Cheerful–By Request by Edna Ferber (page 4)

proper 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 left nonchalantly and enjoy that brief moment’s chat with Floor Clerk Number Two. You went back to Ishpeming, Michigan, with three new impressions: The first was that you were becoming a personage of considerable importance. The second was that the Magnifique realised this great truth and was grateful for your patronage. The third was that New York was a friendly little hole after all!

Miss Sadie Corn was dean of the Hotel Magnifique’s floor clerks. The primary requisite in successful floor clerkship is homeliness. The second is discreet age. The third is tact. And for the benefit of those who think the duties of a floor clerk end when she takes your key when you leave your room, and hands it back as you return, it may be mentioned that the fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh requisites are diplomacy, ingenuity, unlimited patience and a comprehensive knowledge of human nature. Ambassadors have been known to keep their jobs on less than that.

She had come to the Magnifique at thirty-three, a plain, spare, sallow woman, with a quiet, capable manner, a pungent trick of the tongue on occasion, a sparse fluff of pale-coloured hair, and big, bony-knuckled hands, such as you see on women who have the gift of humanness. She was forty-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 paupers much the same–the difference being that the princes dressed down to the part, while the paupers dressed up to it.

Time, experience, understanding and the daily dealing with ever-changing humanity had brought certain lines into Sadie Corn’s face. So skilfully were they placed that the unobservant put them down as wrinkles on the countenance of a homely, middle-aged woman; but he who read as he ran saw that the lines about the eyes were quizzical, shrewd lines, which come from the practice of gauging character at a glance; that the mouth-markings meant tolerance and sympathy and humour; that the forehead 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 little lavender-and-white crocheted shawl about her shoulders on cool days, and when Two-fifty-seven, who was a regular, caught his annual heavy cold late in the fall, Sadie would ask him sharply whether he had on his winter flannels. On his replying in the negative she would rebuke him scathingly and demand a bill of sizable denomination; and when her watch was over she would sally forth to purchase four sets of men’s winter underwear. As captain of the Magnifique’s thirty-four floor clerks Sadie Corn’s authority extended from the parlours to the roof, but her especial domain was floor two. Ensconced behind her little desk in a corner, blocked in by mailracks, pantry signals, pneumatic-tube chutes and telephone, with a clear view of the elevators and stairway, Sadie Corn was mistress of the moods, manners and morals of the Magnifique’s second floor.

It was six thirty p.m. on Monday of Automobile Show Week when Sadie Corn came on watch. She came on with a lively, well-developed case of neuralgia over her right eye and extending down into her back teeth. With its usual spitefulness the attack had chosen to make its appearance during her long watch. It never selected her short-watch days, when she was on duty only from eleven a.m. until six-thirty p.m.

Now with a peppermint bottle held close to alternately sniffing nostrils Sadie Corn was running her eye over the complex report sheet of the floor clerk who had just gone off watch. The report was even more detailed and lengthy than usual. Automobile Show Week meant that the always prosperous Magnifique was filled to the eaves and turning them away. It meant twice the usual number of inside telephone calls anent rooms too hot, rooms too cold, radiators hammering, radiators hissing, windows that refused to open, windows that refused to shut, packages undelivered, hot water not forthcoming. As the human buffers between guests and hotel management, it was the duty of Sadie Corn and her diplomatic squad to pacify the peevish, to smooth the path of the paying.

Down the hall strolled Donahue, the house detective–Donahue the leisurely. Donahue the keen-eyed, Donahue the guileless–looking in his evening clothes for all the world like a prosperous diner-out. He smiled benignly upon Sadie Corn, and Sadie Corn had the bravery to smile back in spite of her neuralgia, knowing well that men have no sympathy with that anguishing ailment and no understanding of it.

“Everything serene, Miss Corn?” inquired Donahue.

“Everything’s serene,” said Sadie Corn. “Though Two-thirty-three telephoned a minute ago to say that if the valet didn’t bring his pants from the presser in the next two seconds he’d come down the hall as he is and get ’em. Perhaps you’d better stay round.”

Donahue chuckled and passed on. Half way down the hall he retraced his steps, and stopped again before Sadie Corn’s busy desk. He balanced a moment thoughtfully from toe to heel, his chin lifted inquiringly: “Keep your 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 after dinner, like they sometimes do. A man with eyelashes like his always speaks to any woman alone who isn’t pockmarked and toothless. Two minutes after he’s met a girl his voice takes on the ‘cello note. I know his kind. Why, say, he even tried waving those eyelashes of his at me first time he turned in his key; and goodness knows I’m so homely that pretty soon I’ll be ripe for bachelor floor thirteen. You know as well as I that to qualify for that job a floor clerk’s got to look like a gargoyle.”

“Maybe they’re all right,” said Donahue thoughtfully. “If it’s just a flirtation, why–anyway, watch ’em this evening. The day watch listened in and says they’ve made some date for to-night.”

He was off down the hall again with his light, quick step that still had the appearance of leisureliness.

The telephone at Sadie’s right buzzed warningly. Sadie picked up the receiver and plunged into the busiest half hour of the evening. From that moment until seven o’clock her nimble fingers and eyes and brain and tongue directed the steps of her little world. She held the telephone receiver at one ear and listened to the demands of incoming and outgoing guests with the other. She jotted down reports, dealt out mail and room-keys, kept her neuralgic eye on stairs and elevators and halls, her sound orb on tube and pantry signals, while through and between and above all she guided the stream of humanity that trickled past her desk–bellhops, Polish chambermaids, messenger boys, guests, waiters, parlour maids.

Just before seven there disembarked at floor two out of the cream-and-gold elevator one of those visions that have helped to make Fifth Avenue a street of the worst-dressed women in the world. The vision was Two-eighteen, and her clothes were of the kind that prepared you for the shock that you got when you looked at her face. Plume met fur, and fur met silk, and silk met lace, and lace met gold–and the whole met and ran into a riot of colour, and perfume–and little jangling, swishing sounds. Just by glancing at Two-eighteen’s feet in their inadequate openwork silk and soft kid you knew that Two-eighteen’s lips would be carmined.

She came down the corridor and stopped at Sadie Corn’s desk. Sadie Corn had her key ready for her. Two-eighteen took it daintily between white-gloved fingers.

“I’ll want a maid in fifteen minutes,” she said. “Tell them to send me the 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 the bend in the broad, marble stairway that led up from the parlour floor the trim, slim figure of Julia herself.

Two-eighteen took a quick step forward. “Here, girl! I’ll want you to hook me in fifteen minutes,” she said.

“Very well, ma’am,” replied Julia softly.

There passed between Sadie Corn and Two-eighteen a–well, you could hardly call it a look, it was so fleeting, so ephemeral; that electric, pregnant, meaning something that flashes between two women who dislike and understand each other. Then Two-eighteen was off down the hall to her room.

Julia stood at the head of the stairway just next to Sadie’s desk and watched Two-eighteen until the bend in the corridor hid her. Julia, of the lady’s-maid staff, could never have qualified for the position of floor clerk, even if she had chosen to bury herself in lavender-and-white crocheted shawls to the tip of her marvellous little Greek nose. In her frilly white cap, her trim black gown, her immaculate collar and cuffs and apron, Julia looked distractingly like the young person who, in the old days of the furniture-dusting drama, was wont to inform you that it was two years since young master went away–all but her feet. The feather-duster person was addicted to French-heeled, beaded slippers. Not so Julia. Julia was on her feet for ten hours or so a day. When you subject your feet to ten-hour tortures you are apt to pass by French-heeled effects in favour of something flat-heeled, laced, with an easy, comfortable crack here and there at the sides, and stockings with white cotton soles.

