like this once when I was a little girl. I went to a party, and all the other little girls had yellow curls. Maybe some of them hadbrown ones; but I only remember a maze of golden hair, and pink and bluesashes, and rosy cheeks, and ardent little boys, and the sureness ofthose little girls--their absolute faith in their power to enthrall, andin the perfection of their curls and sashes. I went home before the icecream. And I love ice cream!"

Ella Morrissey's eyes narrowed thoughtfully. 

"Then the next time you're invited to a party you wait for the icecream, girlie. "

"Maybe I will, " said Sophy Gold. 

The party came two nights later. It was such a very modest affair thatone would hardly call it that--least of all Max Tack, who had spentseventy-five dollars the night before in entertaining an importantprospective buyer. 

On her way to her room that sultry June night Sophy had encountered thepersistent Tack. Ella Morrissey, up in her room, was fathoms deep inwork. It was barely eight o'clock and there was a wonderful opal sky--aJune twilight sky, of which Paris makes a specialty--all grey and roseand mauve and faint orange. 

"Somebody's looking mighty sweet to-night in her new Paris duds!"

Max Tack's method of approach never varied in its simplicity. 

"They're not Paris--they're Chicago. "

His soul was in his eyes. 

"They certainly don't look it!" Then, with a little hurt look in thosesame expressive features: "I suppose, after the way you threw me downhard the other night, you wouldn't come out and play somewhere, wouldyou--if I sat up and begged and jumped through this?"

"It's too warm for most things, " Sophy faltered. 

"Anywhere your little heart dictates, " interrupted Max Tack ardently. "Just name it. "

Sophy looked up. 

"Well, then, I'd like to take one of those boats and go down the riverto St. -Cloud. The station's just back of the Louvre. We've just time tocatch the eight-fifteen boat. "

"Boat!" echoed Max Tack stupidly. Then, in revolt: "Why, say, girlie, you don't want to do that! What is there in taking an old tub andflopping down that dinky stream? Tell you what we'll do: we'll--"

"No, thanks, " said Sophy. "And it really doesn't matter. You simplyasked me what I'd like to do and I told you. Thanks. Good-night. "

"Now, now!" pleaded Max Tack in a panic. "Of course we'll go. I justthought you'd rather do something fussier--that's all. I've never gonedown the river; but I think that's a classy little idea--yes, I do. Nowyou run and get your hat and we'll jump into a taxi and--"

"You don't need to jump into a taxi; it's only two blocks. We'll walk. "

There was a little crowd down at the landing station. Max Tack noticed, with immense relief, that they were not half-bad-looking people either. He had been rather afraid of workmen in red sashes and with lime ontheir clothes, especially after Sophy had told him that a trip costtwenty centimes each. 

"Twenty centimes! That's about four cents! Well, my gad!"

They got seats in the prow. Sophy took off her hat and turned her facegratefully to the cool breeze as they swung out into the river. TheParis of the rumbling, roaring auto buses, and the honking horns, andthe shrill cries, and the mad confusion faded away. There was thepalely glowing sky ahead, and on each side the black reflection of thetree-laden banks, mistily mysterious now and very lovely. There was nota ripple on the water and the Pont Alexandre III and the golden glory ofthe dome of the Hôtel des Invalides were ahead. 

"Say, this is Venice!" exclaimed Max Tack. 

A soft and magic light covered the shore, the river, the sky, and a softand magic something seemed to steal over the little boat and work itswonders. The shabby student-looking chap and his equally shabby andmerry little companion, both Americans, closed the bag of fruit fromwhich they had been munching and sat looking into each other's eyes. 

The long-haired artist, who looked miraculously like pictures of RobertLouis Stevenson, smiled down at his queer, slender-legged littledaughter in the curious Cubist frock; and she smiled back and snuggledup and rested her cheek on his arm. There seemed to be a deep and silentunderstanding between them. You knew, somehow, that the little Cubistdaughter had no mother, and that the father's artist friends made muchof her and that she poured tea for them prettily on special days. 

The bepowdered French girl who got on at the second station sat franklyand contentedly in the embrace of her sweetheart. The stolid marriedcouple across the way smiled and the man's arm rested on his wife'splump shoulder. 

So the love boat glided down the river into the night. And the shorefaded and became grey, and then black. And the lights came out and castslender pillars of gold and green and scarlet on the water. 

Max Tack's hand moved restlessly, sought Sophy's, found it, clasped it. Sophy's hand had never been clasped like that before. She did not knowwhat to do with it, so she did nothing--which was just what she shouldhave done. 

"Warm enough?" asked Max Tack tenderly. 

"Just right, " murmured Sophy. 

The dream trip ended at St. -Cloud. They learned to their dismay that theboat did not return to Paris. But how to get back? They asked questions, sought direction--always a frantic struggle in Paris. Sophy, in theglare of the street light, looked uglier than ever. 

"Just a minute, " said Max Tack. "I'll find a taxi. "

"Nonsense! That man said the street car passed right here, and that weshould get off at the Bois. Here it is now! Come on!"

Max Tack looked about helplessly, shrugged his shoulders and gave it up. 

"You certainly make a fellow hump, " he said, not without a note ofadmiration. "And why are you so afraid that I'll spend some money?" ashe handed the conductor the tiny fare. 

"I don't know--unless it's because I've had to work so hard all my lifefor mine. "

At Porte Maillot they took one of the flock of waiting _fiacres_. 

"But you don't want to go home yet!" protested Max Tack. 

"I--I think I should like to drive in the Bois Park--if you don'tmind--that is--"

"Mind!" cried the gallant and game Max Tack. 

Now Max Tack was no villain; but it never occurred to him that one mightdrive in the Bois with a girl and not make love to her. If he had drivenwith Aurora in her chariot he would have held her hand and called hertender names. So, because he was he, and because this was Paris, andbecause it was so dark that one could not see Sophy's extreme plainness, he took her unaccustomed hand again in his. 

"This little hand was never meant for work, " he murmured. 

Sophy, the acid, the tart, said nothing. The Bois Park at night is amystery maze and lovely beyond adjectives. And the horse of thatparticular _fiacre_ wore a little tinkling bell that somehow added tothe charm of the night. A waterfall, unseen, tumbled and frothed nearby. A turn in the winding road brought them to an open stretch, and theysaw the world bathed in the light of a yellow, mellow, roguish Parismoon. And Max Tack leaned over quietly and kissed Sophy Gold on thelips. 

Now Sophy Gold had never been kissed in just that way before. You wouldhave thought she would not know what to do; but the plainest woman, aswell as the loveliest, has the centuries back of her. Sophy's mother, and her mother's mother, and her mother's mother's mother had beenkissed before her. So they told her to say:

"You shouldn't have done that. "

And the answer, too, was backed by the centuries:

"I know it; but I couldn't help it. Don't be angry!"

"You know, " said Sophy with a little tremulous laugh, "I'm very, veryugly--when it isn't moonlight. "

"Paris, " spake Max Tack, diplomat, "is so full of medium-lookers whothink they're pretty, and of pretty ones who think they're beauties, that it sort of rests my jaw and mind to be with some one who hasn't anyfake notions to feed. They're all right; but give me a woman with brainsevery time. " Which was a lie!

They drove home down the Bois--the cool, spacious, tree-borderedBois--and through the Champs Élysées. Because he was an artist in hisway, and because every passing _fiacre_ revealed the same picture, MaxTack sat very near her and looked very tender and held her hand in his. It would have raised a laugh at Broadway and Forty-second. It was quite, quite sane and very comforting in Paris. 

At the door of the hotel:

"I'm sailing Wednesday, " said Max Tack. "You--you won't forget me?"

"Oh, no--no!"

"You'll call me up or run into the office when you get to New York?"

"Oh, yes!"

He walked with her to the lift, said good-bye and returned to the_fiacre_ with the tinkling bell. There was a stunned sort of look in hisface. The _fiacre_ meter registered two francs seventy. Max Tack did alightning mental calculation. The expression on his face deepened. Helooked up at the cabby--the red-faced, bottle-nosed cabby, with hisabsurd scarlet vest, his mustard-coloured trousers and his glazed tophat. 

"Well, can you beat that? Three francs thirty for the evening'sentertainment! Why--why, all she wanted was just a little love!"

To the bottle-nosed one all conversation in a foreign language meantdissatisfaction with the meter. He tapped that glass-covered contrivanceimpatiently with his whip. A flood of French bubbled at his lips. 

"It's all right, boy! It's all right! You don't get me!" And Max Tackedpressed a five-franc piece into the outstretched palm. Then to the hotelporter: "Just grab a taxi for me, will you? These tubs make me nervous. "

Sophy, on her way to her room, hesitated, turned, then ran up the stairsto the next floor and knocked gently at Miss Morrissey's door. A momentlater that lady's kimonoed figure loomed large in the doorway. 

"Who is--oh, it's you! Well, I was just going to have them drag theSeine for you. Come in!"

She went back to the table. Sheets of paper, rough sketches of hatmodels done from memory, notes and letters lay scattered all about. Sophy leaned against the door dreamily. 

"I've been working this whole mortal evening, " went on Ella Morrissey, holding up a pencil sketch and squinting at it disapprovingly over herworking spectacles, "and I'm so tired that one eye's shut and theother's running on first. Where've you been, child?"

"Oh, driving!" Sophy's limp hair was a shade limper than usual, and astrand of it had become loosened and straggled untidily down over herear. Her eyes looked large and strangely luminous. "Do you know, I loveParis!"

Ella Morrissey laid down her pencil sketch and turned slowly. Shesurveyed Sophy Gold, her shrewd eyes twinkling. 

"That so? What made you change your mind?"

The dreamy look in Sophy's eyes deepened. 

"Why--I don't know. There's something in the atmosphere--something inthe air. It makes you do and say foolish things. It makes you feel queerand light and happy. "

Ella Morrissey's bright twinkle softened to a glow. She stared foranother brief moment. Then she trundled over to where Sophy stood andpatted her leathery cheek. "Welcome to our city!" said Miss EllaMorrissey. 

XI

THE THREE OF THEM

For eleven years Martha Foote, head housekeeper at the Senate Hotel, Chicago, had catered, unseen, and ministered, unknown, to that great, careless, shifting, conglomerate mass known as the Travelling Public. Wholesale hostessing was Martha Foote's job. Senators and suffragists, ambassadors and first families had found ease and comfort under MarthaFoote's régime. Her carpets had bent their nap to the tread of kings, and show girls, and buyers from Montana. Her sheets had soothed thetired limbs of presidents, and princesses, and prima donnas. For theSenate Hotel is more than a hostelry; it is a Chicago institution. Thewhole world is churned in at its revolving front door. 

