"No, no—not so fast!" he cried.

He flung out his arm, barring the way. For a moment she was frightened, seeing what was in his eyes, hearing the tumult in the salon behind. Then, without drawing back, she raised her hand gently, and put his arm away.

"Please, Mr. Lindaberry, protect me! I need it! I ought not to be here."

"What?" he said, staring at her.

"I'm a crazy little fool!" she said frantically. "Help me to get away!"

"Crazy little child!" he said, after staring a moment as if suddenly recognizing her. "Get away, then—quickly!"

She felt no more resentment, only a great pity, such as one feels before a magnificent ruin. She wished to stop to speak to him—but she was afraid.

"Thank you," she said, with a look that appealed to him not to judge her. "I am crazy—out of my mind! Come and see me—do!"

CHAPTER IV

She was all aquiver with excitement. Her little feet, exhilarated by the memories of music, continued tapping against the floor, and had Stacey turned he would have been surprised at the mischievous, gay little smile that constantly rippled and broke about her lips. Indeed, she was delighted with her success, with the discord she had flung between Sassoon and Harrigan Blood. She could scarcely believe that it could be true.

"What! I, little Dodo, have done that!" she said, addressing herself caressingly, overjoyed at the idea of two men of such power descending to a quarrel over a little imp like herself.

She had no illusions about these flesh hunters. If she had given Sassoon her address instead of hotly refusing, it was from a swift vindictive resolve to punish him unmercifully, to entice him into fruitless alleys, to entangle and mock him, with an imperative desire to match her wits against his power, and teach him respect through discomfiture and humiliation. Sassoon did not impress her with any sense of danger. She rather scoffed at him, remembering his silken voice, the slight feminine touch of his hand, the haunted dreamy discontent in his heavy eyes.

Harrigan Blood was different. In her profound education of a Salamander, she knew his type, too: the man without preliminaries, who put abrupt questions, brushing aside the artifices and subtleties that arrest others. She would make no mistake with him—knowing just how little to venture. And yet, always prepared, she might try her fingers across such hungry flames. Strangely enough, she did not resent Harrigan Blood as she did Sassoon; for men of force she made many allowances.

She thought of Lindaberry and Judge Massingale: of Lindaberry rapidly, with a beginning of pity, but still inflamed with an irritation at this magnificent spectacle of a man going to destruction so purposelessly. He, of all, had been the most indifferent, too absorbed to lift his eyes and study what sat by his side. She did not know all the reasons why he so antagonized her, nor whence these reasons came ... yet the feeling persisted, already mingled with a desire to know what was the history that Harrigan Blood had started to tell. Perhaps, after all, there may have been a tragic love-affair. She reflected on this idea, and it seemed to her that if it were so, then in his present madness there might be something noble ... magnificent.

"How stupid a man is to drink!" she said angrily.

"Eh? What's that, Dodo?" said Stacey.

She perceived that, in her absorption, she had spoken half aloud.

"Go down Forty-second and run up Broadway!" she said hastily.

Massingale she could not place. She comprehended the others, even the Comte de Joncy, whom she had left with a feeling of defrauded expectation. But Massingale she did not comprehend, nor did she see him quite clearly. Why was he there? To observe simply, with that tolerant baffling smile of his? What did he want in life? Of her? He had been interested; he had even tried to arouse her own curiosity. She was certain that the effort had been conscious. Then there had come a change—a quiet defensive turn to impersonality. Tactics, or what?

What impression had she left? Would he call, or pass on? She did not understand him at all; yet he excited her strangely. She had a feeling that he would be too strong for her. She had felt in him, each time his glance lay in hers, the reading eye that saw through her, knew beforehand what was turning in her runaway imagination, and that before him her tricks would not avail.

Then she ceased to remember individuals, lost in a confused, satisfied feeling of an experience. It seemed to her as if she had taken a great step—that opportunity had strangely served her, that she had at last entered a world which was worthy of her curiosity.