Julia, at the head of the stairway, stood looking after Two-eighteen until 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 after another! Look at her! Why is it that kind of a face is always wearing the sables and diamonds?”

“Sables and diamonds,” replied Sadie Corn, sniffing essence of peppermint, “seem a small enough reward for having to carry round a mug like that!”

Julia came round to the front of Sadie Corn’s desk. Her eyes were brooding, her lips sullen.

“Oh, I don’t know!” she said bitterly. “Being pretty don’t get you anything–just being pretty! When I first came I used to wonder at those women that paint their faces and colour their hair, and wear skirts that are too tight and waists that are too low. But–I don’t know! This town’s so big and so–so kind of uninterested. When you see everybody wearing clothes that are more gorgeous than yours, and diamonds bigger, and limousines longer and blacker and quieter, it gives you a kind of fever. You–you want to make people look at you too.”

Sadie Corn leaned back in her chair. The peppermint bottle was held at her nose. It may have been that which caused her eyes to narrow to mere slits as she gazed at the drooping Julia. She said nothing. Suddenly Julia seemed to feel the silence. She looked down at Sadie Corn. As by a miracle all the harsh, sullen lines in the girl’s face vanished, to be replaced 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 push my right eye out with his thumb. Anyway it feels like that.”

“Poor old dear!” breathed Julia. “It’s the weather. Have them send you up a pot of black tea.”

“When you’ve got neuralgy over your right eye,” observed Sadie Corn grimly, “there’s just one thing helps–that is to crawl into bed in a flannel nightgown, with the side of your face resting on the red rubber bosom of a hot-water bottle. And I can’t do it; so let’s talk about something cheerful. Seen Jo to-day?”

There crept into Julia’s face a wave of colour–not the pink of pleasure, but the dull red of pain. She looked away from Sadie’s eyes and 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 I hooked up until my fingers were stiff. You know the way the dresses fastened last winter. Some of ’em ought to have had a map to go by, they were that complicated. And now, just when I’ve got so’s I can hook any dress that was ever intended for the human form–“

“Wasn’t it Jo who said they ought to give away an engineering blueprint with every dress, when you told him about the way they hooked?” put in Sadie. “What’s the trouble between you and–“

Julia rattled on, unheeding:

“You wouldn’t believe what a difference there’s been since these new peasant 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 of those skintight dames, when your fingers were sore from trying to squeeze them into their casings? By the way, what’s the trouble between you and–“

“Makes an awful difference in my tips!” cut in Julia deftly. “I don’t believe I’ve hooked up six this evening, and two of them sprung the haven’t-anything-but-a-five-dollar-bill-see-you-to-morrow! Women are devils! I wish–“

Sadie Corn leaned forward, placed her hand on Julia’s arm, and turned the girl about so that she faced her. Julia tried miserably to escape her keen eyes and failed.

“What’s the trouble between you and Jo?” she demanded for the fourth time. “Out with it or I’ll telephone down to the engine room and ask him myself.”

“Oh, well, if you want to know–” She paused, her eyelids drooping again; 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 got to go to the hospital and have another operation. You know what that means–putting off the wedding again until God knows when! I’m sick of it–putting off and putting off! I told him we might as well quit and be done with it. We’ll never get married at this rate. Soon’s Jo gets enough put by to start us on, something happens. Last three times it’s been 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 worst thing that can happen to you. I’m happy. I had my plans, too, when I was a girl like you–not that I was ever pretty; but I had my trials. Funny how the thing that’s easy and the thing that’s right never seem to be the same!”

“Oh, I’m fond of Jo’s ma,” said Julia, a little shamefacedly. “We get along all right. She knows how it is, I guess; and feels–well, in the way. But when Jo told me, I was tired I guess. We had words. I told him there were plenty waiting for me if he was through. I told him I could have 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 as an 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 not to listen to the talk of the men guests round here. Two-twenty-three isn’t your kind–and you know it! If I catch you talking to him again I’ll–“

The telephone at her elbow sounded sharply. She answered it absently, her eyes, with their expression of pain and remonstrance, still unshrinking before the onslaught of Julia’s glare. Then her expression changed. A look of consternation came into her face.

“Right away, madam!” she said, at the telephone. “Right away! You won’t have to wait another minute.” She hung up the receiver and waved Julia away with a gesture. “It’s Two-eighteen. You promised to be there in fifteen 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 away so 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 be careful of mine for a change.” She walked off down the hall, the little head still held high. A half dozen paces and she turned. “What was it you said you’d do to me if you caught me talking to him again?” she sneered.

A miserable twinge of pain shot through Sadie Corn’s eye, to be followed by a wave of nausea that swept over her. They alone were responsible for her answer.

“I’ll report you!” she snapped, and was sorry at once.

Julia turned again, walked down the corridor and round the corner in the direction of two-eighteen.

Long after Julia had disappeared Sadie Corn stared after her–miserable, regretful.

Julia knocked once at the door of two-eighteen and turned the knob before a high, shrill voice cried:

“Come!”

Two-eighteen was standing in the centre of the floor in scant satin knickerbockers and tight brassiere. The blazing folds of a cerise satin gown held in her hands made a great, crude patch of colour in the neutral-tinted bedroom. The air was heavy with scent. Hair, teeth, eyes, fingernails–Two-eighteen glowed and glistened. Chairs and bed held odds and ends.

“Where’ve you been, girl?” shrilled Two-eighteen. “I’ve been waiting like a fool! I told you to be here in fifteen minutes.”

“My stop-watch isn’t working right,” replied Julia impudently and took the cerise satin gown in her two hands.

She made a ring of the gown’s opening, and through that cerise frame her eyes met those of Two-eighteen.

“Careful of my hair!” Two-eighteen warned her, and ducked her head to the practised movement of Julia’s arms. The cerise gown dropped to her shoulders without grazing a hair. Two-eighteen breathed a sigh of relief. She turned to face the mirror.

“It starts at the left, three hooks; then to the centre; then back four–under the arm and down the middle again. That chiffon comes over like a drape.”

She picked up a buffer from the litter of ivory and silver on the dresser and began to polish her already glittering nails, turning her head this way and that, preening her neck, biting her scarlet lips to deepen their crimson, opening her eyes wide and half closing them languorously. Julia, down on her knees in combat with the trickiest of the hooks, glanced up and saw. Two-eighteen caught the glance in the mirror. She stopped her idle polishing and preening to study the glowing and lovely little face that looked up at her. A certain queer expression grew 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 fingers working nimbly.

“Me? My regular job is working. Don’t jerk, please. I’ve fastened this one 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 silence she knelt and wove a pin deftly in and out. When she rose from her knees her face was quite white.

“There, that’s the girl!” said Two-eighteen blithely, her rage forgotten. “Just pat this over my shoulders.”

She handed a powder-puff to Julia and turned her back to the broad mirror, holding a hand-glass high as she watched the powder-laden puff leaving a snowy coat on the neck and shoulders and back so generously displayed in the cherry-coloured gown. Julia’s face was set and hard.