For eleven years Martha Foote, then, had beheld humanity throwing itsgrimy suitcases on her immaculate white bedspreads; wiping its muddyboots on her bath towels; scratching its matches on her wall paper;scrawling its pencil marks on her cream woodwork; spilling its greasycrumbs on her carpet; carrying away her dresser scarfs and pincushions. There is no supremer test of character. Eleven years of hotelhousekeepership guarantees a knowledge of human nature that includessome things no living being ought to know about her fellow men. Andinevitably one of two results must follow. You degenerate into a bitter, waspish, and fault-finding shrew; or you develop into a patient, tolerant, and infinitely understanding woman. Martha Foote dealt dailywith Polack scrub girls, and Irish porters, and Swedish chambermaids, and Swiss waiters, and Halsted Street bell-boys. Italian tenors friedonions in her Louis-Quinze suite. College boys burned cigarette holes inher best linen sheets. Yet any one connected with the Senate Hotel, fromPete the pastry cook to H. G. Featherstone, lessee-director, could vouchfor Martha Foote's serene unacidulation. 

 * * * * *

Don't gather from this that Martha Foote was a beaming, motherly personwho called you dearie. Neither was she one of those managerial andmagnificent blonde beings occasionally encountered in hotel corridors, engaged in addressing strident remarks to a damp and crawling huddle ofcalico that is doing something sloppy to the woodwork. Perhaps theshortest cut to Martha Foote's character is through Martha Foote'sbedroom. (Twelfth floor. Turn to your left. That's it; 1246. Come in!)

In the long years of its growth and success the Senate Hotel had knownthe usual growing pains. Starting with walnut and red plush it had, inits adolescence, broken out all over into brass beds and birds'-eyemaple. This, in turn, had vanished before mahogany veneer and brocade. Hardly had the white scratches on these ruddy surfaces been doctored bythe house painter when--whisk! Away with that sombre stuff! And inminced a whole troupe of near-French furnishings; cream enamel beds, cane-backed; spindle-legged dressing tables before which it wasimpossible to dress; perilous chairs with raspberry complexions. Throughall these changes Martha Foote, in her big, bright twelfth floor room, had clung to her old black walnut set. 

The bed, to begin with, was a massive, towering edifice with a headboardthat scraped the lofty ceiling. Head and foot-board were fretted andcarved with great blobs representing grapes, and cornucopias, andtendrils, and knobs and other bedevilments of the cabinet-maker's craft. It had been polished and rubbed until now it shone like soft brownsatin. There was a monumental dresser too, with a liver-coloured marbletop. Along the wall, near the windows, was a couch; a heavy, wheezing, fat-armed couch decked out in white ruffled cushions. I suppose the merestatement that, in Chicago, Illinois, Martha Foote kept these cushionsalways crisply white, would make any further characterizationsuperfluous. The couch made you think of a plump grandmother of bygonedays, a beruffled white fichu across her ample, comfortable bosom. Thenthere was the writing desk; a substantial structure that bore norelation to the pindling rose-and-cream affairs that graced the guestrooms. It was the solid sort of desk at which an English novelist of thethree-volume school might have written a whole row of books withoutlosing his dignity or cramping his style. Martha Foote used it formaking out reports and instruction sheets, for keeping accounts, and forher small private correspondence. 

Such was Martha Foote's room. In a modern and successful hotel, whosefoyer was rose-shaded, brass-grilled, peacock-alleyed and tessellated, that bed-sitting-room of hers was as wholesome, and satisfying, and realas a piece of home-made rye bread on a tray of French pastry; and asincongruous. 

It was to the orderly comfort of these accustomed surroundings that thehousekeeper of the Senate Hotel opened her eyes this Tuesday morning. Opened them, and lay a moment, bridging the morphean chasm that laybetween last night and this morning. It was 6:30 A. M. It is bad enoughto open one's eyes at 6:30 on Monday morning. But to open them at 6:30on Tuesday morning, after an indigo Monday. . . . The taste of yesterdaylingered, brackish, in Martha's mouth. 

"Oh, well, it won't be as bad as yesterday, anyway. It can't. " So sheassured herself, as she lay there. "There never were _two_ days likethat, hand running. Not even in the hotel business. "

For yesterday had been what is known as a muddy Monday. Thick, murky, and oozy with trouble. Two conventions, three banquets, the lobby sofull of khaki that it looked like a sand-storm, a threatened strike inthe laundry, a travelling man in two-twelve who had the grippe andthought he was dying, a shortage of towels (that bugaboo of the hotelhousekeeper) due to the laundry trouble that had kept the linen-roomtelephone jangling to the tune of a hundred damp and irate guests. Andweaving in and out, and above, and about and through it all, like aneuralgic toothache that can't be located, persisted the constant, nagging, maddening complaints of the Chronic Kicker in six-eighteen. 

Six-eighteen was a woman. She had arrived Monday morning, early. ByMonday night every girl on the switchboard had the nervous jumps whenthey plugged in at her signal. She had changed her rooms, and backagain. She had quarrelled with the room clerk. She had complained to theoffice about the service, the food, the linen, the lights, the noise, the chambermaid, all the bell-boys, and the colour of the furnishings inher suite. She said she couldn't live with that colour. It made hersick. Between 8:30 and 10:30 that night, there had come a lull. Six-eighteen was doing her turn at the Majestic. 

Martha Foote knew that. She knew, too, that her name was Geisha McCoy, and she knew what that name meant, just as you do. She had even laughedand quickened and responded to Geisha McCoy's manipulation of heraudience, just as you have. Martha Foote knew the value of the personalnote, and it had been her idea that had resulted in the rule whichobliged elevator boys, chambermaids, floor clerks, doormen and waitersif possible, to learn the names of Senate Hotel guests, no matter howbrief their stay. 

"They like it, " she had said, to Manager Brant. "You know that betterthan I do. They'll be flattered, and surprised, and tickled to death, and they'll go back to Burlington, Iowa, and tell how well known theyare at the Senate. "

When the suggestion was met with the argument that no human being couldbe expected to perform such daily feats of memory Martha Foote batteredit down with:

"That's just where you're mistaken. The first few days are bad. Afterthat it's easier every day, until it becomes mechanical. I remember whenI first started waiting on table in my mother's quick lunch eating housein Sorghum, Minnesota. I'd bring 'em wheat cakes when they'd orderedpork and beans, but it wasn't two weeks before I could take six orders, from soup to pie, without so much as forgetting the catsup. Habit, that's all. "

So she, as well as the minor hotel employés, knew six-eighteen as GeishaMcCoy. Geisha McCoy, who got a thousand a week for singing a few songsand chatting informally with the delighted hundreds on the other side ofthe footlights. Geisha McCoy made nothing of those same footlights. Shereached out, so to speak, and shook hands with you across their amberglare. Neither lovely nor alluring, this woman. And as for hervoice!--And yet for ten years or more this rather plain person, somewhatdumpy, no longer young, had been singing her every-day, human songsabout every-day, human people. And invariably (and figuratively) heraudience clambered up over the footlights, and sat in her lap. She hadnever resorted to cheap music-hall tricks. She had never invited thegallery to join in the chorus. She descended to no finger-snapping. Butwhen she sang a song about a waitress she was a waitress. She neverhesitated to twist up her hair, and pull down her mouth, to get aneffect. She didn't seem to be thinking about herself, at all, or abouther clothes, or her method, or her effort, or anything but the audiencethat was plastic to her deft and magic manipulation. 

Until very recently. Six months had wrought a subtle change in GeishaMcCoy. She still sang her every-day, human songs about every-day, humanpeople. But you failed, somehow, to recognise them as such. They soundedsawdust-stuffed. And you were likely to hear the man behind you say, "Yeh, but you ought to have heard her five years ago. She's aboutthrough. "

Such was six-eighteen. Martha Foote, luxuriating in that one deliciousmoment between her 6:30 awakening, and her 6:31 arising, mused on thesethings. She thought of how, at eleven o'clock the night before, hertelephone had rung with the sharp zing! of trouble. The voice of IrishNellie, on night duty on the sixth floor, had sounded thick-brogued, sure sign of distress with her. 

"I'm sorry to be a-botherin' ye, Mis' Phut. It's Nellie speakin'--IrishNellie on the sixt'. "

"What's the trouble, Nellie?"

"It's that six-eighteen again. She's goin' on like mad. She's carryin'on something fierce. "

"What about?"

"Th'--th' blankets, Mis' Phut. "

"Blankets?--"

"She says--it's her wurruds, not mine--she says they're vile. Vile, shesays. "

Martha Foote's spine had stiffened. "In this house! Vile!"

If there was one thing more than another upon which Martha Foote pridedherself it was the Senate Hotel bed coverings. Creamy, spotless, downy, they were her especial fad. "Brocade chairs, and pink lamps, and goldsnake-work are all well and good, " she was wont to say, "and so areAmerican Beauties in the lobby and white gloves on the elevator boys. But it's the blankets on the beds that stamp a hotel first or secondclass. " And now this, from Nellie. 

"I know how ye feel, an' all. I sez to 'er, I sez: 'There never was ablanket in this _house_, ' I sez, 'that didn't look as if it cud besarved up wit' whipped cr-ream, ' I sez, 'an' et, ' I sez to her; 'an'fu'thermore, ' I sez--"

"Never mind, Nellie. I know. But we never argue with guests. You knowthat rule as well as I. The guest is right--always. I'll send up thelinen-room keys. You get fresh blankets; new ones. And no arguments. ButI want to see those--those vile--"

"Listen, Mis' Phut. " Irish Nellie's voice, until now shrill withrighteous anger, dropped a discreet octave. "I seen 'em. An' they _are_vile. Wait a minnit! But why? Becus that there maid of hers--that yella'hussy--give her a body massage, wit' cold cream an' all, usin' th'blankets f'r coverin', an' smearin' 'em right _an'_ lift. This wasafther they come back from th' theayter. Th' crust of thim people, usingthe iligent blankets off'n the beds t'--"

"Good night, Nellie. And thank you. "

"Sure, ye know I'm that upset f'r distarbin' yuh, an' all, but--"

Martha Foote cast an eye toward the great walnut bed. "That's all right. Only, Nellie--"

"Yesm'm. "

"If I'm disturbed again on that woman's account for anything less thanmurder--"

"Yesm'm?"

"Well, there'll _be_ one, that's all. Good night. "

Such had been Monday's cheerful close. 

Martha Foote sat up in bed, now, preparatory to the heroic flingingaside of the covers. "No, " she assured herself, "it can't be as bad asyesterday. " She reached round and about her pillow, groping for therecalcitrant hairpin that always slipped out during the night; found it, and twisted her hair into a hard bathtub bun. 

