over scented notes from a High Desirable.

"She ain't just quite up to it," was Amelia's comment, which she
probably could not have explained even to herself.

Sheila presently was done with laughter. She ate a nibble of dinner as
soberly as Amelia could have wished, then sat back, her eyes closed with
a resolve to think clearly, closely, to some determination of her life.
But Jim's note, which had so roused her amusement, began to force itself
in another fashion upon her. She discovered that it was an insufferable
note. It insinuated everything, it suggested--everything. It was a
boastful messenger. It swaggered male-ishly. It threw out its chest and
smacked its lips. "See what a sad dog my master is," it said; "a regular
devil of a fellow." Sheila found her thoughts confused by anger. She
found that she was too disturbed for any clear decision. She was terribly
weary and full of dread for the long night before her. And a startled
look at her clock told her it was time now to go over to the saloon.

She got up, went to her mirror, smoothed her rippled hair with two
strokes of a brush, readjusted her cap, and decided that, for once, a
little powder on the nose was a necessity. Carthy must not see that she
had been crying. As it was, her brilliant color was suspicious, and her
eyes, with their deep distended look of tears. She shut them, drew a
breath, put out her light, and went down the back stairs to a narrow
alley. It led from the hotel to the street that ran back of The Aura ...
the street to which she had taken young Hilliard the night before.

The alley seemed to Sheila, as she stepped into it from the glare of the
electric-lighted hotel, a stream of cool and silvery light. Above lay a
strip of tender sky in which already the stars shook. In this high
atmosphere they were always tremulous, dancing, beating, almost leaping,
with a fullness of quick light. They seemed very near to the edges of the
alley walls, to be especially visiting it with their detached regard,
peering down for some small divine occasion for influence. Sheila prayed
to them a desperate prayer of human helplessness.

CHAPTER XIII

SYLVESTER CELEBRATES

"Hey, you girl there! Hi! Hey!"

These exclamations called in a resonant, deep-chested voice succeeded at
last in attracting Sheila's attention. She had lingered at the alley's
mouth, shirking her entrance into the saloon, and now she saw, halfway
down the short, wide street, a ges