“Oh, now, don’t sulk!” coaxed Two-eighteen good-naturedly, all of a sudden. “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-morrow and 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. How do you like this dress? Don’t you think it smart?”

She turned squarely to face Julia, trying on her the tricks she had practised 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 yesterday on 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 an out-of-towner every time. You know the really new thing is the Bulgarian effect!”

“Well, of all the nerve!” began Two-eighteen, turning to the mirror in a sort of fright. “Of all the–“

What she saw there seemed to reassure. She raised one hand to push the gown 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 jewelled gold-mesh bag that lay on the bed. From it she extracted a coin and held it out to Julia. It was a generous coin. Julia looked at it. Her smouldering 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 the stairway. Julia began to descend the stairs, unheeding. Sadie Corn rose and 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 know that. You wouldn’t be mad at a poor old woman that’s half crazy with neuralgy!” Julia hesitated, one foot poised to take the next step. “Come on up,” coaxed Sadie Corn, “and tell me what Two-eighteen’s wearing this evening. I’m that lonesome, with nothing to do but sit here and watch 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 know yourself I’d bite my tongue out first!”

“Well!” said Julia slowly, and relented. She came up the stairs almost shyly. “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 that hair! She asked me if I didn’t think she looked too pale. I wanted to tell her that if she had any more colour, with that dress, they’d be likely 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 skirt necessitated. With each pace the slashed silken skirt parted to reveal a shameless glimpse of cerise silk stocking. In her wake came Venner, of Two-twenty-three–a strange contrast in his black and white.

Sadie and Julia watched them from the corner nook. Opposite the desk Two-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 come in 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 stepped into the cream-and-gold elevator and had vanished. Sadie, peppermint bottle at nose, spoke first:

“She makes one of those sandwich men with a bell, on Sixth Avenue, look like a shrinking violet!”

Julia’s lower lip was caught between her teeth. The scent that had enveloped Two-eighteen as she passed was still in the air. Julia’s nostrils 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 and homely, 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 pretty too. And I like pretty things. It ain’t fair! That was one reason why I broke with Jo. It wasn’t only his mother. I told him he couldn’t ever give me the things I want anyway. You can’t help wanting ’em–seeing them all round every day on women that aren’t half as good-looking as you are! I want low-cut dresses too. My neck’s like milk. I want silk underneath, and fur coming up on my coat collar to make my cheeks look pink. I’m sick of hooking other women up. I want to stand in front of a mirror, looking at myself, polishing my pink nails with a silver thing and having somebody else hook me up!”

In Sadie Corn’s eyes there was a mist that could not be traced to neuralgia or peppermint.

“Julia, girl,” said Sadie Corn, “ever since the world began there’s been hookers and hooked. And there always will be. I was born a hooker. So were you. Time was when I used to cry out against it too. But shucks! I know better now. I wouldn’t change places. Being a hooker gives you such an all-round experience like of mankind. The hooked only get a front view. They only see faces and arms and chests. But the hookers–they see the necks and shoulderblades of this world, as well as faces. It’s mighty broadening–being a hooker. It’s the hookers that keep this world together, Julia, and fastened up right. It wouldn’t amount to much if it had to depend on such as that!” She nodded her head in the direction the cerise figure had taken. “The height of her ambition is to get the cuticle of her nails trained back so perfectly that it won’t have to be cut; and she don’t feel decently dressed to be seen in public unless she’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 dress as she passed she was envying you!”

“Envying me!” said Julia, and laughed a short laugh that had little of mirth 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, and always has been, that she doesn’t have the same heartaches that a pretty woman has. She’s built just the same inside.”

Julia turned her head to stare at her wide-eyed. It was a long and trying stare, as though she now saw Sadie Corn for the first time.

Sadie, smiling up at the girl, stood it bravely. Then, with a sudden little gesture, Julia patted the wrinkled, sallow cheek and was off down the hall and round the corner to two-eighteen.

The lights still blazed in the bedroom. Julia closed the door and stood with her back to it, looking about the disordered chamber. In that marvellous way a room has of reflecting the very personality of its absent owner, room two-eighteen bore silent testimony to the manner of woman who had just left it. The air was close and overpoweringly sweet with perfume–sachet, powder–the scent of a bedroom after a vain and selfish woman has left it. The litter of toilet articles lay scattered about on the dresser. Chairs and bed held garments of lace and silk. A bewildering negligee hung limply over a couch; and next it stood a patent-leather slipper, its mate on the floor.

Julia saw these things in one accustomed glance. Then she advanced to the middle of the room and stooped to pick up a pink wadded bedroom slipper from where it lay under the bed. And her hand touched a coat of velvet and fur that had been flung across the counterpane–touched it and 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 a lining of vivid orange. Julia straightened up and stood regarding the garment, her hands on her hips.

“I wonder if it’s draped in the back,” she said to herself, and picked it up. It was draped in the back–bewitchingly. She held it at arm’s length, turning it this way and that. Then, as though obeying some powerful force she could not resist, Julia plunged her arms into the satin of the sleeves and brought the great soft revers up about her throat. The great, gorgeous, shimmering thing completely hid her grubby little black gown. She stepped to the mirror and stood surveying herself in 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 of black hair, rose flowerlike from the clinging garment. She was still standing there, lips parted, eyes wide with delight, when the door opened and closed–and Venner, of two-twenty-three, strode into the room.

“You little beauty!” exclaimed Two-twenty-three.

Julia had wheeled about. She stood staring at him, eyes and lips wide with 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 Nutcracker Face in the hall thinks I went to my own room.” He took two quick steps forward. “You raving little Cinderella beauty, you!”–And he gathered Julia, coat and all, into his arms.

“Let me go!” panted Julia, fighting with all the strength of her young arms. “Let me go!”

“You’ll have coats like this,” Two-twenty-three was saying in her ear–“a dozen of them! And dresses too; and laces and furs! You’ll be ten 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 wall near the door. The man uttered something and turned. Julia pushed him away, loosened the coat with fingers that shook and dropped it to the floor. It lay in a shimmering circle about the tired feet in their worn, cracked boots. And one foot was raised suddenly and kicked the silken garment into a heap.

The telephone bell sounded again. Venner, of two-twenty-three, plunged his hand into his pocket, took out something and pressed it in Julia’s palm, shutting her fingers over it. Julia did not need to open them and look to see–she knew by the feel of the crumpled paper, stiff and crackling. He was making for the door, with some last instructions that she did not hear, before she spoke. The telephone bell had stopped its insistent ringing.

Julia raised her arm and hurled at him with all her might the yellow-backed paper he had thrust in her hand.

“I’ll–I’ll get my man to whip you for this!” she panted. “Jo’ll pull those eyelashes of yours out and use ’em for couplings. You miserable little–“

The outside door opened again, striking Two-twenty-three squarely in the back. He crumpled up against the wall with an oath.

Sadie Corn, in the doorway, gave no heed to him. Her eyes searched Julia’s flushed face. What she saw there seemed to satisfy her. She turned 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 to him.”

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!” said Sadie Corn. Then, at a muttered remonstrance from him: “Oh, yes, you will! So will Two-eighteen. Huh? Oh, I guess she will! Say, what do you think 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: “Why didn’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 was telephoning 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 knuckles showing white, pressed against her mouth. A little moan came from her that, 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 only take back what I said to Jo! He’ll never forgive me now! And I’ll never forgive myself!”