With a jangle that tore through her half-wakened senses the telephone ather bedside shrilled into life. Martha Foote, hairpin in mouth, turnedand eyed it, speculatively, fearfully. It shrilled on in her very face, and there seemed something taunting and vindictive about it. One longring, followed by a short one; a long ring, a short. "Ca-a-an't it?Ca-a-an't it?"

"Something tells me I'm wrong, " Martha Foote told herself, ruefully, andreached for the blatant, snarling thing. 

"Yes?"

"Mrs. Foote? This is Healy, the night clerk. Say, Mrs. Foote, I thinkyou'd better step down to six-eighteen and see what's--"

"I _am_ wrong, " said Martha Foote. 

"What's that?"

"Nothing. Go on. Will I step down to six-eighteen and--?"

"She's sick, or something. Hysterics, I'd say. As far as I could makeout it was something about a noise, or a sound or--Anyway, she can'tlocate it, and her maid says if we don't stop it right away--"

"I'll go down. Maybe it's the plumbing. Or the radiator. Did you ask?"

"No, nothing like that. She kept talking about a wail. "

"A what!"

"A wail. A kind of groaning, you know. And then dull raps on the wall, behind the bed. "

"Now look here, Ed Healy; I get up at 6:30, but I can't see a jokebefore ten. If you're trying to be funny!--"

"Funny! Why, say, listen, Mrs. Foote. I may be a night clerk, but I'mnot so low as to get you out at half past six to spring a thing likethat in fun. I mean it. So did she. "

"But a kind of moaning! And then dull raps!"

"Those are her words. A kind of m--"

"Let's not make a chant of it. I think I get you. I'll be down there inten minutes. Telephone her, will you?"

"Can't you make it five?"

"Not without skipping something vital. "

Still, it couldn't have been a second over ten, including shoes, hair, and hooks-and-eyes. And a fresh white blouse. It was Martha Foote'stheory that a hotel housekeeper, dressed for work, ought to be asinconspicuous as a steel engraving. She would have been, too, if ithadn't been for her eyes. 

She paused a moment before the door of six-eighteen and took a deepbreath. At the first brisk rat-tat of her knuckles on the door there hadsounded a shrill "Come in!" But before she could turn the knob the doorwas flung open by a kimonoed mulatto girl, her eyes all whites. The girlbegan to jabber, incoherently but Martha Foote passed on through thelittle hall to the door of the bedroom. 

Six-eighteen was in bed. At sight of her Martha Foote knew that she hadto deal with an over-wrought woman. Her hair was pushed back wildly fromher forehead. Her arms were clasped about her knees. At the left hernightgown had slipped down so that one plump white shoulder gleamedagainst the background of her streaming hair. The room was in almostcomic disorder. It was a room in which a struggle has taken placebetween its occupant and that burning-eyed hag, Sleeplessness. The hag, it was plain, had won. A half-emptied glass of milk was on the table bythe bed. Warmed, and sipped slowly, it had evidently failed to soothe. Atray of dishes littered another table. Yesterday's dishes, theircontents congealed. Books and magazines, their covers spread wide as ifthey had been flung, sprawled where they lay. A little heap ofgrey-black cigarette stubs. The window curtain awry where she had stoodthere during a feverish moment of the sleepless night, looking down uponthe lights of Grant Park and the sombre black void beyond that was LakeMichigan. A tiny satin bedroom slipper on a chair, its mate, sole up, peeping out from under the bed. A pair of satin slippers alone, distributed thus, would make a nun's cell look disreputable. Over allthis disorder the ceiling lights, the wall lights, and the light fromtwo rosy lamps, beat mercilessly down; and upon the white-faced woman inthe bed. 

She stared, hollow-eyed, at Martha Foote. Martha Foote, in the doorway, gazed serenely back upon her. And Geisha McCoy's quick intelligence anddrama-sense responded to the picture of this calm and capable figure inthe midst of the feverish, over-lighted, over-heated room. In thatmoment the nervous pucker between her eyes ironed out ever so little, and something resembling a wan smile crept into her face. And what shesaid was:

"I wouldn't have believed it. "

"Believed what?" inquired Martha Foote, pleasantly. 

"That there was anybody left in the world who could look like that in awhite shirtwaist at 6:30 A. M. Is that all your own hair?"

"Strictly. "

"Some people have all the luck, " sighed Geisha McCoy, and droppedlistlessly back on her pillows. Martha Foote came forward into the room. At that instant the woman in the bed sat up again, tense, every nervestrained in an attitude of listening. The mulatto girl had come swiftlyto the foot of the bed and was clutching the footboard, her knucklesshowing white. 

"Listen!" A hissing whisper from the haggard woman in the bed. "What'sthat?"

"Wha' dat!" breathed the coloured girl, all her elegance gone, herevery look and motion a hundred-year throwback to her voodoo-hauntedancestors. 

The three women remained rigid, listening. From the wall somewherebehind the bed came a low, weird monotonous sound, half wail, halfcroaking moan, like a banshee with a cold. A clanking, then, as ofchains. A s-s-swish. Then three dull raps, seemingly from within thevery wall itself. 

The coloured girl was trembling. Her lips were moving, soundlessly. ButGeisha McCoy's emotion was made of different stuff. 

"Now look here, " she said, desperately, "I don't mind a sleepless night. I'm used to 'em. But usually I can drop off at five, for a little while. And that's been going on--well, I don't know how long. It's driving mecrazy. Blanche, you fool, stop that hand wringing! I tell you there's nosuch thing as ghosts. Now you"--she turned to Martha Foote again--"youtell me, for God's sake, what _is_ that!"

And into Martha Foote's face there came such a look of mingledcompassion and mirth as to bring a quick flame of fury into GeishaMcCoy's eyes. 

"Look here, you may think it's funny but--"

"I don't. I don't. Wait a minute. " Martha Foote turned and was gone. Aninstant later the weird sounds ceased. The two women in the room lookedtoward the door, expectantly. And through it came Martha Foote, smiling. She turned and beckoned to some one without. "Come on, " she said. "Comeon. " She put out a hand, encouragingly, and brought forward theshrinking, cowering, timorous figure of Anna Czarnik, scrub-woman on thesixth floor. Her hand still on her shoulder Martha Foote led her to thecentre of the room, where she stood, gazing dumbly about. She was thescrub-woman you've seen in every hotel from San Francisco to Scituate. Ashapeless, moist, blue calico mass. Her shoes turned up ludicrously atthe toes, as do the shoes of one who crawls her way backward, crab-like, on hands and knees. Her hands were the shrivelled, unlovely members thatbespeak long and daily immersion in dirty water. But even had theseinvariable marks of her trade been lacking, you could not have failed torecognise her type by the large and glittering mock-diamond comb whichfailed to catch up her dank and stringy hair in the back. 

One kindly hand on the woman's arm, Martha Foote performed theintroduction. 

"This is Mrs. Anna Czarnik, late of Poland. Widowed. Likewise childless. Also brotherless. Also many other uncomfortable things. But the life ofthe crowd in the scrub-girls' quarters on the top floor. Aren't you, Anna? Mrs. Anna Czarnik, I'm sorry to say, is the source of theblood-curdling moan, and the swishing, and the clanking, and theghost-raps. There is a service stairway just on the other side of thiswall. Anna Czarnik was performing her morning job of scrubbing it. Theswishing was her wet rag. The clanking was her pail. The dull raps herscrubbing brush striking the stair corner just behind your wall. "

"You're forgetting the wail, " Geisha McCoy suggested, icily. 

"No, I'm not. The wail, I'm afraid, was Anna Czarnik, singing. "

"Singing?"

Martha Foote turned and spoke a gibberish of Polish and English to thebewildered woman at her side. Anna Czarnik's dull face lighted up everso little. 

"She says the thing she was singing is a Polish folk-song about deathand sorrow, and it's called a--what was that, Anna?"

"Dumka. "

"It's called a dumka. It's a song of mourning, you see? Of grief. And ofbitterness against the invaders who have laid her country bare. "

"Well, what's the idea!" demanded Geisha McCoy. "What kind of a hotel isthis, anyway? Scrub-girls waking people up in the middle of the nightwith a Polish cabaret. If she wants to sing her hymn of hate why doesshe have to pick on me!"

"I'm sorry. You can go, Anna. No sing, remember! Sh-sh-sh!"

Anna Czarnik nodded and made her unwieldy escape. 

Geisha McCoy waved a hand at the mulatto maid. "Go to your room, Blanche. I'll ring when I need you. " The girl vanished, gratefully, without a backward glance at the disorderly room. Martha Foote feltherself dismissed, too. And yet she made no move to go. She stood there, in the middle of the room, and every housekeeper inch of her yearned totidy the chaos all about her, and every sympathetic impulse urged herto comfort the nerve-tortured woman before her. Something of this musthave shone in her face, for Geisha McCoy's tone was half-pettish, half-apologetic as she spoke. 

"You've no business allowing things like that, you know. My nerves areall shot to pieces anyway. But even if they weren't, who could standthat kind of torture? A woman like that ought to lose her job for that. One word from me at the office and she--"

"Don't say it, then, " interrupted Martha Foote, and came over to thebed. Mechanically her fingers straightened the tumbled covers, removed ajumble of magazines, flicked away the crumbs. "I'm sorry you weredisturbed. The scrubbing can't be helped, of course, but there is arule against unnecessary noise, and she shouldn't have been singing. But--well, I suppose she's got to find relief, somehow. Would youbelieve that woman is the cut-up of the top floor? She's a naturalcomedian, and she does more for me in the way of keeping the other girlshappy and satisfied than--"

"What about me? Where do I come in? Instead of sleeping until elevenI'm kept awake by this Polish dirge. I go on at the Majestic at four, and again at 9. 45 and I'm sick, I tell you! Sick!"

She looked it, too. Suddenly she twisted about and flung herself, facedownward, on the pillow. "Oh, God!" she cried, without any particularexpression. "Oh, God! Oh, God!"

That decided Martha Foote. 

She crossed over to the other side of the bed, first flicking off theglaring top lights, sat down beside the shaken woman on the pillows, andlaid a cool, light hand on her shoulder. 

"It isn't as bad as that. Or it won't be, anyway, after you've told meabout it. "

She waited. Geisha McCoy remained as she was, face down. But she did notopenly resent the hand on her shoulder. So Martha Foote waited. And assuddenly as Six-eighteen had flung herself prone she twisted about andsat up, breathing quickly. She passed a hand over her eyes and pushedback her streaming hair with an oddly desperate little gesture. Her lipswere parted, her eyes wide. 

