nuto passage of a symphony; "but it's all one to me
-- there's nothing else they can take; I'm free, free
to sleep or wake, to be drunk when I like with no
responsibility to Simmons or any one else--"

Her breathing increasingly grew labored, oppressed;
a little sob escaped, softly miserable. She
was crying. He was completely callous, indifferent.
They stood before the dark, porchless facade
of her home.

"I thought life was so happy," she articulated,
facing him; "but now it hurts me... here;" he
saw her press her hand against the swelling, tender
line of her breast. His theatrical self-consciousness
bowed him over the other hand, pressing upon it a
half-calculated kiss. She stood motionless; he felt
rather than saw the intensity of her gaze. "I wish
I could mend the hurt," he began, appropriately,
professionally.

He was interrupted by a figure emerging from
the obscurity of the house. Pompey Hollidew
peered at them from the low, stone lintel. "Letty,"
he pronounced, in a voice at once whining and truculent;
"who? -- oh!, that Makimmon... Letty,
come in the house." He caught her arm and
dragged her incontinently toward the door.
"...rascal," Gordon heard him mutter, "spendthrift.
If you ever walk again with Gordon Makimmon,"
the old man, through his daughter, ad-

[[98]]

p097 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p098w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p099

v?