“He’ll forgive you,” said Sadie Corn; “but you’ll never forgive yourself. That’s as it should be. That, you know, is our punishment for what we say in thoughtlessness and anger.”

They turned the corridor corner. Standing before the desk near the stairway was the tall figure of Donahue, house detective. Donahue had always said that Julia was too pretty to be a hotel employe.

“Straighten up, Julia!” whispered Sadie Corn. “And smile if it kills you–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 and back 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 rubbing her 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 hot tea.”

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 defray the expense of their journeyings by dashing off tales filled with foreign flavour. Dickens did it, and Dante. It has been tried all the way from Tasso to Twain; from Raskin to Roosevelt. A pleasing custom it is and thrifty withal, and one that has saved many a one but poorly prepared for the European robber in uniform the moist and unpleasant task of swimming home.

Your writer spends seven days, say, in Paris. Result? The Latin Quarter story. _Oh, mes enfants!_ That Parisian student-life story! There is the beautiful young American girl–beautiful, but as earnest and good as she is beautiful, and as talented as she is earnest and good. And wedded, be it understood, to her art–preferably painting or singing. From New York! Her name must be something prim, yet winsome. Lois will do–Lois, _la belle Americaine_. Then the hero–American too. Madly in love with Lois. Tall he is and always clean-limbed–not handsome, but with one of those strong, rugged faces. His name, too, must be strong and plain, yet snappy. David is always good. The villain is French, fascinating, and wears a tiny black moustache to hide his mouth, which is cruel.

The rest is simple. A little French restaurant–Henri’s. Know you not Henri’s? _Tiens!_ But Henri’s is not for the tourist. A dim little shop and shabby, modestly tucked away in the shadows of the Rue Brie. But the food! Ah, the–whadd’you-call’ems–in the savoury sauce, that is Henri’s secret! The tender, broiled _poularde_, done to a turn! The bottle of red wine! _Mais oui_; there one can dine under the watchful glare of Rosa, the plump, black-eyed wife of the _concierge_. With a snowy apron about her buxom waist, and a pot of red geraniums somewhere, and a sleek, lazy cat contentedly purring in the sunny window!

Then Lois starving in a garret. Temptation! _Sacre bleu! Zut!_ Also _nom d’un nom!_ Enter David. _Bon!_ Oh, David, take me away! Take me back to dear old Schenectady. Love is more than all else, especially when no one will buy your pictures.

The Italian story recipe is even simpler. A pearl necklace; a low, clear whistle. Was it the call of a bird or a signal? His-s-s-st! Again! A black cape; the flash of steel in the moonlight; the sound of a splash in the water; a sickening gurgle; a stifled cry! Silence! His-st! _Vendetta!_

There is the story made in Germany, filled with students and steins and scars; with beer and blonde, blue-eyed _Maedchen_ garbed–the _Maedchen_, that is–in black velvet bodice, white chemisette, scarlet skirt with two rows of black ribbon at the bottom, and one yellow braid over the shoulder. Especially is this easily accomplished if actually written in the _Vaterland_, German typewriting machines being equipped with _umlauts_.

And yet not one of these formulas would seem to fit the story of Mary Gowd. Mary Gowd, with her frumpy English hat and her dreadful English fringe, and her brick-red English cheeks, which not even the enervating Italian sun, the years of bad Italian food or the damp and dim little Roman room had been able to sallow. Mary Gowd, with her shabby blue suit and 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 Gowd from seeking peace in the muddy old Tiber.

Her card read imposingly thus: Mary M. Gowd, Cicerone. Certificated and Licensed Lecturer on Art and Archaeology. Via del Babbuino, Roma.

In plain language Mary Gowd was a guide. Now, Rome is swarming with guides; 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 you when you arrive panting from your climb up the shallow steps. They lie in wait in the doorway of St. Peter’s. Bland, suave, smiling, quiet, but insistent, they dog you from the Vatican to the Catacombs.

Hundreds there are of these little men–undersized, even in this land of small men–dapper, agile, low-voiced, crafty. In his inner coat pocket each carries his credentials, greasy, thumb-worn documents, but precious. He glances at your shoes–this insinuating one–or at your hat, 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, be you 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. They hated her with the hate of an Italian for an outlander–with the hate of an Italian for a woman who works with her brain–with the hate of an Italian who sees another taking the bread out of his mouth. All this, coupled with the fact that your Italian is a natural-born hater, may indicate that the life of Mary Gowd had not the lyric lilt that life is commonly reputed to have in sunny Italy.

Oh, there is no formula for Mary Gowd’s story. In the first place, the tale of how Mary Gowd came to be the one woman guide in Rome runs like melodrama. And Mary herself, from her white cotton gloves, darned at the fingers, to her figure, which mysteriously remained the same in spite of fifteen years of scant Italian fare, does not fit gracefully into the role 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. She had been pretty, with that pink-cheesecloth prettiness of the provincial English girl, who degenerates into blowsiness at thirty. Since seventeen she had saved and scrimped and contrived for this modest Roman holiday. She had given painting lessons–even painted on loathsome china–that the little hoard might grow. And when at last there was enough she had come to this Rome against the protests of the fussy English father and the spinster English sister.

The man she met quite casually one morning in the Sistine Chapel–perhaps he bumped her elbow as they stood staring up at the glorious ceiling. A thousand pardons! Ah, an artist too? In five minutes they were chattering like mad–she in bad French and exquisite English; he in bad English and exquisite French. He knew Rome–its pictures, its glories, its history–as only an Italian can. And he taught her art, and he taught her Italian, and he taught her love.

And so they were married, or ostensibly married, though Mary did not know the truth until three months later when he left her quite as casually as he had met her, taking with him the little hoard, and Mary’s English 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 those days. She would sit in the great galleries for hours, staring at the wonder-works. Then, one day, again in the Sistine Chapel, a fussy little American woman had approached her, her eyes snapping. Mary was sketching, 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 of eight. We’re all school-teachers And this guide”–she waved a hand in the direction of a rapt little group standing in the agonising position the 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 in unfolding to this commonplace little woman the glory of the masterpiece among masterpieces.

“Why–why,” gasped her listener, who had long since beckoned the other seven with frantic finger, “how beautifully you explain it! How much you know! Oh, why can’t they talk as you do?” she wailed, her eyes full of contempt 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 to have some one like you to be with them in Rome.”

Mary Gowd’s whole body stiffened. She stared fixedly at the grateful little 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 do any such work, but I just couldn’t help saying–“

“But I do need work,” interrupted Mary Gowd. She stood up, her cheeks pink again for the moment, her eyes bright. “I thank you. Oh, I thank you!”

“You thank me!” faltered the American.

But Mary Gowd had folded her sketchbook and was off, through the vestibule, down the splendid corridor, past the giant Swiss guard, to the noisy, sunny Piazza di San Pietro.

That had been fifteen years ago. She had taken her guide’s examinations and passed them. She knew her Rome from the crypt of St. Peter’s to the top of the Janiculum Hill; from the Campagna to Tivoli. She read and studied and learned. She delved into the past and brought up strange and interesting truths. She could tell you weird stories of those white marble men who lay so peacefully beneath St. Peter’s dome, their ringed hands crossed on their breasts. She learned to juggle dates with an ease that brought gasps from her American clients, with their history that went back little more than one hundred years.