"They've got away from me, " she cried, and Martha Foote knew what shemeant. "I can't hold 'em any more. I work as hard as ever--harder. That's it. It seems the harder I work the colder they get. Last week, inIndianapolis, they couldn't have been more indifferent if I'd been theeducational film that closes the show. And, oh my God! They sit andknit. "

"Knit!" echoed Martha Foote. "But everybody's knitting nowadays. "

"Not when I'm on. They can't. But they do. There were three of them inthe third row yesterday afternoon. One of 'em was doing a grey sock withfour shiny needles. Four! I couldn't keep my eyes off of them. And thesecond was doing a sweater, and the third a helmet. I could tell bythe shape. And you can't be funny, can you, when you're hypnotised bythree stony-faced females all doubled up over a bunch of olive-drab?Olive-drab! I'm scared of it. It sticks out all over the house. Lastnight there were two young kids in uniform right down in the first row, centre, right. I'll bet the oldest wasn't twenty-three. There they sat, looking up at me with their baby faces. That's all they are. Kids. Thehouse seems to be peppered with 'em. You wouldn't think olive-drab couldstick out the way it does. I can see it farther than red. I can see itday and night. I can't seem to see anything else. I can't--"

Her head came down on her arms, that rested on her tight-hugged knees. 

"Somebody of yours in it?" Martha Foote asked, quietly. She waited. Thenshe made a wild guess--an intuitive guess. "Son?"

"How did you know?" Geisha McCoy's head came up. 

"I didn't. "

"Well, you're right. There aren't fifty people in the world, outside myown friends, who know I've got a grown-up son. It's bad business to havethem think you're middle-aged. And besides, there's nothing of the stageabout Fred. He's one of those square-jawed kids that are just cut out tobe engineers. Third year at Boston Tech. "

"Is he still there, then?"

"There! He's in France, that's where he is. Somewhere--in France. AndI've worked for twenty-two years with everything in me just set, like analarm-clock, for the time when that kid would step off on his own. Healways hated to take money from me, and I loved him for it. I never wenton that I didn't think of him. I never came off with a half dozenencores that I didn't wish he could hear it. Why, when I played acollege town it used to be a riot, because I loved every fresh-faced boyin the house, and they knew it. And now--and now--what's there in it?What's there in it? I can't even hold 'em any more. I'm through, I tellyou. I'm through!"

And waited to be disputed. Martha Foote did not disappoint her. 

"There's just this in it. It's up to you to make those three women inthe third row forget what they're knitting for, even if they don'tforget their knitting. Let 'em go on knitting with their hands, but keeptheir heads off it. That's your job. You're lucky to have it. "

"Lucky?"

"Yes _ma'am_! You can do all the dumka stuff in private, the way AnnaCzarnik does, but it's up to you to make them laugh twice a day fortwenty minutes. "

"It's all very well for you to talk that cheer-o stuff. It hasn't comehome to you, I can see that. "

Martha Foote smiled. "If you don't mind my saying it, Miss McCoy, you'retoo worn out from lack of sleep to see anything clearly. You don't knowme, but I do know you, you see. I know that a year ago Anna Czarnikwould have been the most interesting thing in this town, for you. You'dhave copied her clothes, and got a translation of her sob song, and madeher as real to a thousand audiences as she was to us this morning;tragic history, patient animal face, comic shoes and all. And that's thetrouble with you, my dear. When we begin to brood about our own troubleswe lose what they call the human touch. And that's your business asset. "

Geisha McCoy was looking up at her with a whimsical half-smile. "Lookhere. You know too much. You're not really the hotel housekeeper, areyou?"

"I am. "

"Well, then, you weren't always--"

"Yes I was. So far as I know I'm the only hotel housekeeper in historywho can't look back to the time when she had three servants of her own, and her private carriage. I'm no decayed black-silk gentlewoman. Not me. My father drove a hack in Sorgham, Minnesota, and my mother took inboarders and I helped wait on table. I married when I was twenty, my mandied two years later, and I've been earning my living ever since. "

"Happy?"

"I must be, because I don't stop to think about it. It's part of my jobto know everything that concerns the comfort of the guests in thishotel. "

"Including hysterics in six-eighteen?"

"Including. And that reminds me. Up on the twelfth floor of this hotelthere's a big, old-fashioned bedroom. In half an hour I can have thatroom made up with the softest linen sheets, and the curtains pulleddown, and not a sound. That room's so restful it would put old Insomniahimself to sleep. Will you let me tuck you away in it?"

Geisha McCoy slid down among her rumpled covers, and nestled her head inthe lumpy, tortured pillows. "Me! I'm going to stay right here. "

"But this room's--why, it's as stale as a Pullman sleeper. Let me havethe chambermaid in to freshen it up while you're gone. "

"I'm used to it. I've got to have a room mussed up, to feel at home init. Thanks just the same. "

Martha Foote rose, "I'm sorry. I just thought if I could help--"

Geisha McCoy leaned forward with one of her quick movements and caughtMartha Foote's hand in both her own, "You have! And I don't mean to berude when I tell you I haven't felt so much like sleeping in weeks. Just turn out those lights, will you? And sort of tiptoe out, to givethe effect. " Then, as Martha Foote reached the door, "And oh, say! D'youthink she'd sell me those shoes?"

Martha Foote didn't get her dinner that night until almost eight, whatwith one thing and another. Still as days go, it wasn't so bad asMonday; she and Irish Nellie, who had come in to turn down her bed, agreed on that. The Senate Hotel housekeeper was having her dinner inher room. Tony, the waiter, had just brought it on and had set it outfor her, a gleaming island of white linen, and dome-shaped metal tops. Irish Nellie, a privileged person always, waxed conversational as shefolded back the bed covers in a neat triangular wedge. 

"Six-eighteen kinda ca'med down, didn't she? High toime, the divil. Shehad us jumpin' yist'iddy. I loike t' went off me head wid her, and th'day girl th' same. Some folks ain't got no feelin', I dunno. "

Martha Foote unfolded her napkin with a little tired gesture. "You can'talways judge, Nellie. That woman's got a son who has gone to war, andshe couldn't see her way clear to living without him. She's better now. I talked to her this evening at six. She said she had a fine afternoon. "

"Shure, she ain't the only wan. An' what do you be hearin' from yourboy, Mis' Phut, that's in France?"

"He's well, and happy. His arm's all healed, and he says he'll be in itagain by the time I get his letter. "

"Humph, " said Irish Nellie. And prepared to leave. She cast aninquisitive eye over the little table as she made for thedoor--inquisitive, but kindly. Her wide Irish nostrils sniffed afamiliar smell. "Well, fur th' land, Mis' Phut! If I was housekeeperhere, an' cud have hothouse strawberries, an' swatebreads undherglass, an' sparrowgrass, an' chicken, _an'_ ice crame, the way youcan, whiniver yuh loike, I wouldn't be a-eatin' cornbeef an' cabbage. Not me. "

"Oh, yes you would, Nellie, " replied Martha Foote, quietly, and spoonedup the thin amber gravy. "Oh, yes you would. "

XII

SHORE LEAVE

Tyler Kamps was a tired boy. He was tired from his left great toe tothat topmost spot at the crown of his head where six unruly hairs alwayspersisted in sticking straight out in defiance of patient brushing, wetting, and greasing. Tyler Kamps was as tired as only a boy can be at9. 30 P. M. Who has risen at 5. 30 A. M. Yet he lay wide awake in hishammock eight feet above the ground, like a giant silk-worm in anincredible cocoon and listened to the sleep-sounds that came from thedepths of two hundred similar cocoons suspended at regular intervalsdown the long dark room. A chorus of deep regular breathing, with anoccasional grunt or sigh, denoting complete relaxation. Tyler Kampsshould have been part of this chorus, himself. Instead he lay staringinto the darkness, thinking mad thoughts of which this is a sample:

"Gosh! Wouldn't I like to sit up in my hammock and give one yell! Thekind of a yell a movie cowboy gives on a Saturday night. Wake 'em up andstop that--darned old breathing. "

Nerves. He breathed deeply himself, once or twice, because it seemed, somehow to relieve his feeling of irritation. And in that unguardedmoment of unconscious relaxation Sleep, that had been lying in wait forhim just around the corner, pounced on him and claimed him for its own. From his hammock came the deep, regular inhalation, exhalation, with anoccasional grunt or sigh. The normal sleep-sounds of a very tired boy. 

The trouble with Tyler Kamps was that he missed two things he hadn'texpected to miss at all. And he missed not at all the things he had beenprepared to miss most hideously. 

First of all, he had expected to miss his mother. If you had knownStella Kamps you could readily have understood that. Stella Kamps wasthe kind of mother they sing about in the sentimental ballads; mother, pal, and sweetheart. Which was where she had made her big mistake. Whenone mother tries to be all those things to one son that son has a veryfair chance of turning out a mollycoddle. The war was probably all thatsaved Tyler Kamps from such a fate. 

In the way she handled this son of hers Stella Kamps had been as craftyand skilful and velvet-gloved as a girl with her beau. The proof of itis that Tyler had never known he was being handled. Some folks inMarvin, Texas, said she actually flirted with him, and they were almostjustified. Certainly the way she glanced up at him from beneath herlashes was excused only by the way she scolded him if he tracked up thekitchen floor. But then, Stella Kamps and her boy were different, anyway. Marvin folks all agreed about that. Flowers on the table atmeals. Sitting over the supper things talking and laughing for an hourafter they'd finished eating, as if they hadn't seen each other inyears. Reading out loud to each other, out of books and then going onlike mad about what they'd just read, and getting all het up about it. And sometimes chasing each other around the yard, spring evenings, likea couple of fool kids. Honestly, if a body didn't know Stella Kamps sowell, and what a fight she had put up to earn a living for herself andthe boy after that good-for-nothing Kamps up and left her, and what ahousekeeper she was, and all, a person'd think--well--

So, then, Tyler had expected to miss her first of all. The way shetalked. The way she fussed around him without in the least seeming tofuss. Her special way of cooking things. Her laugh which drew laughterin its wake. The funny way she had of saying things, vitalisingcommonplaces with the spark of her own electricity. 

And now he missed her only as the average boy of twenty-one misses themother he has been used to all his life. No more and no less. Whichwould indicate that Stella Kamps, in her protean endeavours, hadoverplayed the parts just a trifle. 

He had expected to miss the boys at the bank. He had expected to missthe Mandolin Club. The Mandolin Club met, officially, every Thursday andspangled the Texas night with their tinkling. Five rather dreamy-eyedadolescents slumped in stoop-shouldered comfort over the instrumentscradled in their arms, each right leg crossed limply over the left, eachgreat foot that dangled from the bony ankle, keeping rhythmic time tothe plunketty-plink-tinketty-plunk. 