She had met few real men. She had played with idlers, boys of twenty or boys of forty, interested in nothing but an indolent floating voyage through life. For the first time, she had come into contact with a new type, felt the shock of masculine vitality. Whatever their cynical ideas of conduct, she felt a difference here. They were men of power, with an object, who did not fill their days with trifling, but who sought pleasure to fling off for a moment the obsession of ambitions, to relax from the tyranny of effort, or to win back a new strength in a moment of discouragement. Perhaps if she continued her career she might turn them into friends—loyal friends. It would be difficult but very useful. The men she met usually, at first, misunderstood her.

"Perhaps one of them will change my whole life! Why not? I have a feeling—" she said solemnly to herself, nodding and biting her little under lip.

The truth was, she felt the same after every encounter, dramatizing each man, and flinging herself romantically on a sea of her imagining. But to-day it was a little different. The feeling was more profound, calmer, more penetrating. She felt, indeed, under the influence of a new emotion, a restlessness in the air, an unease in the crowded streets.

Since morning, the glowing warmth of the last summery stillness had slipped away unperceived. The wind in an hour had gone round to the north, and from each whipping banner threaded against the sky one felt the whistling onrush of winter. In the air there was something suspended, a melancholy resounding profoundly, penetrating the soul of the multitude. The gray sluggish currents in the thoroughfare quickened, stirring more restlessly, apprehensive, caught unawares. Little gusts of wind, scouts heralding the chill battalions piling up on the horizon, drove through the city clefts, sporting stray bits of paper to the rooftops, in turbulent dusty, swooping flight, uncovering heads and rolling hats like saucers down the blinded streets. Then suddenly the gusts flattened out. A stillness succeeded, but grim, permeating, monstrous; and above the winter continued to advance.

She felt something in all this—something ominous, prophetic, vaguely troubling, and being troubled, sought to put it from her. She began to dramatize another mood. About her she felt the city she adored: the restaurants, the theaters, the great hotels, the rocket-rise of the white Times building, towering like a pillar of salt in accursed Sodom. But her mind did not penetrate to ugliness. The febrile activity, the glistening surface of pleasure, the sensation of easy luxurious flight awoke in her the intoxication of enjoyment. She adored it, this city whom so many curse, whose luxuries and pleasures opened so facilely to her nod, whose conquest had borne so little difficulty.

She forgot the unease that lay in the air at the sight of the feverish restaurants where so often she had dipped in for adventure of the afternoon. The sight of the theaters, even, with their cold white globes above the outpouring matinée crowds, brought an impatience for the garlanded night, when elegant shadows would come, slipping into flaming portals, amid the flash of ankles, the scent of perfume, glances of women challenging the envy of the crowd.

The multitude churned about her, roaring down into the confusion of many currents: the multitude—the others—whom she felt so distant, so far below her. They were there, white of face, troubled, frowning, harassed, swelling onward to clamoring tasks, spying her with thousand-eyed envy; and everywhere darting in and out, dodging the gray contact of the mass, alert, light, skimming on like sea-gulls trailing their wings across the chafing ocean, the luxurious women of the city sped in rolling careless flight. She felt herself one of them, admiring and admired, glancing eagerly into tonneaus bright with laughter and fashion, deliciously registering the sudden analytical stare of women, or the disloyal tribute boldly telegraphed of men.

She had lunched with Sassoon, De Joncy, Massingale. She was a part of all this—of the Brahmin caste; and her little body rocking to the swooping turns, deliciously cradled, her eyes half closed, her nostrils drawing in this frantic air as if it were the breath of an enchanting perfume, she let her imagination go: already there by right, married to Massingale or Lindaberry—she saw not which quite clearly. Nor did it matter. Only she herself mattered.

"Riverside or park, Dodo?"

"Through the park," she said; and roused from her castle-building, she laughed at herself with a tolerant amused confusion.

"Good spirits, eh?"

"So-so!"

In the park there were fewer automobiles. She no longer had the feeling of the crowd pressing about her, claiming her for its own. There were no restaurants or climbing façades. There was the earth, bare, shivering, and the sky filled with the invader.