She learned to designate as new anything that failed to have its origin stamped B.C.; and the Magnificent Augustus, he who boasted of finding Rome brick and leaving it marble, was a mere _nouveau riche_ with his miserable A.D. 14.

She was as much at home in the Thermae of Caracalla as you in your white-and-blue-tiled bath. She could juggle the history of emperors with one hand and the scandals of half a dozen kings with the other. No ruin was too unimportant for her attention–no picture too faded for her research. She had the centuries at her tongue’s end. Michelangelo and Canova were her brothers in art, and Rome was to her as your back-garden patch is to you.

Mary Gowd hated this Rome as only an English woman can who has spent fifteen years in that nest of intrigue. She fought the whole race of Roman guides day after day. She no longer turned sick and faint when they hissed after her vile Italian epithets that her American or English clients quite failed to understand. Quite unconcernedly she would jam down the lever of the taximeter the wily Italian cabby had pulled only halfway so that the meter might register double. And when that foul-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 conquered her disgust for Italian meat since first she saw the filthy carcasses, fly-infested, dust-covered, loathsome, being carted through the swarming streets.

It was six o’clock of an evening early in March when Mary Gowd went home to the murky little room in the Via Babbuino. She was too tired to notice the sunset. She was too tired to smile at the red-eyed baby of the cobbler’s wife, who lived in the rear. She was too tired to ask Tina for the letters that seldom came. It had been a particularly trying day, spent with a party of twenty Germans, who had said “_Herrlich!_” when she showed them the marvels of the Vatican and “_Kolossal!_” at the grandeur of the Colosseum and, for the rest, had kept their noses buried in their Baedekers.

She groped her way cautiously down the black hall. Tina had a habit of leaving sundry brushes, pans or babies lying about. After the warmth of the 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 patient shoulders. Then, before taking off the dowdy hat, before removing the white cotton gloves, she went to the window that overlooked the noisy Via Babbuino, closed the massive wooden shutters, fastened the heavy windows 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. Mary Gowd, born and bred amid the green of Northern England, had never become hardened to the maddening noises of the Via Babbuino: The rattle and clatter of cab wheels; the clack-clack of thousands of iron-shod hoofs; the shrill, high cry of the street venders; the blasts of motor horns that seemed to rend the narrow street; the roar and rumble of the electric trams; the wail of fretful babies; the chatter of gossiping women; and above and through and below it all the cracking of the cabman’s whip–that sceptre of the Roman cabby, that wand which is one part whip and nine parts crack. Sometimes it seemed to Mary Gowd that her brain was seared and welted by the pistol-shot reports of those eternal whips.

She came forward now and lighted a candle that stood on the table and another on the dresser. Their dim light seemed to make dimmer the dark little room. She looked about with a little shiver. Then she sank into the chintz-covered chair that was the one bit of England in the sombre chamber. She took off the dusty black velvet hat, passed a hand over her hair with a gesture that was more tired than tidy, and sat back, her eyes shut, her body inert, her head sagging on her breast.

The voices in the back of the house had ceased. From the kitchen came the slipslop of Tina’s slovenly feet. Mary Gowd opened her eyes and sat up very straight as Tina stood in the doorway. There was nothing picturesque about Tina. Tina was not one of those olive-tinted, melting-eyed daughters of Italy that one meets in fiction. Looking at her yellow skin and her wrinkles and her coarse hands, one wondered whether she was fifty, or sixty, or one hundred, as is the way with Italian women of Tina’s class at thirty-five.

Ah, the signora was tired! She smiled pityingly. Tired! Not at all, Mary Gowd assured her briskly. She knew that Tina despised her because she worked like a man.

“Something fine for supper?” Mary Gowd asked mockingly. Her Italian was like 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 unknown language, which always roused Tina to fury. “And a steak–a real steak of real beef, three inches thick and covered with onions fried in butter. And creamed chicken, and English hothouse tomatoes, and fresh peaches and little hot rolls, and coffee that isn’t licorice and ink, and–and–“

Tina’s dangling earrings disappeared in her shoulders. Her outspread palms were eloquent.

“Crazy, these English!” said the shoulders and palms. “Mad!”

Mary Gowd threw her hat on the bed, pushed aside a screen and busied herself 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 turned away: “Oh, Tina! Letters?”

Tina fumbled at the bosom of her gown, thought deeply and drew out a crumpled envelope. It had been opened and clumsily closed again. Fifteen years ago Mary Gowd would have raged. Now she shrugged philosophic shoulders. Tina stole hairpins, opened letters that she could not hope to decipher, rummaged bureau drawers, rifled cupboards and fingered books; but then, so did most of the other Tinas in Rome. What use to complain?

Mary Gowd opened the thumb-marked letter, bringing it close to the candlelight. As she read, a smile appeared.

“Huh! Gregg,” she said, “Americans!” She glanced again at the hotel letterhead on the stationery–the best hotel in Naples. “Americans–and rich!”

The pleased little smile lingered as she beat the omelet briskly for her supper.

The Henry D. Greggs arrived in Rome on the two o’clock train from Naples. And all the Roman knights of the waving palm espied them from afar and hailed them with whoops of joy. The season was still young and the Henry D. Greggs looked like money–not Italian money, which is reckoned 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, marked them as they rode past. The cripple who lurked behind a pillar in the colonnade threw aside his coat with a practised hitch of his shoulder to reveal 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-passenger car; with its two glistening bathrooms, and its Oriental rugs, and its laundry in the basement, and its Sunday fried chicken and ice cream, because they felt that Miss Eleanora Gregg ought to have the benefit of foreign travel. Miss Eleanora Gregg thought so too: in fact, she had thought so first.

Her name was Eleanora, but her parents called her Tweetie, which really did not sound so bad as it might if Tweetie had been one whit less pretty. Tweetie was so amazingly, Americanly pretty that she could have triumphed over a pet name twice as absurd.

The Greggs came to Rome, as has been stated, at two P.M. Wednesday. By two 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 loll back in her cab in imitation of the dashing, black-eyed, sallow women she had seen driving on the Pincio. By Thursday evening she was teasing Papa Gregg for a spray of white aigrets, such as those same languorous ladies wore in feathery mists atop their hats.

“But, Tweet,” argued Papa Gregg, “what’s the use? You can’t take them back 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 how they’re torn from the mother birds. No daughter of mine–“

“I don’t care!” retorted Tweetie. “They’re perfectly stunning; and I’m going to have them.”

And she had them–not that the aigret incident is important; but it may serve 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 had heard of Mary Gowd. And Mary Gowd, with her knowledge of everything Roman–from the Forum to the best place at which to buy pearls–was to be the staff on which the Greggs were to lean.

“My husband,” said Mrs. Gregg; “my daughter Twee–er–Eleanora. We’ve heard such wonderful things of you from my dear friend Mrs. Melville Peters, 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 on Rome before the Women’s West End Culture Club, of Batavia. We’re affiliated with the National Federation of Women’s Clubs, as you probably know; and–“

“Now, Mother,” interrupted Henry Gregg, “the lady can’t be interested in your club.”

“Oh, but I am!” exclaimed Mary Gowd very vivaciously. “Enormously!”