He had expected to miss the familiar faces on Main Street. He had evenexpected to miss the neighbours with whom he and his mother had sorarely mingled. All the hundred little, intimate, trivial, everydaythings that had gone to make up his life back home in Marvin, Texas--these he had expected to miss. 

And he didn't. 

After ten weeks at the Great Central Naval Training Station so nearChicago, Illinois, and so far from Marvin, Texas, there were two thingshe missed. 

He wanted the decent privacy of his small quiet bedroom back home. 

He wanted to talk to a girl. 

He knew he wanted the first, definitely. He didn't know he wanted thesecond. The fact that he didn't know it was Stella Kamps' fault. She hadkept his boyhood girlless, year and year, by sheer force of her own lovefor him, and need of him, and by the charm and magnetism that were hers. She had been deprived of a more legitimate outlet for these emotions. Concentrated on the boy, they had sufficed for him. The Marvin girls hadlong ago given him up as hopeless. They fell back, baffled, theirkeenest weapons dulled by the impenetrable armour of his impersonalgaze. 

The room? It hadn't been much of a room, as rooms go. Bare, clean, asceptic, with a narrow, hard white bed and a maple dresser whose seconddrawer always stuck and came out zig-zag when you pulled it; and aswimmy mirror that made one side of your face look sort of lumpy, andhigher than the other side. In one corner a bookshelf. He had made ithimself at manual training. When he had finished it--the planing, thestaining, the polishing--Chippendale himself, after he had designed andexecuted his first gracious, wide-seated, back-fitting chair, could havefelt no finer creative glow. As for the books it held, just to run youreye over them was like watching Tyler Kamps grow up. Stella Kamps hadbeen a Kansas school teacher in the days before she met and marriedClint Kamps. And she had never quite got over it. So the book casecontained certain things that a fond mother (with a teaching past) wouldthink her small son ought to enjoy. Things like "Tom Brown At Rugby" and"Hans Brinker, Or the Silver Skates. " He had read them, dutifully, butthey were as good as new. No thumbed pages, no ragged edges, no creasesand tatters where eager boy hands had turned a page over--hastily. No, the thumb-marked, dog's-eared, grimy ones were, as always, "Tom Sawyer"and "Huckleberry Finn" and "Marching Against the Iroquois. "

A hot enough little room in the Texas summers. A cold enough littleroom in the Texas winters. But his own. And quiet. He used to lie thereat night, relaxed, just before sleep claimed him, and he could almostfeel the soft Texas night enfold him like a great, velvety, invisibleblanket, soothing him, lulling him. In the morning it had been pleasantto wake up to its bare, clean whiteness, and to the tantalisingbreakfast smells coming up from the kitchen below. His mother callingfrom the foot of the narrow wooden stairway:

"Ty-_ler_!, " rising inflection. "_Ty_-ler, " falling inflection. "Get up, son! Breakfast'll be ready. "

It was always a terrific struggle between a last delicious stolen fiveminutes between the covers, and the scent of the coffee and bacon. 

"Ty-_ler_! You'll be late!"

A mighty stretch. A gathering of his will forces. A swing of his longlegs over the side of the bed so that they described an arc in the air. 

"Been up years. "

Breakfast had won. 

Until he came to the Great Central Naval Training Station Tyler'snearest approach to the nautical life had been when, at the age of six, he had sailed chips in the wash tub in the back yard. Marvin, Texas, isfive hundred miles inland. And yet he had enlisted in the navy asinevitably as though he had sprung from a long line of Vikings. In hisboyhood his choice of games had always been pirate. You saw him, a redhandkerchief binding his brow, one foot advanced, knee bent, scanningthe horizon for the treasure island from the vantage point of thewoodshed roof, while the crew, gone mad with thirst, snarled andshrieked all about him, and the dirt yard below became a hungry, roaringsea. His twelve-year-old vocabulary boasted such compound difficultiesas mizzentopsail-yard and main-topgallantmast. He knew the intricateparts of a full-rigged ship from the mainsail to the deck, from thejib-boom to the chart-house. All this from pictures and books. It wasthe roving, restless spirit of his father in him, I suppose. Clint Kampshad never been meant for marriage. When the baby Tyler was one year oldClint had walked over to where his wife sat, the child in her lap, andhad tilted her head back, kissed her on the lips, and had gently pinchedthe boy's roseleaf cheek with a quizzical forefinger and thumb. Then, indolently, negligently, gracefully, he had strolled out of the house, down the steps, into the hot and dusty street and so on and on and outof their lives. Stella Kamps had never seen him again. Her letters backhome to her folks in Kansas were triumphs of bravery and bare-facedlying. The kind of bravery, and the kind of lying that only a womancould understand. She managed to make out, somehow, at first. And later, very well indeed. As the years went on she and the boy lived together ina sort of closed corporation paradise of their own. At twenty-one Tyler, who had gone through grammar school, high school and business collegehad never kissed a girl or felt a love-pang. Stella Kamps kept her ageas a woman does whose brain and body are alert and busy. When Tylerfirst went to work in the Texas State Savings Bank of Marvin the girlswould come in on various pretexts just for a glimpse of his charmingblondeur behind the little cage at the rear. It is difficult for asmall-town girl to think of reasons for going into a bank. You have tobe moneyed to do it. They say that the Davies girl saved up nickelsuntil she had a dollar's worth and then came into the bank and asked tohave a bill in exchange for it. They gave her one--a crisp, new, cracklydollar bill. She reached for it, gropingly, her eyes fixed on a point atthe rear of the bank. Two days later she came in and brazenly asked tohave it changed into nickels again. She might have gone on indefinitelythus if Tyler's country hadn't given him something more important to dothan to change dollars into nickels and back again. 

On the day he left for the faraway naval training station Stella Kampsfor the second time in her life had a chance to show the stuff she wasmade of, and showed it. Not a whimper. Down at the train, standing atthe car window, looking up at him and smiling, and saying futile, foolish, final things, and seeing only his blond head among the manythrust out of the open window. 

". . . And Tyler, remember what I said about your feet. You know. Dry. . . . And I'll send a box every week, only don't eat too many of the nutcookies. They're so rich. Give some to the other--yes, I know you will. I was just . . . Won't it be grand to be right there on the water all thetime! My!. . . I'll write every night and then send it twice a week. . . . I don't suppose you . . . Well once a week, won't you, dear?. . . You're--you're moving. The train's going! Good-b--" she ran along withit for a few feet, awkwardly, as a woman runs. Stumblingly. 

And suddenly, as she ran, his head always just ahead of her, shethought, with a great pang:

"O my God, how young he is! How young he is, and he doesn't knowanything. I should have told him. . . . Things. . . . He doesn't know anythingabout . . . And all those other men--"

She ran on, one arm outstretched as though to hold him a moment longerwhile the train gathered speed. "Tyler!" she called, through the din andshouting. "Tyler, be good! Be good!" He only saw her lips moving, andcould not hear, so he nodded his head, and smiled, and waved, and wasgone. 

So Tyler Kamps had travelled up to Chicago. Whenever they passed asizable town they had thrown open the windows and yelled, "Youp! Who-ee!Yow!"

People had rushed to the streets and had stood there gazing after thetrain. Tyler hadn't done much youping at first, but in the later stagesof the journey he joined in to keep his spirits up. He, who had neverbeen more than a two-hours' ride from home was flashing past villages, towns, cities--hundreds of them. 

The first few days had been unbelievably bad, what with typhoidinoculations, smallpox vaccinations, and loneliness. The very first day, when he had entered his barracks one of the other boys, older inexperience, misled by Tyler's pink and white and gold colouring, hadleaned forward from amongst a group and had called in glad surprise, atthe top of a leathery pair of lungs:

"Why, hello, sweetheart!" The others had taken it up with cruelty oftheir age. "Hello, sweetheart!" It had stuck. Sweetheart. In the hardyears that followed--years in which the blood-thirsty and piraticalgames of his boyhood paled to the mildest of imaginings--the nicknamestill clung, long after he had ceased to resent it; long after he hadstripes and braid to refute it. 

But in that Tyler Kamps we are not interested. It is the boy Tyler Kampswith whom we have to do. Bewildered, lonely, and a little resentful. Wondering where the sea part of it came in. Learning to say "on thestation" instead of "at the station, " the idea being that the greatstretch of land on which the station was located was not really land, but water; and the long wooden barracks not really barracks at all, butships. Learning to sleep in a hammock (it took him a full week). Learning to pin back his sailor collar to save soiling the white braidon it (that meant scrubbing). Learning--but why go into detail? Onesentence covers it. 

Tyler met Gunner Moran. Moran, tattooed, hairy-armed, hairy-chested as agorilla and with something of the sadness and humour of the gorilla inhis long upper lip and short forehead. But his eyes did not bear out theresemblance. An Irish blue; bright, unravaged; clear beacon lights in arough and storm-battered countenance. Gunner Moran wasn't a gunner atall, or even a gunner's mate, but just a seaman who knew the sea fromShanghai to New Orleans; from Liverpool to Barcelona. His knowledge ofknots and sails and rifles and bayonets and fists was a thing to strikeyou dumb. He wasn't the stuff of which officers are made. But you shouldhave seen him with a Springfield! Or a bayonet! A bare twenty-five, Moran, but with ten years' sea experience. Into those ten years he hadjammed a lifetime of adventure. And he could do expertly all the thingsthat Tyler Kamps did amateurishly. In a barrack, or in a company street, the man who talks the loudest is the man who has the most influence. InTyler's barrack Gunner Moran was that man. 

Because of what he knew they gave him two hundred men at a time and madehim company commander, without insignia or official position. In rank, he was only a "gob" like the rest of them. In influence a captain. Moranknew how to put the weight lunge behind the bayonet. It was a matter ofbalance, of poise, more than of muscle. 

Up in the front of his men, "G'wan, " he would yell. "Whatddye thinkyou're doin'! Tickling 'em with a straw! That's a bayonet you got there, not a tennis rackit. You couldn't scratch your initials on a Fritz thatway. Put a little guts into it. Now then!"

He had been used to the old Krag, with a cam that jerked out, and threwback, and fed one shell at a time. The new Springfield, that was agloriously functioning thing in its simplicity, he regarded with a sortof reverence and ecstasy mingled. As his fingers slid lightly, caressingly along the shining barrel they were like a man's fingerslingering on the soft curves of a woman's throat. The sight of a rookiehandling this metal sweetheart clumsily filled him with fury. 