She had a horror of change, and suffered with a profound and uncomprehended trouble when, each year, she saw summer go into the mystery of winter, and again when came the awakening miracle. Yesterday, when she had passed, the splendor of the trees, it is true, lay shorn upon the ground; but the earth was warm, pleasant, with a fragrant odor, the air soft and the evening descended in a glow. Now there was a difference. Over all was the dread sense of change. Each tree stood alone, aghast, against the sky, the ground bleak, bare, the leaves wandering with a little moaning, driven restlessness. Even against the gray banks piling up against the north there was something vacant and horribly endless. From tree, sky and empty earth a spirit had suddenly withdrawn, and all this change had come within an hour, in a twinkling—without warning.

Now she could no longer put it from her, this resistless verity that laid its chill fingers across her heart. It was not of the change in nature she thought—no; but of that specter which some day, inexorably, would rise from a distant horizon, even as the wind in an hour goes round to the north and winter rushes in. She was twenty-two and she had a horror of this thief, who came soft-footed and unreal, to steal the meager years.

She stiffened suddenly, clutching her stole to her throat.

"Too cold?"

"Yes!"

"I've got a coat for you."

"No; go back!"

"Already?"

"Yes!"

"Tea?"

"No! Go back!"

She closed her eyes, not to see, but the thing was there, everywhere, in the air that came to her, in the sad tiny sounds that rose about them. Yes, she herself would change inexorably, as all things filled their appointed time. What she had was given but for a day—all her fragile armament was but for a day. Not much longer could she go blithely along the summery paths of summer. She thought of Winona Horning, who had played too long. She thought of thirty as a sort of sepulcher, an end of all things! She felt something new impelling her on—a haste and a warning.

"It can't go on always!" she said to herself, in her turn using the very words that Winona had uttered. "Not much longer. A year, only a year, then I must make up my mind!"

"Blue, Dodo?" said Stacey.

"Horribly!"

The word seemed so incongruously ridiculous, after what she had felt, that she burst into exaggerating laughter.

"Going to change your mind?"

"No, no! I'm out of sorts—a cold! Get me back!"

They reentered the city as the first owlish lights were peeping out, futile, brave little rebels against the spreading night. Below, high in the air, suspended above the ghostly town whose sides had faded, the great illumined eye of the Metropolitan tower shone forth. Then all at once long sentinel files of lights rose on the avenue and down the fleeting side streets, miraculous electric signs burst out against the night, a myriad windows caught fire, and the city, which a moment ago had seemed flat, climbed blazing into the air. They were again nearing the great artery, which changes its name with the coming of the artificial night, no longer Broadway, but the Rialto, with its mysteries of entangled beams and profound pools of darkness, its laughter free or suspect, its mingled virtue and vice, elbowing and staring at each other, its joy and its despair treading in each other's steps.

But the dread reminder was still above, hurling its black engulfing storm across the bombardment of a million lights, that painted it with a strange red glare, but could not destroy its menace. A few cold drops of rain, wind driven, dashed against their faces, as they went with the crowd, scuttling on. There was something unreal now in all this, something artificial in the glimpse of vacant restaurants setting their candles for the guests who went fleeing home. Of plunging temperament, she had a horror of these rare depressions, striving frantically against the realization of what must be, and striving thus, always suffering the more keenly. In seeing all this fugitive world, flat shadows driven restlessly as the shorn splendor of the streets, she asked herself of what use it was after all, to be young, to be attractive, to go laughing and dancing, to dare, to conquer ... why, indeed, childhood, maturity and old age should stretch so far, and youth, the exultant brilliant hour she clung to, should be allotted only the few, the fingered years! She felt a sense of loneliness, of terrified isolation, the need of some one to come and talk to her, to interpose himself between her and these unanswerable questions, to close her eyes and stop her ears.

When they reached Miss Pim's the rain was beginning in little flurries. She ran in and up-stairs hurriedly. She had hoped that she would find her room lighted, that Snyder or Winona would be home. No one was there, and when she opened the door she entered a region of obscure shadowy forms, faintly lighted by the reflection of a street lamp below. Across the windows on the avenue was the cyclopean eye of the Metropolitan tower, which she saw always every night with her last peeping glance from her covers—enormous eye, bulging, swollen with curiosity. At the other side was the wall of brick pressing against the window-pane, this wall she hated as she hated the idea of the commonplace in life.

She stood in the luminous pathway, gazing outward.

"What is the matter with me?" she thought. "Am I like Winona? Am I getting tired of it all? Or is it—what?"