Henry Gregg eyed her through his cigar smoke with suddenly narrowed lids.

“M-m-m! Well, let’s get to the point anyway. I know Tweetie here is dying to see St. Peter’s, and all that.”

Tweetie had settled back inscrutably after one comprehensive, disdainful look at Mary Gowd’s suit, hat, gloves and shoes. Now she sat up, her bewitching face glowing with interest.

“Tell me,” she said, “what do they call those officers with the long pale-blue capes and the silver helmets and the swords? And the ones in dark-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 blue capes here at tea yesterday–“

Papa Gregg laughed a great, comfortable laugh.

“Oh, so that’s where you were staring yesterday, young lady! I thought you acted kind of absent-minded.” He got up to walk over and pinch Tweetie’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 the pretty and unheeding ear of Tweetie Gregg.

On the fourth morning after that introductory meeting Mary Gowd arrived at 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 group centred about a very tall, very dashing, very black-mustachioed figure who wore a long pale blue cape thrown gracefully over one shoulder as only an Italian officer can wear such a garment. He was looking down into the brilliantly glowing face of the pretty Eleanora, and the pretty Eleanora 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 black eyes saw it, even as he bent low over Mary Gowd’s hand at the words of introduction.

“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 about among old ruins and things.”

Henry D. Gregg cleared his throat and took up the explanation. “Seems the–er–Signor thinks it would be just the thing to take a touring car and drive to Tivoli, and have a bite of lunch there.”

“And come back in time to see the Colosseum by moonlight!” put in Tweetie 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 in Mary Gowd’s eyes: “I’m not going to Tivoli, you see. I met a man from Chicago here at the hotel. He and I are going to chin awhile this morning. 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 to Tivoli 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 car at home in Batavia, but Tweetie’s beaus are always driving up for her in–“

Mary Gowd turned her head so that only Henry Gregg could hear what she said.

“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 joined Mary Gowd, who had chosen a seat a dozen paces away. “What’s the trouble?” he asked jocularly. “Hope you’re not offended because Tweet said 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. His folks really belong to the nobility.”

“I know; I know,” interrupted Mary Gowd. “I tell you they cannot go alone. Please believe me! I have been fifteen years in Rome. Noble or not, Caldini is an Italian. I ask you”–she had clasped her hands and was looking pleadingly up into his face–“I beg of you, let me go with them. You need not pay me to-day. You–“

Henry Gregg looked at her very thoughtfully and a little puzzled. Then he glanced over at the group again, with Blue Cape looking down so eagerly into Tweetie’s exquisite face and Tweetie looking up so raptly into Blue Cape’s melting eyes and Ma Gregg standing so placidly by. He turned again to Mary Gowd’s earnest face.

“Well, maybe you’re right. They do seem to use chaperons in Europe–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 heard Mrs. Gregg’s surprised exclamation, saw Tweetie’s pout, understood Caldini’s shrug and sneer. There followed a little burst of conversation. Then, with a little frown which melted into a smile for Blue Cape, Tweetie went to her room for motor coat and trifles that the long day’s outing demanded. Mrs. Gregg, still voluble, followed.

Blue Cape, with a long look at Mary Gowd, went out to confer with the porter about the motor. Papa Gregg, hand in pockets, cigar tilted, eyes narrowed, stood irresolutely in the centre of the great, gaudy foyer. Then, with a decisive little hunch of his shoulders, he came back to where 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 it thoughtfully.

“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 to Mother last night: ‘Little old Batavia’s good enough for Henry D.’ Of course it’s a grand education, travelling, especially for Tweetie. Funny, I always thought the fruit in Italy was regular hothouse stuff–thought the streets would just be lined with trees all hung with big, 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 to their families–little wizened bananas and oranges. Still, it’s grand here in Rome for Tweetie. I can’t stay long–just ran away from business to bring ’em over; but I’d like Tweetie to stay in Italy until she learns the lingo. Sings, too–Tweetie does; and she and Ma think they’ll have her voice cultivated over here. They’ll stay here quite a while, I guess.”

“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 a lot 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 England already–too many half-starving shabby genteel. I earn enough to live on here–that is, I call it living. You couldn’t. In the bad season, when there 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 throwing pennies in the Fountain of Trevi, so that they’ll come back to Rome, I want to scream. By the time I save enough money to go to America I’ll be an old woman and it will be too late. And if I did contrive to scrape together enough for my passage over I couldn’t go to the United States in these clothes. I’ve seen thousands of American women here. If they look like that when they’re just travelling about, what do they wear at home!”

“Clothes?” inquired Henry Gregg, mystified. “What’s wrong with your clothes?”

“Everything! I’ve seen them look at my suit, which hunches in the back and 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 hat is.”

“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. Tweetie pouted 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 the Colosseum–Mary Gowd silent and shabbier than ever from the dust of the road; Blue Cape smiling; Tweetie frankly pettish. Pa and Ma Gregg were listening 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 Blue Cape kissed her hand.

“Romantic!” snapped Tweetie. “It was as romantic as Main Street on Circus Day. Hordes of people tramping about like buffaloes. Simply swarming with tourists–German ones. One couldn’t find a single ruin to sit on. Romantic!” She glared at the silent Mary Gowd.

There was a strange little glint in Mary Gowd’s eyes, and the grim line was there about the mouth again, grimmer than it had been in the morning.

“You will excuse me?” she said. “I am very tired. I will say good night.”

“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 the morning,” went on Caldini in his careful English. “I cannot permit Signora Gowd to return home alone through the streets of Rome.” He bowed low 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 the look. 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 himself beside 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 not stand in my way. It is not good.” Mary Dowd sat silent. “You will help me. 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 than listen to a plan such as he proposed; but fifteen years of Rome blunts one’s English sensibilities. Fifteen years of privation dulls one’s moral sense. And money meant America. And little Tweetie Gregg had not lowered her voice or her laugh when she spoke that afternoon of Mary Gowd’s absurd English fringe and her red wrists above her too-short gloves.

“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 your name–to-morrow.”

They drove the remainder of the way in silence. At her door in the Via Babbuino:

“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 the Catacombs. Mary Gowd reached the hotel very early, but not so early as Caldini.

“Think the five of us can pile into one carriage?” boomed Henry Gregg cheerily.

“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 his wife–“take this larger carriage, while Miss Eleanora and Signor Caldini follow 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 that morning. 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 women of a thousand years ago. Even Tweetie–little frivolous, indifferent Tweetie–was impressed and interested.

As they were returning to the carriages after inspecting the Baths of Caracalla, Tweetie even skipped ahead and slipped her hand for a moment into Mary Gowd’s.

“You’re simply wonderful!” she said almost shyly. “You make things sound so 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 face it was, but very, very pretty, and exquisitely young and fresh and sweet. Tweetie dropped her voice to a whisper:

“You should hear him pronounce my name. It is like music when he says it–El-e-a-no-ra; like that. And aren’t his kid gloves always beautifully white? Why, the boys back home–“

Mary Gowd was still staring down at her. She lifted the slim, ringed little hand which lay within her white-cotton paw and stared at that too.

Then with a jerk she dropped the girl’s hand and squared her shoulders like a soldier, so that the dowdy blue suit strained more than ever at its seams; and the line that had settled about her mouth the night before faded slowly, as though a muscle too tightly drawn had relaxed.