"Whatcha think you got there, you lubber, you! A section o' lead pipe!You ought t' be back carryin' a shovel, where you belong. Here. Just atouch. Like that. See? Easy now. "

He could box like a professional. They put him up against Slovatsky, thegiant Russian, one day. Slovatsky put up his two huge hands, like hams, and his great arms, like iron beams and looked down on this lithe, agilebantam that was hopping about at his feet. Suddenly the bantam crouched, sprang, and recoiled like a steel trap. Something had crashed up againstSlovatsky's chin. Red rage shook him. He raised his sledge-hammer rightfor a slashing blow. Moran was directly in the path of it. It seemedthat he could no more dodge it than he could hope to escape an onrushinglocomotive, but it landed on empty air, with Moran around in back of theRussian, and peering impishly up under his arm. It was like an elephantworried by a mosquito. Then Moran's lightning right shot out again, smartly, and seemed just to tap the great hulk on the side of the chin. A ludicrous look of surprise on Slovatsky's face before he crumpled andcrashed. 

This man it was who had Tyler Kamps' admiration. It was more thanadmiration. It was nearer adoration. But there was nothing unnatural orunwholesome about the boy's worship of this man. It was a legitimatething, born of all his fatherless years; years in which there had beenno big man around the house who could throw farther than Tyler, and eatmore, and wear larger shoes and offer more expert opinion. Moranaccepted the boy's homage with a sort of surly graciousness. 

In Tyler's third week at the Naval Station mumps developed in hisbarracks and they were quarantined. Tyler escaped the epidemic but hehad to endure the boredom of weeks of quarantine. At first they took itas a lark, like schoolboys. Moran's hammock was just next Tyler's. Onhis other side was a young Kentuckian named Dabney Courtney. Thebarracks had dubbed him Monicker the very first day. Monicker had arather surprising tenor voice. Moran a salty bass. And Tyler hismandolin. The trio did much to make life bearable, or unbearable, depending on one's musical knowledge and views. The boys all sang agreat deal. They bawled everything they knew, from "Oh, You BeautifulDoll" and "Over There" to "The End of a Perfect Day. " The latter, _adnauseum_. They even revived "Just Break the News to Mother" and seemedto take a sort of awful joy in singing its dreary words and mournfulmeasures. They played everything from a saxophone to a harmonica. Theyread. They talked. And they grew so sick of the sight of one anotherthat they began to snap and snarl. 

Sometimes they gathered round Moran and he told them tales they onlyhalf believed. He had been in places whose very names were exotic andoriental, breathing of sandalwood, and myrrh, and spices and aloes. Theywere places over which a boy dreams in books of travel. Moran bared thevivid tattooing on hairy arms and chest--tattooing representing anchors, and serpents, and girls' heads, and hearts with arrows stuck throughthem. Each mark had its story. A broad-swathed gentleman indeed, GunnerMoran. He had an easy way with him that made you feel provincial andashamed. It made you ashamed of not knowing the sort of thing you usedto be ashamed of knowing. 

Visiting day was the worst. They grew savage, somehow, watching themothers and sisters and cousins and sweethearts go streaming by to thevarious barracks. One of the boys to whom Tyler had never even spokensuddenly took a picture out of his blouse pocket and showed it to Tyler. It was a cheap little picture--one of the kind they sell two for aquarter if one sitter; two for thirty-five if two. This was a twosome. The boy, and a girl. A healthy, wide-awake wholesome looking small-towngirl, who has gone through high school and cuts out her own shirtwaists. 

"She's vice-president of the Silver Star Pleasure Club back home, " theboy confided to Tyler. "I'm president. We meet every other Saturday. "

Tyler looked at the picture seriously and approvingly. Suddenly hewished that he had, tucked away in his blouse, a picture of aclear-eyed, round-cheeked vice-president of a pleasure club. He took outhis mother's picture and showed it. 

"Oh, yeh, " said the boy, disinterestedly. 

The dragging weeks came to an end. The night of Tyler's restlessness wasthe last night of quarantine. To-morrow morning they would be free. Atthe end of the week they were to be given shore leave. Tyler had made uphis mind to go to Chicago. He had never been there. 

Five thirty. Reveille. 

Tyler awoke with the feeling that something was going to happen. Something pleasant. Then he remembered, and smiled. Dabney Courtney, inthe next hammock, was leaning far over the side of his perilous perchand delivering himself of his morning speech. Tyler did not quiteunderstand this young southern elegant. Monicker had two moods, both ofwhich puzzled Tyler. When he awoke feeling gay he would lean over theextreme edge of his hammock and drawl, with an affected English accent:

"If this is Venice, where are the canals?"

In his less cheerful moments he would groan, heavily, "There ain't noGawd!"

This last had been his morning observation during their many weeks ofdurance vile. But this morning he was, for the first time in many days, enquiring about Venetian waterways. 

Tyler had no pal. His years of companionship with his mother had bred inhim a sort of shyness, a diffidence. He heard the other boys makingplans for shore leave. They all scorned Waukegan, which was the firstsizable town beyond the Station. Chicago was their goal. They were likea horde of play-hungry devils after their confinement. Six weeks ofrestricted freedom, six weeks of stored-up energy made them restive ascolts. 

"Goin' to Chicago, kid?" Moran asked him, carelessly. It was Saturdaymorning. 

"Yes. Are you?" eagerly. 

"Kin a duck swim?"

At the Y. M. C. A. They had given him tickets to various free amusementsand entertainments. They told him about free canteens, and about otherplaces where you could get a good meal, cheap. One of the tickets wasfor a dance. Tyler knew nothing of dancing. This dance was to be givenat some kind of woman's club on Michigan Boulevard. Tyler read the card, glumly. A dance meant girls. He knew that. Why hadn't he learned todance?

Tyler walked down to the station and waited for the train that wouldbring him to Chicago at about one o'clock. The other boys, in littlegroups, or in pairs, were smoking and talking. Tyler wanted to jointhem, but he did not. They seemed so sufficient unto themselves, with their plans, and their glib knowledge of places, and amusements, and girls. On the train they all bought sweets from the trainbutcher--chocolate maraschinos, and nut bars, and molasses kisses--andate them as greedily as children, until their hunger for sweets wassurfeited. 

Tyler found himself in the same car with Moran. He edged over to aseat near him, watching him narrowly. Moran was not mingling with theother boys. He kept aloof, his sea-blue eyes gazing out at the flatIllinois prairie. All about him swept and eddied the currents andcounter-currents of talk. 

"They say there's a swell supper in the Tower Building for fifty cents. "

"Fifty nothing. Get all you want in the Library canteen for nix. "

"Where's this dance, huh?"

"Search _me_. "

"Heh, Murph! I'll shoot you a game of pool at the club. "

"Naw, I gotta date. "

Tyler's glance encountered Moran's, and rested there. Scorn curled theIrishman's broad upper lip. "Navy! This ain't no navy no more. It's aSunday school, that's what! Phonographs, an' church suppers, an' poolan' dances! It's enough t' turn a fella's stomick. Lot of Sunday schoolkids don't know a sail from a tablecloth when they see it. "

He relapsed into contemptuous silence. 

Tyler, who but a moment before had been envying them their familiaritywith these very things now nodded and smiled understanding at Moran. "That's right, " he said. Moran regarded him a moment, curiously. Then heresumed his staring out of the window. You would never have guessed thatin that bullet head there was bewilderment and resentment almostequalling Tyler's, but for a much different reason. Gunner Moran was ofthe old navy--the navy that had been despised and spat upon. In thosedays his uniform alone had barred him from decent theatres, decenthalls, decent dances, contact with decent people. They had forced him toa knowledge of the burlesque houses, the cheap theatres, the shootinggalleries, the saloons, the dives. And now, bewilderingly, the publichad right-about faced. It opened its doors to him. It closed its saloonsto him. It sought him out. It offered him amusement. It invited him toits home, and sat him down at its table, and introduced him to itsdaughter. 

"Nix!" said Gunner Moran, and spat between his teeth. "Not f'r me. Ipick me own lady friends. "

Gunner Moran was used to picking his own lady friends. He had pickedthem in wicked Port Said, and in Fiume; in Yokohama and Naples. He hadpicked them unerringly, and to his taste, in Cardiff, and Hamburg, andVladivostok. 

When the train drew in at the great Northwestern station shed he wasdown the steps and up the long platform before the wheels had ceasedrevolving. 

Tyler came down the steps slowly. Blue uniforms were streaming pasthim--a flood of them. White leggings twinkled with the haste of theirwearers. Caps, white or blue, flowed like a succession of rippling wavesand broke against the great doorway, and were gone. 

In Tyler's town, back home in Marvin, Texas, you knew the train numbersand their schedules, and you spoke of them by name, familiarly andaffectionately, as Number Eleven and Number Fifty-five. "I reckonFifty-five'll be late to-day, on account of the storm. "

Now he saw half a dozen trains lined up at once, and a dozen more trackswaiting, empty. The great train shed awed him. The vast columned waitingroom, the hurrying people, the uniformed guards gave him a feeling ofpersonal unimportance. He felt very negligible, and useless, and alone. He stood, a rather dazed blue figure, in the vastness of that shiningplace. A voice--the soft, cadenced voice of the negro--addressed him. 

"Lookin' fo' de sailors' club rooms?"

Tyler turned. A toothy, middle-aged, kindly negro in a uniform and redcap. Tyler smiled friendlily. Here was a human he could feel at easewith. Texas was full of just such faithful, friendly types of negro. 

"Reckon I am, uncle. Show me the way?"

Red Cap chuckled and led the way. "Knew you was f'om de south minute Ahsee yo'. Cain't fool me. Le'ssee now. You-all f'om--?"

"I'm from the finest state in the Union. The most glorious state inthe--"

"H'm--Texas, " grinned Red Cap. 

"How did you know!"

"Ah done heah 'em talk befoh, son. Ah done heah 'em talk be-foh. "

It was a long journey through the great building to the section that hadbeen set aside for Tyler and boys like him. Tyler wondered how any onecould ever find it alone. When the Red Cap left him, after showing himthe wash rooms, the tubs for scrubbing clothes, the steam dryers, thebath-tubs, the lunch room, Tyler looked after him regretfully. Then hesped after him and touched him on the arm. 

"Listen. Could I--would they--do you mean I could clean up in there--asmuch as I wanted? And wash my things? And take a bath in a bathtub, withall the hot water I want?"

"Yo' sho' kin. On'y things look mighty grabby now. Always is Sat'days. Jes' wait aroun' an' grab yo' tu'n. "

Tyler waited. And while he waited he watched to see how the other boysdid things. He saw how they scrubbed their uniforms with scrubbingbrushes, and plenty of hot water and soap. He saw how they hung themcarefully, so that they might not wrinkle, in the dryers. He saw thememerge, glowing, from the tub rooms. And he waited, the fever ofcleanliness burning in his eye. 

His turn came. He had waited more than an hour, reading, listening tothe phonograph and the electric piano, and watching. 