The metallic summons of the telephone broke upon her mood. She lighted the gas quickly. The telephone continued to clamor, but she took no step toward it. All that she had planned as a choice for the evening no longer interested her. She was in another mood. She flung down her things rapidly. Then, remembering the bouquet of Sassoon's, she took it off, pricking her fingers. Inclosed was a bank-note for a hundred dollars!

Then she began to laugh—a bitter incongruous note. She understood now why he had gone so abruptly to his questions, confident in the test he had prepared among the fragile stems of orchids and dainty yellow pansies.

All at once her eye went to her pin-cushion, caught by the white note of visiting-cards left there by Josephus, the colored chore-boy. She crossed quickly, stretching out her finger impatiently. Which of the four had come, as she had determined? The first bore the name of Harrigan Blood, the second Albert Edward Sassoon. She stood staring at the last, the hundred-dollar bill still wrapped in her fingers.... Sassoon and Harrigan Blood! She let the cards drop, profoundly disappointed, prey to a sudden heavy return of disillusionment.

The telephone, querulous, impatient, again called her, but she turned her shoulder impatiently. Now the thought of an evening of gaiety revolted her. She changed quickly, wrapped herself up in an ulster, took an umbrella and went out, though by the wide-faced clock in the skies it was scarcely six. Before, she had sought to break away, to escape recklessly from the depression that claimed her: now she sought it out, surrendering to this tristesse that whirled her on with its exquisite benumbing melancholy.

She supped at a lunch-room in Lexington Avenue, paying out a precious thirty cents for a cup of coffee, a bowl of crackers and milk, a baked potato. Not many were there yet. A young fellow without an overcoat, stooping already, pinched by struggle, came and sat at her table, seeking an opportunity to offer her the sugar. But, seeing her so silent and inwardly tortured, he did not persist.

She did not notice him. She was thinking always of Massingale, and a little of Lindaberry. Why had she succeeded with Sassoon and Blood only to fail where she wanted to win?

"He carries a coffin on his back!" she found herself repeating, in the cynical words of Harrigan Blood. He would not seek her out; nor would Massingale. All her castles in the air had collapsed. It was only to the others, then, that she could appeal—the flesh hunters!

She returned, swaying against the wind, holding her umbrella with difficulty against the spattering rain-drops, that seemed to rise from the glistening sidewalks. The young man, who had no umbrella, remained in the shelter of a doorway, watching her undecidedly.

"Ah, yes! I must be getting tired of it!" she said suddenly, as she reached her steps. A taxicab was turning in the avenue, having just drawn away. As she went slowly up the interminable, impenetrable, dark flights to her room, she said, revolting against an injustice:

"Well, if he doesn't come, I'll go and find him!"

She entered her room, lagging and depressed, knowing not how to spend the hours until sleep arrived. She had no feeling of reticence in seeking out Massingale and Lindaberry, since they appealed to her and would not come, any more than she felt the slightest diminution of her self-respect in situations labeled with the appearance of suspicion. Her ideas of morality and conduct were not even formulated. They existed as the sense of danger exists to a pretty animal. For, ardently as she desired it, there had not come into her soul the awakening breath of love, which, in despite of old traditions and lost heritages, alone would be to her rebellious little Salamander soul the supreme law of conduct.

Suddenly she saw that on her pin-cushion another card had been placed while she had been absent. She went to it without expectation. It was from Massingale—Massingale, who must have left in the taxicab even as she returned hopelessly.

Then it seemed to her as if a thousand tons had slipped from her. She felt an extraordinary joy and confidence, the alertness of a young animal, a need of light and laughter, a longing to plunge into a rush of excitement.

The telephone rang. Donald Bacon was clamoring to take her to the cabaret party. She disliked him cordially. She accepted with wild delight.

CHAPTER V

"You're an angel, Snyder! You spoil me!" said Dodo, rubbing her eyes and twisting her body in lazy feline stretches.

"Me an angel? Huh!" said Snyder, grinding on her heel.

She went to the improvised kitchen with the free gliding grace of the trained dancer, and lifting the top of the coffee-pot, dropped in two eggs.