In the carriages they were seated as before. The horses started up, with the smaller cab but a dozen paces behind. Mary Gowd leaned forward. She began to speak–her voice very low, her accent clearly English, her brevity 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. Henry Gregg laid one big hand on his wife’s shaking knees and eyed Mary Gowd very 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 not understand unless you lived here many years. I lived here many months before I learned to step meekly off into the gutter to allow a man to pass on the narrow sidewalk. You must take your pretty daughter and go away. To-night! No–let me finish. I will tell you what happened to me fifteen years ago, and I will tell you what this Caldini has in his mind. You will believe me and forgive me; and promise me that you will go quietly away.”

When she finished Mrs. Gregg was white-faced and luckily too frightened to weep. Henry Gregg started up in the carriage, his fists white-knuckled, his lean face turned toward the carriage crawling behind.

“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’re Americans, and it’s broad daylight. Why, I’ll lick the–“

“This is Rome,” interrupted Mary Gowd quietly, “and you will do nothing of the kind, because he would make you pay for that too, and it would be in all the papers; and your pretty daughter would hang her head in shame forever.” 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 her English 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 gay hand 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 Rome was hushed to a humming. She lighted a candle that stood on the table. Its dim light emphasized the gloom. She took off the battered black velvet hat and sank into the chintz-covered English chair. Tina stood in the doorway. Mary Gowd sat up with a jerk.

“Letters, Tina?”

Tina thought deeply, fumbled at the bosom of her gown and drew out a sealed envelope grudgingly.

Mary Gowd broke the seal, glanced at the letter. Then, under Tina’s startled 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 ashes into 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 open sesame never really sees the city, even though he dwell in the shadow of the Sorbonne and comprehend the _fiacre_ French of the Paris cabman. Some there are who craftily open the door with a skeleton key; some who ruthlessly batter the panels; some who achieve only a wax impression, which proves to be useless. There are many who travel no farther than the 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 as peeked through the key-hole. In a vague way she realised that she was seeing Paris as a blind man sees the sun–feeling its warmth, conscious of its white light beating on the eyeballs, but never actually beholding its golden glory.

This was Sophy Gold’s first trip to Paris, and her heart and soul and business brain were intent on buying the shrewdest possible bill of lingerie and infants’ wear for her department at Schiff Brothers’, Chicago; but Sophy under-estimated the powers of those three guiding parts. While heart, soul, and brain were bent dutifully and indefatigably on the lingerie and infants’-wear job they also were registering a series of kaleidoscopic outside impressions.

As she drove from her hotel to the wholesale district, and from the wholesale district to her hotel, there had flashed across her consciousness the picture of the chic little modistes’ models and _ouvrieres_ slipping out at noon to meet their lovers on the corner, to sit over their _sirop_ or wine at some little near-by cafe, hands clasped, eyes glowing.

Stepping out of the lift to ask for her room key, she had come on the black-gowned floor clerk, deep in murmured conversation with the valet, and she had seemed not to see Sophy at all as she groped subconsciously for the key along the rows of keyboxes. She had seen the workmen in their absurdly baggy corduroy trousers and grimy shirts strolling along arm in arm with the women of their class–those untidy women with the tidy hair. Bareheaded and happy, they strolled along, a strange contrast to the glitter of the fashionable boulevard, stopping now and then to gaze wide-eyed at a million-franc necklace in a jeweller’s window; then on again with a laugh and a shrug and a caress. She had seen the silent couples in the Tuileries Gardens at twilight.

Once, in the Bois de Boulogne, a slim, sallow _elegant_ had bent for what seemed an interminable time over a white hand that was stretched from the window of a motor car. He was standing at the curb; in either greeting or parting, and his eyes were fastened on other eyes within the car even while his lips pressed the white hand.

Then one evening–Sophy reddened now at memory of it–she had turned a quiet corner and come on a boy and a girl. The girl was shabby and sixteen; the boy pale, voluble, smiling.

Evidently they were just parting. Suddenly, as she passed, the boy had caught the girl in his arms there on the street corner in the daylight, and had kissed her–not the quick, resounding smack of casual leave-taking, but a long, silent kiss that left the girl limp.

Sophy stood rooted to the spot, between horror and fascination. The boy’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 her girl friend awaiting her calmly up the street. She was not even flushed; but Sophy was. Sophy was blushing hotly and burning uncomfortably, so that her eyes smarted.

Just after her late dinner on the eighth day of her Paris stay, Sophy Gold was seated in the hotel lobby. Paris thronged with American business buyers–those clever, capable, shrewd-eyed women who swarm on the city in June and strip it of its choicest flowers, from ball gowns to back combs. Sophy tried to pick them from the multitude that swept past her. It was not difficult. The women visitors to Paris in June drop easily into their proper slots.

There were the pretty American girls and their marvellously young-looking mammas, both out-Frenching the French in their efforts to look Parisian; there were rows of fat, placid, jewel-laden Argentine mothers, each with a watchful eye on her black-eyed, volcanically calm, be-powdered daughter; and there were the buyers, miraculously dressy in next 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 they would straighten up like war-horses scenting battle and achieve an effective entrance from the doorway to the lift.

In all that big, busy foyer Sophy Gold herself was the one person distinctly out of the picture. One did not know where to place her. To begin with, a woman as irrevocably, irredeemably ugly as Sophy was an anachronism in Paris. She belonged to the gargoyle period. You found yourself speculating on whether it was her mouth or her nose that made her so devastatingly plain, only to bring up at her eyes and find that they alone were enough to wreck any ambitions toward beauty. You knew before you saw it that her hair would be limp and straggling.

You sensed without a glance at them that her hands would be bony, with unlovely knuckles.

The Fates, grinning, had done all that. Her Chicago tailor and milliner had completed the work. Sophy had not been in Paris ten minutes before she noticed that they were wearing ’em long and full. Her coat was short and her skirt scant. Her hat was small. The Paris windows were full of large 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 very women of the buyer type on whom she had speculated ten minutes before–a good-natured face with shrewd, twinkling eyes. At sight of it you forgave her her skittish white-kid-topped shoes.

“Certainly,” smiled Sophy, and moved over a bit on the little French settee.

The plump woman sat down heavily. In five minutes Sophy was conscious she was being stared at surreptitiously. In ten minutes she was uncomfortably conscious of it. In eleven minutes she turned her head suddenly and caught the stout woman’s eyes fixed on her, with just the baffled, speculative expression she had expected to find in them. Sophy Gold 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, or my collar tighter, or my hat larger, it would make a difference in my looks. 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 mental changes 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. It took me a long time to realise that this was my real face and the only kind 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 of homely women–some who are hideous in blue maybe, but who soften up in pink. Then there’s the one you read about, whose features are lighted up now and then by one of those rare, sweet smiles that make her plain face almost beautiful. But once in a while you find a woman who is ugly in any colour of the rainbow; who is ugly smiling or serious, talking or in repose, 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 Sophy Gold’s scrambled features. “Well! My name’s Miss Morrissey–Ella Morrissey. Millinery for Abelman’s, Pittsburgh. And it’s no snap this year, with the shops showing postage-stamp hats one day and cart-wheels the next. I said this morning that I envied the head of the tinware department. 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 over twice a year for ten years. If there’s anything I can tell you, just ask. The first buying trip to Paris is hard until you know the ropes. Of course you love this town?”