Now he saw his chance and seized it. And then he went through a ceremonythat was almost a ritual. Stella Kamps, could she have seen it, wouldhave felt repaid for all her years of soap-and-water insistence. 

First he washed out the stationary tub with soap, and brush, andscalding water. Then he scalded the brush. Then the tub again. Then, deliberately, and with the utter unconcern of the male biped he divestedhimself, piece by piece, of every stitch of covering wherewith his bodywas clothed. And he scrubbed them all. He took off his white leggingsand his white cap and scrubbed those, first. He had seen the other boysfollow that order of procedure. Then his flapping blue flannel trousers, and his blouse. Then his underclothes, and his socks. And finally hestood there, naked and unabashed, slim, and pink and silver as amountain trout. His face, as he bent over the steamy tub, was very red, and moist and earnest. His yellow hair curled in little damp ringletsabout his brow. Then he hung his trousers and blouse in the dryerswithout wringing them (wringing, he had been told, wrinkled them). Herinsed and wrung, and flapped the underclothes, though, and shaped hiscap carefully, and spread his leggings, and hung those in the dryer, too. And finally, with a deep sigh of accomplishment, he filled one ofthe bathtubs in the adjoining room--filled it to the slopping-over pointwith the luxurious hot water, and he splashed about in this, andreclined in it, gloriously, until the waiting ones threatened to pullhim out. Then he dried himself and issued forth all flushed and rosy. Hewrapped himself in a clean coarse sheet, for his clothes would not bedry for another half hour. Swathed in the sheet like a Roman senator helay down on one of the green velvet couches, relics of past Pullmanglories, and there, with the rumble and roar of steel trains overhead, with the smart click of the billiard balls sounding in his ears, withthe phonograph and the electric piano going full blast, with the boysdancing and larking all about the big room, he fell sound asleep as onlya boy cub can sleep. 

When he awoke an hour later his clothes were folded in a neat pile bythe deft hand of some jackie impatient to use the drying space for hisown garments. Tyler put them on. He stood before a mirror and brushedhis hair until it glittered. He drew himself up with the instinctivepride and self respect that comes of fresh clean clothes against theskin. Then he placed his absurd round hat on his head at what heconsidered a fetching angle, though precarious, and sallied forth on thestreets of Chicago in search of amusement and adventure. 

He found them. 

Madison and Canal streets, west, had little to offer him. He sensed thatthe centre of things lay to the east, so he struck out along Madison, trying not to show the terror with which the grim, roaring, clamorouscity filled him. He jingled the small coins in his pocket and strodealong, on the surface a blithe and carefree jackie on shore leave; aforlorn and lonely Texas boy, beneath. 

It was late afternoon. His laundering, his ablutions and his nap hadtaken more time than he had realised. It was a mild spring day, withjust a Lake Michigan evening snap in the air. Tyler, glancing aboutalertly, nevertheless felt dreamy, and restless, and sort of melting, like a snow-heap in the sun. He wished he had some one to talk to. Hethought of the man on the train who had said, with such easy confidence, "I got a date. " Tyler wished that he too had a date--he who had neverhad a rendezvous in his life. He loitered a moment on the bridge. Thenhe went on, looking about him interestedly, and comparing Chicago, Illinois, with Marvin, Texas, and finding the former sadly lacking. Hepassed LaSalle, Clark. The streets were packed. The noise and rushtired him, and bewildered him. He came to a moving picture theatre--oneof the many that dot the district. A girl occupied the little ticketkiosk. She was rather a frowsy girl, not too young, and with a certainlook about the jaw. Tyler walked up to the window and shoved his moneythrough the little aperture. The girl fed him a pink ticket withoutlooking up. He stood there looking at her. Then he asked her a question. "How long does the show take?" He wanted to see the colour of her eyes. He wanted her to talk to him. 

"'Bout a hour, " said the girl, and raised wise eyes to his. 

"Thanks, " said Tyler, fervently, and smiled. No answering smile curvedthe lady's lips. Tyler turned and went in. There was an alleged comicfilm. Tyler was not amused. It was followed by a war picture. He leftbefore the show was over. He was very hungry by now. In his blousepocket were the various information and entertainment tickets with whichthe Y. M. C. A. Man had provided him. He had taken them out, carefully, before he had done his washing. Now he looked them over. But a dairylunch room invited him, with its white tiling, and its pans of bakedapples, and browned beans and its coffee tank. He went in and ate asolitary supper that was heavy on pie and cake. 

When he came out to the street again it was evening. He walked over toState Street (the wrong side). He took the dance card out of his pocketand looked at it again. If only he had learned to dance. There'd begirls. There'd have to be girls at a dance. He stood staring into thered and tin-foil window display of a cigar store, turning the ticketover in his fingers, and the problem over in his mind. 

Suddenly, in his ear, a woman's voice, very soft and low. "Hello, Sweetheart!" the voice said. His nickname! He whirled around, eagerly. 

The girl was a stranger to him. But she was smiling, friendlily, and shewas pretty, too, sort of. "Hello, Sweetheart!" she said, again. 

"Why, how-do, ma'am, " said Tyler, Texas fashion. 

"Where you going, kid?" she asked. 

Tyler blushed a little. "Well, nowhere in particular, ma'am. Just kindof milling around. "

"Come on along with me, " she said, and linked her arm in his. 

"Why--why--thanks, but--"

And yet Texas people were always saying easterners weren't friendly. Hefelt a little uneasy, though, as he looked down into her smiling face. Something--

"Hello, Sweetheart!" said a voice, again. A man's voice, this time. Outof the cigar store came Gunner Moran, the yellow string of a tobacco bagsticking out of his blouse pocket, a freshly rolled cigarette betweenhis lips. 

A queer feeling of relief and gladness swept over Tyler. And then Moranlooked sharply at the girl and said, "Why, hello, Blanche!"

"Hello yourself, " answered the girl, sullenly. 

"Thought you was in 'Frisco. "

"Well, I ain't. "

Moran shifted his attention from the girl to Tyler. "Friend o' yours?"

Before Tyler could open his lips to answer the girl put in, "Sure he is. Sure I am. We been around together all afternoon. "

Tyler jerked. "Why, ma'am, I guess you've made a mistake. I never sawyou before in my life. I kind of thought when you up and spoke to me youmust be taking me for somebody else. Well, now, isn't that funny--"

The smile faded from the girl's face, and it became twisted with fury. She glared at Moran, her lips drawn back in a snarl. "Who're you to gobuttin' into my business! This guy's a friend of mine, I tell yuh!"

"Yeh? Well, he's a friend of mine, too. Me an' him had a date to meethere right now and we're goin' over to a swell little dance on MichiganAvenoo. So it's you who's buttin' in, Blanche, me girl. "

The girl stood twisting her handkerchief savagely. She was panting alittle. "I'll get you for this. "

"Beat it!" said Moran. He tucked his arm through Tyler's, with a littleimpelling movement, and Tyler found himself walking up the street at asmart gait, leaving the girl staring after them. 

Tyler Kamps was an innocent, but he was not a fool. At what he hadvaguely guessed a moment before, he now knew. They walked along insilence, the most ill-sorted pair that you might hope to find in allthat higgledy-piggledy city. And yet with a new, strong bond betweenthem. It was more than fraternal. It had something of the character ofthe feeling that exists between a father and son who understand eachother. 

Man-like, they did not talk of that which they were thinking. 

Tyler broke the silence. 

"Do you dance?"

"Me! Dance! Well, I've mixed with everything from hula dancers to geishagirls, not forgettin' the Barbary Coast in the old days, but--well, Iain't what you'd rightly call a dancer. Why you askin'?"

"Because I can't dance, either. But we'll just go up and see what it'slike, anyway. "

"See wot wot's like?"

Tyler took out his card again, patiently. "This dance we're going to. "

They had reached the Michigan Avenue address given on the card, andTyler stopped to look up at the great, brightly lighted building. Moranstopped too, but for a different reason. He was staring, open-mouthed, at Tyler Kamps. 

"You mean t' say you thought I was goin'--"

He choked. "Oh, my Gawd!"

Tyler smiled at him, sweetly. "I'm kind of scared, too. But Monickergoes to these dances and he says they're right nice. And lots of--ofpretty girls. Nice girls. I wouldn't go alone. But you--you're used todancing, and parties and--girls. "

He linked his arm through the other man's. Moran allowed himself to bepropelled along, dazedly. Still protesting, he found himself in theelevator with a dozen red-cheeked, scrubbed-looking jackies. At whichpoint Moran, game in the face of horror, accepted the inevitable. Hegave a characteristic jerk from the belt. 

"Me, I'll try anything oncet. Lead me to it. "

The elevator stopped at the ninth floor. "Out here for the jackies'dance, " said the elevator boy. 

The two stepped out with the others. Stepped out gingerly, caps in hand. A corridor full of women. A corridor a-flutter with girls. Talk. Laughter. Animation. In another moment the two would have turned andfled, terrified. But in that half-moment of hesitation and bewildermentthey were lost. 

A woman approached them hand outstretched. A tall, slim, friendlylooking woman, low-voiced, silk-gowned, inquiring. 

"Good-evening!" she said, as if she had been haunting the halls in thehope of their coming. "I'm glad to see you. You can check your capsright there. Do you dance?"

Two scarlet faces. Four great hands twisting at white caps in an agonyof embarrassment. "Why, no ma'am. "

"That's fine. We'll teach you. Then you'll go into the ball room andhave a wonderful time. "

"But--" in choked accents from Moran. 

"Just a minute. Miss Hall!" She beckoned a diminutive blonde in blue. "Miss Hall, this is Mr. --ah--Mr. Moran. Thanks. And Mr. ?--yes--Mr. Kamps. Tyler Kamps. They want to learn to dance. I'll turn them rightover to you. When does your class begin?"

Miss Hall glanced at a toy watch on the tiny wrist. Instinctively andhelplessly Moran and Tyler focused their gaze on the dials that boundtheir red wrists. "Starting right now, " said Miss Hall, crisply. Sheeyed the two men with calm appraising gaze. "I'm sure you'll both makewonderful dancers. Follow me. "

She turned. There was something confident, dauntless, irresistible aboutthe straight little back. The two men stared at it. Then at each other. Panic was writ large on the face of each. Panic, and mutiny. Flight wasin the mind of both. Miss Hall turned, smiled, held out a small whitehand. "Come on, " she said. "Follow me. "

And the two, as though hypnotised, followed. 

A fair-sized room, with a piano in one corner and groups of fidgetingjackies in every other corner. Moran and Tyler sighed with relief atsight of them. At least they were not to be alone in their agony. 

Miss Hall wasted no time. Slim ankles close together, head held high, she stood in the centre of the room. "Now then, form a circle please!"