Breakfast at Miss Pim's was an inviolable institution ending at eight-thirty sharp. Wherefore, as the Salamanders would as soon have thought of getting up to see the sun rise, coffee was always an improvisation and eggs a visitation of Providence. Besides, the Salamanders, for the most part, made their arrangements for lodgings only, trusting in the faithful legion of props, but supplementing that trust by an economical planning of the schedule ahead. In a week, it was rare that a Salamander was forced to a recourse on her purse for more than one luncheon—dinner never.

"Did you hear me come in?" said Doré, raising her gleaming white arms in the air and letting the silken sleeves slip rustling to her shoulders.

"Me? No!" said Snyder, who had not closed her eyes until the return. "Here's the mail."

Doré raised herself eagerly on one elbow.

"How many? What! only four?" she said, taking the letters from Snyder.

She frowned at the instant perception of Miss Pim's familiar straight up and down, sharp and thin writing, concealing the dreaded summons quickly below the others, that Snyder, who paid nothing, might not see.

Two she recognized; the third was unfamiliar. She turned it over, studying it, characteristically reserving the mystery until the last. But, as she put it down on the white counterpane, she had a feeling of expectant certitude that it was from Massingale.

"Well, let's see what my dear old patriarch says!" she said, settling back in the pillows and taking up a stamped envelope, typewritten, with a business address in the corner.

"Dear Miss Baxter:

"Will be in town to-morrow, Friday, the twenty-second. It would give me great pleasure if you could lunch with me at twelve-thirty. Will send my car for you at twelve-twenty. I trust you are following my advice and giving attention to your health.

"Very sincerely yours,
"Orlando B. Peavey.

"P. S. Am called to important business appointment at one-thirty sharp, but take this brief opportunity to see you again. Telephone my office only in case you can not come.

"O. B. P."

"Sweetest old thing!" she said, smiling at the postscript characteristically initialed. "So thoughtful—kindest person in the world!"

Snyder brought her coffee and an egg broken and seasoned in a tooth-mug. Doré glanced at it suspiciously, seeking to discover if the division had been fair.

"My! Eggs are a luxury," she said, applying the tip of her tongue to the tip of the spoon; and she added meditatively: "I wish Stacey went in for chickens!"

She took up the unknown letter, turned it over once more, and laid it slowly aside in favor of the second, a fat envelope covered with the boyish scrawl of the prop in disgrace. She spread the letter, frowning determinedly. Joe Gilday was difficult to manage, too alert to be long kept in the prop squad. It began without preliminaries and a fine independence of punctuation:

"Look here, Do—what's the use of rubbing it in on a fellow? You've made me miserable as an Esquimo in Africa, and why? What have I done? Supposing I did slip fifty in your bureau honest to God Do you don't think I'd do anything to jar your feelings do you? Lord, I'll lay down and let you use me for a door mat for a week if it'll help any. Kid you've got me going bad. I'm miserable. I'm all shot to pieces—insult you, why Do, I'd Turkey Trot on my Granny's grave first. Won't you let up—see a fellow won't you? I'll be around at noon if you don't see me I swear I'll warm the door-step until the neighbors come out and feed me for charity: that's straight too! Now be a good sort Do and give me a chance to explain.

"Down in the dumps,
"J. J. (Just Joe.)"

This note, inspired with the slang of Broadway, would have made Doré laugh the day before, but the experiences of the last twenty-four hours had given her a standard of comparison. Between Joseph Gilday, Junior, and the men she had met there was a whole social voyage. Nevertheless, props were necessary, and undecided, she laid the scrawl on Mr. Peavey's neat invitation, postponing decisions. She opened the third, drawing out a neat oblong card, neatly inscribed in a minuscule graceful handwriting, slightly scented:

"My dear Miss Baxter:

"I shall call this afternoon at two o'clock.

"A. E. Sassoon."

She was not surprised at the signature nor the pasha-like brevity.

"Harrigan Blood won't take chances; he'll telephone," she thought. At the bottom she was pleased at this insistence of Sassoon's; it worked well with the plan she had determined on for his disciplining. "You're sure that's all?" she said aloud, wondering what Massingale would do.

"Yes."