Sophy Gold sat silent a moment, hesitating. Then she turned a puzzled face 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 pitying sort of look. The shrewd eyes softened. She groped for words.

“When I first came over here, ten years ago, I–well, it would have been easier to tell you then. I don’t know–there’s something about Paris–something in the atmosphere–something in the air. It–it makes you do foolish things. It makes you feel queer and light and happy. It’s nothing 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 of trouble by saying that I feel it; but I don’t. I simply don’t react to this town. The only things I really like in Paris are the Tomb of Napoleon, 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 me to 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 without resentment; but there was perhaps an added acid in her tone when she spoke.

“I’m here to buy–not to play. I’m thirty years old, and it’s taken me ten years to work my way up to foreign buyer. I’ve worked. And I wasn’t handicapped any by my beauty. I’ve made up my mind that I’m going to buy the smoothest-moving line of French lingerie and infants’ wear that Schiff 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 a homely woman. But I’ve been disappointed every time. The noise drives me wild, to begin with. Not that I’m not used to noise. I am. I can stand for a town that roars, like Chicago. But this city yelps. I’ve been going round to the restaurants a little. At noon I always picked the restaurant 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 at home letting a woman pay for his meals the way those shrimpy Frenchmen do?

“Well, the restaurants were always jammed full of Americans. The men of the party would look over the French menu in a helpless sort of way, and then they’d say: ‘What do you say to a nice big steak with French-fried potatoes?’ The waiter would give them a disgusted look and put in the order. 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 real Parisienne coming toward me I’d hear her say as she passed: ‘Henry, I’m going over to the Galerie Lafayette. I’ll meet you at the American Express at twelve. And, Henry, I think I’ll need some more money.'”

Miss Ella Morrissey’s twinkling eyes almost disappeared in wrinkles of laughter; but Sophy Gold was not laughing. As she talked she gazed grimly ahead at the throng that shifted and glittered and laughed and chattered 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 a shave 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. To enjoy it you’ve got to forget you’re an American. Don’t look at it from a Chicago, Illinois, viewpoint. Just try to imagine you’re a mixture of Montmartre girl, Latin Quarter model and duchess from the Champs Elysees. Then you’ll get it.”

“Get it!” retorted Sophy Gold. “If I could do that I wouldn’t be buying lingerie and infants’ wear for Schiffs’. I’d be crowding Duse and Bernhardt and Mrs. Fiske off the boards.”

Miss Morrissey sat silent and thoughtful, rubbing one fat forefinger slowly 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 a little. “As head of the lingerie section I’ve selected trousseaus for I don’t know how many Chicago brides; but I’ll never have to decide whether I’ll have pink or blue ribbons for my own.”

With a little impulsive gesture Ella Morrissey laid one hand on the shoulder 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 to take off this armour-plate of mine and get comfortable. When a girl gets as old and fat as I am–“

“There are some letters I ought to get out,” Sophy Gold protested feebly.

“Yes; I know. We all have; but there’s such a thing as overdoing this duty to the firm. You get up at six to-morrow morning and slap off those 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 was laid on Ella Morrissey’s plump shoulder.

That lady recognised the voice and the greeting before she turned to face their source. Max Tack, junior partner in the firm of Tack Brothers, Lingerie and Infants’ Wear, New York, held out an eager hand.

“Hello, Max!” said Miss Morrissey not too cordially. “My, aren’t you dressy!”

He was undeniably dressy–not that only, but radiant with the self-confidence born of good looks, of well-fitting evening clothes, of a fresh shave, of glistening nails. Max Tack, of the hard eye and the soft smile, of the slim figure and the semi-bald head, of the flattering tongue and the business brain, bent his attention full on the very plain Miss Sophy Gold.

“Aren’t you going to introduce me?” he demanded.

Miss Morrissey introduced them, buyer fashion–names, business connection, and firms.

“I knew you were Miss Gold,” began Max Tack, the honey-tongued. “Some one pointed you out to me yesterday. I’ve been trying to meet you ever since.”

“I hope you haven’t neglected your business,” said Miss Gold without enthusiasm.

Max Tack leaned closer, his tone lowered.

“I’d neglect it any day for you. Listen, little one: aren’t you going to take dinner with me some evening?”

Max Tack always called a woman “Little one.” It was part of his business formula. He was only one of the wholesalers who go to Paris yearly ostensibly to buy models, but really to pay heavy diplomatic court to those hundreds of women buyers who flock to that city in the interests of their firms. To entertain those buyers who were interested in goods such as he manufactured in America; to win their friendship; to make them feel under obligation at least to inspect his line when they came to New York–that was Max Tack’s mission in Paris. He performed it admirably.

“What evening?” he said now. “How about to-morrow?” Sophy Gold shook her head. “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 rascal before. “You stingy little rascal! Won’t give a poor lonesome fellow an evening’s pleasure, eh! The theatre? Want to go slumming?”

He was feeling his way now, a trifle puzzled. Usually he landed a buyer at 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 he not sat through Parsifal the week before? And nearly died! Some wanted to begin at Tod Sloan’s bar and work their way up through Montmartre, ending with breakfast at the Pre 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 Morrissey with 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 to ascend.

“_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. “But I’ve worked too hard for this job of mine to risk it by putting myself under obligations to any New York firm. It simply means that you’ve got to buy their goods. It isn’t fair to your firm.”

Miss Morrissey was busy with hooks and eyes and strings. Her utterance was jerky but concise. At one stage of her disrobing she breathed a great 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 of our 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 home from the store summer evenings I peel and get into my old blue-and-white kimono and lie there, listening to the girl stirring the iced tea for supper, and knowing that Ma has a platter of her swell cold fish with egg sauce!” She relaxed into an armchair. “Tell me, do you always talk to 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 buy his line. Max is all business. Of course he’s something of a smarty, and he does think he’s the first verse and chorus of Paris-by-night; but you can’t help liking him.”

“Well, I can,” said Sophy Gold, and her voice was a little bitter, “and without half trying.”

“Oh, I don’t say you weren’t right. I’ve always made it a rule to steer clear of the ax-grinders myself. There are plenty of girls who take everything they can get. I know that Max Tack is just padded with letters from old girls, beginning ‘Dear Kid,’ and ending, ‘Yours with a world of love!’ I don’t believe in that kind of thing, or in accepting things. Julia Harris, who buys for three departments in our store, drives up every morning in the French car that Parmentier’s gave her when she was here last year. That’s bad principle and poor taste. But–Well, you’re young; and there ought to be something besides business in your life.”

Sophy Gold turned her face from the window toward Miss Morrissey. It served to put a stamp of finality on what she said:

“There never will be. I don’t know anything but business. It’s the only thing 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, it isn’t. Look here, dear; nobody knows better than I how this working and being independent and earning your own good money puts the stopper on any sentiment a girl might have in her; but don’t let it sour you. You lose your illusions soon enough, goodness knows! There’s no use in smashing ’em out of pure meanness.”

“I don’t see what illusions have got to do with Max Tack,” interrupted Sophy Gold.

Miss Morrissey laughed her fat, comfortable chuckle.

“I suppose you’re right, and I guess I’ve been getting a lee-tle bit nosey; but I’m pretty nearly old enough to be your mother. The girls kind of come to me and I talk to ’em. I guess they’ve spoiled me.