Twenty six-foot, well-built specimens of manhood suddenly becameshambling hulks. They clumped forward, breathing hard, and smilingmirthlessly, with an assumption of ease that deceived no one, least ofall, themselves. "A little lively, please. Don't look so scared. I'm nota bit vicious. Now then, Miss Weeks! A fox trot. "

Miss Weeks, at the piano, broke into spirited strains. The firstfaltering steps in the social career of Gunner Moran and Tyler Kamps hadbegun. 

To an onlooker, it might have been mirth-provoking if it hadn't been, somehow, tear-compelling. The thing that little Miss Hall was doingmight have seemed trivial to one who did not know that it wasmagnificent. It wasn't dancing merely that she was teaching theseawkward, serious, frightened boys. She was handing them a key that wouldunlock the social graces. She was presenting them with a magic somethingthat would later act as an open sesame to a hundred legitimate delights. 

She was strictly business, was Miss Hall. No nonsense about her. "One-two-three-four! And a _one_-two _three_-four. One-two-three-four!And a _turn_-two, _turn_-four. Now then, all together. Just fourstraight steps as if you were walking down the street. That's it!One-two-three-four! Don't look at me. Look at my feet. And a _one_-two_three_-four. "

Red-faced, they were. Very earnest. Pathetically eager and docile. Weeksof drilling had taught them to obey commands. To them the littledancing teacher whose white spats twinkled so expertly in the tangle oftheir own clumsy clumping boots was more than a pretty girl. She wasknowledge. She was power. She was the commanding officer. And likechildren they obeyed. 

Moran's Barbary Coast experience stood him in good stead now, though thestern and watchful Miss Hall put a quick stop to a certain tendencytoward shoulder work. Tyler possessed what is known as a rhythm sense. An expert whistler is generally a natural dancer. Stella Kamps hadalways waited for the sound of his cheerful whistle as he turned thecorner of Vernon Street. High, clear, sweet, true, he would approach histop note like a Tettrazini until, just when you thought he could notpossibly reach that dizzy eminence he did reach it, and held it, andtrilled it, bird-like, in defiance of the laws of vocal equilibrium. 

His dancing was much like that. Never a half-beat behind theindefatigable Miss Weeks. It was a bit laboured, at first, but it wastrue. Little Miss Hall, with the skilled eye of the specialist, pickedhim at a glance. 

"You've danced before?"

"No ma'am. "

"Take the head of the line, please. Watch Mr. Kamps. Now then, alltogether, please. "

And they were off again. 

At 9. 45 Tyler Kamps and Gunner Moran were standing in the crowdeddoorway of the ballroom upstairs, in a panic lest some girl should askthem to dance; fearful lest they be passed by. Little Miss Hall hadbrought them to the very door, had left them there with a sterninjunction not to move, and had sped away in search of partners forthem. 

Gunner Moran's great scarlet hands were knotted into fists. His Adam'sapple worked convulsively. 

"Le's duck, " he whispered hoarsely. The jackie band in the cornercrashed into the opening bars of a fox trot. 

"Oh, it don't seem--" But it was plain that Tyler was weakening. Anothermoment and they would have turned and fled. But coming toward them waslittle Miss Hall, her blonde head bobbing in and out among the swayingcouples. At her right and left was a girl. Her bright eyes held her twovictims in the doorway. They watched her approach, and were helpless toflee. They seemed to be gripped by a horrible fascination. Their limbswere fluid. 

A sort of groan rent Moran. Miss Hall and the two girls stood beforethem, cool, smiling, unruffled. 

"Miss Cunningham, this is Mr. Tyler Kamps. Mr. Moran, Miss Cunningham. Miss Drew--Mr. Moran, Mr. Kamps. "

The boy and the man gulped, bowed, mumbled something. 

"Would you like to dance?" said Miss Cunningham, and raised limpid eyesto Tyler's. 

"Why--I--you see I don't know how. I just started to--"

"Oh, _that's_ all right, " Miss Cunningham interrupted, cheerfully. "We'll try it. " She stood in position and there seemed to radiate fromher a certain friendliness, a certain assurance and understanding thatwas as calming as it was stimulating. In a sort of daze Tyler foundhimself moving over the floor in time to the music. He didn't know thathe was being led, but he was. She didn't try to talk. He breathed aprayer of thanks for that. She seemed to know, somehow, about those fourstraight steps and two to the right and two to the left, and four again, and turn-two, turn-four. He didn't know that he was counting aloud, desperately. He didn't even know, just then, that this was a girl he wasdancing with. He seemed to move automatically, like a marionette. Henever was quite clear about those first ten minutes of his ballroomexperience. 

The music ceased. A spat of applause. Tyler mopped his head, and hishands, and applauded too, like one in a dream. They were off again forthe encore. 

Five minutes later he found himself seated next Miss Cunningham in achair against the wall. And for the first time since their meeting themists of agony cleared before his gaze and he saw Miss Cunningham as atall, slim, dark-haired girl, with a glint of mischief in her eye, and amouth that looked as if she were trying to keep from smiling. 

"Why don't you?" Tyler asked, and was aghast. 

"Why don't I what?"

"Smile if you want to. "

At which the glint in her eye and the hidden smile on her lips sort ofmet and sparked and she laughed. Tyler laughed, too, and then theylaughed together and were friends. 

Miss Cunningham's conversation was the kind of conversation that a nicegirl invariably uses in putting at ease a jackie whom she has just metat a war recreation dance. Nothing could have been more commonplace orunoriginal, but to Tyler Kamps the brilliance of a Madame de Stael wouldhave sounded trivial and uninteresting in comparison. 

"Where are you from?"

"Why, I'm from Texas, ma'am. Marvin, Texas. "

"Is that so? So many of the boys are from Texas. Are you out at thestation or on one of the boats?"

"I'm on the Station. Yes ma'am. "

"Do you like the navy?"

"Yes ma'am, I do. I sure do. You know there isn't a drafted man in thenavy. No ma'am! We're all enlisted men. "

"When do you think the war will end, Mr. Kamps?"

He told her, gravely. He told her many other things. He told her aboutTexas, at length and in detail, being a true son of that Brobdingnagianstate. Your Texan born is a walking mass of statistics. Miss Cunninghammade a sympathetic and interested listener. Her brown eyes were roundand bright with interest. He told her that the distance from Texas toChicago was only half as far as from here to there in the state of Texasitself. Yes _ma'am_! He had figures about tons of grain, and heads ofhorses and herds of cattle. Why, say, you could take little ol' meachin'Germany and tuck it away in a corner of Texas and you wouldn't any moreknow it was there than if it was somebody's poor no-'count ranch. Why, Big Y ranch alone would make the whole country of Germany look like acattle grazin' patch. It was bigger than all those countries in Europestrung together, and every man in Texas would rather fight than eat. Yesma'am. Why, you couldn't hold 'em. 

"My!" breathed Miss Cunningham. 

They danced again. Miss Cunningham introduced him to some other girls, and he danced with them, and they in turn asked him about the station, and Texas, and when he thought the war would end. And altogether he hada beautiful time of it, and forgot completely and entirely about GunnerMoran. It was not until he gallantly escorted Miss Cunningham downstairsfor refreshments that he remembered his friend. He had procured hotchocolate for himself and Miss Cunningham; and sandwiches, anddelectable chunks of caramel cake. And they were talking, and eating, and laughing and enjoying themselves hugely, and Tyler had gone back formore cake at the urgent invitation of the white-haired, pink-cheekedwoman presiding at the white-clothed table in the centre of thecharming room. And then he had remembered. A look of horror settled downover his face. He gasped. 

"W-what's the matter?" demanded Miss Cunningham. 

"My--my friend. I forgot all about him. " He regarded her with strickeneyes. 

"Oh, that's all right, " Miss Cunningham assured him for the second timethat evening. "We'll just go and find him. He's probably forgotten allabout you, too. "

And for the second time she was right. They started on their quest. Itwas a short one. Off the refreshment room was a great, graciouscomfortable room all deep chairs, and soft rugs, and hangings, andpictures and shaded lights. All about sat pairs and groups of sailorsand girls, talking, and laughing and consuming vast quantities of cake. And in the centre of just such a group sat Gunner Moran, lolling at hisease in a rosy velvet-upholstered chair. His little finger was crooktelegantly over his cup. A large and imposing square of chocolate cake inthe other hand did not seem to cramp his gestures as he talked. Neitherdid the huge bites with which he was rapidly demolishing it seem in theleast to stifle his conversation. Four particularly pretty girls, andtwo matrons surrounded him. And as Tyler and Miss Cunningham approachedhim he was saying, "Well, it's got so I can't sleep in anything _but_ ahammick. Yessir! Why, when I was fifteen years old I was--" He caughtTyler's eye. "Hello!" he called, genially. "Meet me friend. " This to thebevy surrounding him. "I was just tellin' these ladies here--"

And he was off again. All the tales that he told were not necessarilytrue. But that did not detract from their thrill. Moran's audience grewas he talked. And he talked until he and Tyler had to run all the way tothe Northwestern station for the last train that would get them on theStation before shore leave expired. Moran, on leaving, shook hands likea presidential candidate. 

"I never met up with a finer bunch of ladies, " he assured them, againand again. "Sure I'm comin' back again. Ask me. I've had a elegant time. Elegant. I never met a finer bunch of ladies. "

They did not talk much in the train, he and Tyler. It was a sleepy lotof boys that that train carried back to the Great Central Naval Station. Tyler was undressed and in his hammock even before Moran, the expert. Hewould not have to woo sleep to-night. Finally Moran, too, had swunghimself up to his precarious nest and relaxed with a tired, happy grunt. 

Quiet again brooded over the great dim barracks. Tyler felt himselfslipping off to sleep, deliciously. She would be there next Saturday. Her first name, she had said, was Myrtle. An awful pretty name for agirl. Just about the prettiest he had ever heard. Her folks invitedjackies to dinner at the house nearly every Sunday. Maybe, if they gavehim thirty-six hours' leave next time--

"Hey, Sweetheart!" sounded in a hissing whisper from Moran's hammock. 

"What?"

"Say, was that four steps and then turn-turn, or four and two steps t'the side? I kinda forgot. "

"O, shut up!" growled Monicker, from the other side. "Let a fellowsleep, can't you! What do you think this is? A boarding school!"

"Shut up yourself!" retorted Tyler, happily. "It's four steps, and twoto the right and two to the left, and four again, and turn two, turntwo. "

"I was pretty sure, " said Moran, humbly. And relaxed again. 

Quiet settled down upon the great room. There were only the sounds ofdeep regular breathing, with an occasional grunt or sigh. The normalsleep sounds of very tired boys. 

THE END