"Wonder why he called so soon?" she thought pensively; and then, remembering the warring cards of Blood and Sassoon, added: "To warn me, perhaps?"

She smiled at this possibility, sure of herself, knowing well how weak the strongest man is before the weakest of her sex, when he comes with a certain challenge in his eyes.

"So Sassoon is coming, is he? Good!" she said musingly, a little far-off mockery in her smile; and to herself she rehearsed again the scene she had prepared, coddling her cheek against her bare soft arm, dreamily awake.

She would receive him with carefully simulated cordiality there below in the dusky boarding-house parlor; she could even lead him to believe that he might dare anything; and suddenly, when she had led him to indiscretions, she would say suddenly, as if the thought had just suggested itself:

"What! you have no flowers. You shall wear mine!"

She smiled a little more maliciously at the thought of the look that would come into those heavy foolish eyes at this. Then, taking a few violets from her corsage, she would fix them in his buttonhole, saying:

"No, no; look up at the ceiling while I fix them nicely—so!"

And, when she had coaxed him into a ridiculous craning of his neck, she would deftly pin the hundred-dollar bill on the lapel under the little cluster of purple, and turning him toward the mirror, say, with a mocking farewell courtesy:

"Mr. Albert Edward Sassoon, I have the pleasure of returning your visiting-card!"

She was so content with this bit of romance that she laughed aloud.

"Hello! what's up?" said Snyder, taking away the tooth-mug.

Dodo could not restrain her admiration.

"You know, Snyder," she said seriously, "I am really very clever!"

But she did not particularize. She had a feeling that Snyder, who watched over her in a faithful, adoring, dog-like way, might not quite approve. She did not know quite what made her feel this, for they had not exchanged intimacies; yet she felt occasionally in Snyder's glance, when she met it unawares, a dormant uneasy apprehension.

"Now for it!" she thought, and taking up the last note, unstamped, she tore it open.

"Miss Doré Baxter, Dr.

"To Miss Evangelica Pim

"Four weeks' lodging, third floor double room front at $10 per week ...............................................$40

"Kindly call to see me as to above account."

"Four—impossible!" exclaimed Doré, bolt upright, now thoroughly awake. But instantly she repressed her emotions, lest Snyder might guess the cause. She made a rapid calculation, and discovered that in fact she had to face four deficiencies instead of three. But finances never long dismayed her.

"Anyhow," she thought, "I can turn over the champagne. If only Winona raised something on the orchids! There are a dozen ways, but I must give it some attention!"

Suddenly she remembered Harrigan Blood's estimate of the cost of yesterday's luncheon, and of what she had herself turned over with her fork. She thought of what Sassoon spent so carelessly, and of what he might squander were he once awakened, really interested.... Not that there was the slightest temptation,—no—but it did amuse her to consider thus the irony of her present dilemma. Well, there certainly were funny things in life!

Snyder had silently cleared away breakfast, and seated herself with a book by the window. Now, glancing at the clock, she rose.

"Ready for tub, Petty? I'll start it up."

"Snyder, you're too good to me!" said Doré, rousing herself from her reveries.

"Huh! Wish I could! Hot or cold?"

But Doré, catching her wrist, detained her, her curiosity excited.

"You're the queerest thing I ever knew!" she said, looking at her fixedly.

"That's right, too!"

"Why do you insist upon my calling you Snyder?"

"Don't like to get fond of people," said the other shortly.

"Why not?"

"Too long a story."

She sought to detach her wrist, but Doré held it firmly.

"And aren't you fond of me?"

Snyder hesitated, frowning at thus being forced to talk.

"Sure! Couldn't help it, could I?"

Doré smiled, pleased at this admission.

"And yet, you have such a funny way of watching me!"

"Me? How so?"

"Yes, you have! I often wonder what's back of a certain queer look you get—"

"What I'm thinking?"

"Yes!"

"I want to see you married and settled, girlie!"

No more unexpected answer could have been given.

"Heaven forbid!" said Doré, sitting up in astonishment. For this commonplace solution to all the romantic possibilities she imagined always infuriated her. But at this moment Ida Summers came, after a little rippling knock, a grapefruit in hand.

The new arrival was in bedroom slippers and pink peignoir, her disordered hair concealed under a tasseled negligee cap. She was a bit roly-poly, but piquant, merry, still new to Salamanderland, hugely enjoying each little excitement.

"Breakfasted already?" she said in astonishment. "Heavens! Dodo, how do you get up in the middle of the night?"

She began to laugh before she finished the sentence, she laughed so hard as she said it that it was almost incomprehensible, and she continued laughing long after Doré had ceased. She could hardly ever relate an incident without being overcome with laughter, but the sound was pleasantly musical, infectious even, and the blue devils went out the window as she came in the door.

"Heavens!... thought I had a swap for a cup of coffee," she said, beginning to laugh again at the thought of her exploded stratagem.

"There ought to be some left," said Doré, venturing one rosy foot from under the covers in search of a warm slipper. She was still thinking of Snyder's strange speech.

Having teased from the coffee-pot a bare cup of coffee, Ida camped down on the couch, and while waiting for the coffee to cool, applied the end of her forefinger to the tip of her nose in the way to uplift it contrary to the gift of nature.

"Ida, do leave that nose alone," said Doré.

"I must have a retroussé nose," said the girl merrily. "This doesn't go with my style of laughter. All the artist-men tell me so. Ah, this nose!" And she gave it a vicious jolt, in her indignation. Her coloring was gorgeous, her lines were delicate, her expressions vivacious and quick with natural coquetry. Wherefore she was in great demand among the illustrators, who had reproduced her tomboy smile on the covers of a million magazines. She was in great demand, but she was capricious in her engagements—like all Salamanders, sacrificing everything to pleasure.

Winona Horning, aroused by the sounds of laughter, appeared through the connecting door, in a green and black negligee, rubbing her eyes, quite indignant.

"Heavens, child! No one can sleep when you're round! Hello, Snyder. Morning, Dodo!"

She said the last words in a tone that made Snyder look up at her, surprised. There was a note of reluctance, even of apprehension.

"Ida's drunk up the coffee; make her give you a grapefruit," said Dodo, nodding and departing.

When she darted in twenty minutes later, tingling and alert for the day, Snyder had gone and Ida Summers, curled like an Angora cat on the couch, was chatting to Winona, who stood in the doorway, undecidedly, turning a cigarette in her fingers, watching Dodo from under her long eyelashes.

"You certainly made the big hit last night, Win," said Ida rapidly. "Do, you should have seen her. She gets the men with that quiet waiting manner of hers. I can't do it to save my life. I have to rush in, barking like a white fluffy dog, to get noticed."

"Where were you?" said Doré, opening all the trunks and ransacking the bureaus. When she dressed, the room had always the look of a sudden descent by the police.

"Up at Vaughan Chandler's studio," said Ida, giving the name of one of the popular illustrators, who catered to the sentimental yearnings of the multitude. "Quite some party, too, celebrities and swells. I say, Do, why don't you go in for head and shoulders? They're perfect gentlemen, you know ... flirty, of course, ... but it pays well, and they'd go daffy over you."

"Don't know ... hadn't thought of it," said Doré, who, having decided to see Gilday and lunch with Peavey, was in a reverie over the subject of the dramatic costume. "By the way, Winona, raise anything on the orchids?"

"Only eight bones—hard enough getting that," said Winona slowly.

"Old brute! Pouffé would have given double," said Doré indignantly. "By the way, Joe's coming at noon. I must dress the stage up for him. What flowers have you girls got?"

"Three vases," said Ida joyfully. "Couple of southern millionaires are getting quite demonstrative over little me. What's up?... Going to coax the Kitty?" she added,—meaning in Salamanderish, "Are you going to encourage him to make presents?"

"Must raise something on this confounded rent," said Doré briefly. "Then, there are other reasons."

As Ida went tripping off, her little white ankles gleaming, Winona entered with two jars of chrysanthemums which she placed, one on the table and one on the mantel, slowly, frowning. Then she turned and said, with a gesture like a blow:

"Do, I took it! I had to!"

"Took what?" Said Doré, startled.

"Joe's fifty!"

Doré sprang precipitately to the drawer and opened it.

"Winona, you—you didn't!"

"It was that or get out!" said Winona doggedly, her back against the wall. "The Duchess made a scene. I'll pay it back—sure!"

"But, Winona, what am I to do? Joe's coming. I must—I have to return it to him. What can I say?" said Doré in dismay, staring at the empty drawer. "You had no right! You should have asked me. I can't—oh, you've put me in an awful hole! It wasn't right!"

"Don't! Dodo—don't!"

The girl clasped her hands, extending them in supplication, and burst into tears.

Doré could not resist the spectacle of this misery. She sprang to her side, seizing her in her arms, all her anger gone.

"Never mind! I don't care! You poor child! It isn't the money—it isn't that! I'll find some way." All at once she remembered the hundred dollars of Sassoon's bouquet. "Stupid! Why, of course!" She recounted hastily the incident to Winona, smoothing her hair.

"But, Do, you can't take it. How can you?" said Winona, becoming more calm.

"Why not? It was a present to each."

"But what can you say to Sassoon?"

"Him? Let me alone; I'll invent something—he'll never know! Bah! I shall miss a fine scene, that's all!" she added with a dramatic regret. "Well, that's over! How much did you use?"

"Thirty-five."

"Keep the rest!"

"I'll pay."

"Bur-r—-shut up! I'm not lending. Borrowing breaks up friendships. It's yours—it's given!"

She looked at the distressed girl a moment and added apprehensively:

"Winona, you're losing your grip!"

"Losing? It's gone!"

"Decidedly, I must see Blainey this afternoon and get that job for you," said Doré pensively. She disliked these sudden bleak apparitions and hated long to consider them. "You'll see in a few days, all will be changed—all!"

Ida returned with long-stemmed chrysanthemums towering over her brown curls, and made a second trip for some hydrangeas which she had found at Estelle Monks' below. The room had now quite the effect of a conservatory.

"Why don't you work the birthday gag?" said Winona helpfully.

"Can't! November's my month for Joe," said Doré reluctantly.

Birthdays, needless to say, are legitimate perquisites in Salamanderland, and pretty certain to occur in the first or second months of each new acquaintance.

As the three Salamanders were thoughtfully considering this possibility, three knocks like the blow of a hammer sounded on the door, and the next moment the dreaded form of Miss Pim, yclept the Duchess, swept, or rather bounded, in.

"Humph! and what's this folderol mean?" she said, stopping short, sniffing and folding her hands over her stomach. "Very fine! Plenty of money for cabs, perfumes, silks, hats, flowers, luxuries—"

"You certainly don't object to my having plenty of money, do you, Miss Pim?" said Doré in a caressing voice, as she went to her purse before the landlady could make the demand direct. "You seem rather anxious about my little bill, I believe!"

"Little!" exclaimed Miss Pim, sitting down with the motion of a jack-knife shutting up.

Doré's calmness took away her breath, but a certain joy showed itself eagerly over her spectacled nose. She understood that such impudence meant pay. Nevertheless she sat stiffly and suspiciously, ready to pounce upon the slightest evasion.

Miss Pim's face advanced in three divisions—forehead, keen nose and sharpened chin. She wore a high false front, of a warmer brown than the slightly grizzled hair that she piled en turban on her head, a majestic note which had earned her the sobriquet of "the Duchess." She adhered to the toilets of the late seventies—flowing brown shotted silks, heavy medallions, hair bracelets, and on state occasions appeared in baby pinks, as if denying the passage of years. She had had a tragic romance—one only, for her nature was too determined to risk another, and at the age of fifty-four she still showed herself implacable to the male sex, although not unwilling to let it be known that she could choose one of three any day she selected. She carried a hand-bag, which jingled with the warning note of silver dollars. She was horribly avaricious, and the Salamanders who courted her favor paid her, whenever possible, in specie. Then she would open her bag, holding it between her knees, and drop into it, one by one, the shining round dollars, listening eagerly to the metallic shock.

"My dear Miss Pim," said Doré, returning with her pocketbook, in a tone of calm superiority that left the landlady dumfounded, "I've told you frequently that I prefer my bill monthly. These weekly rounds are exceedingly annoying. Please don't bother me again. I have nothing smaller than a hundred; can you change it?"