waits
on street corners were a recognized part of it.

She could not afford even to dress warmly. There was absolutely nothing
but fur that would keep out such penetrating wind and cold as this, and
anything at all presentable was beyond her means.

"And they tell us, these smug, unctuous preachers warming their shins
before their study fires, that living is a privilege, and we should be
grateful to the Almighty for being allowed to go through things like
this! I can't see it!" she declared to herself in angry rebellion. "I
haven't one thing on earth to look forward to--unless--" her hand
tightened on a letter inside her muff--"unless I take a way out which,
in the end, might be worse."

Sprudell's note had come by special delivery from the Hotel Strathmore
just as she was leaving the office, so she had not stopped to answer it.
He had made several trips from Bartlesville since their first meeting,
under the pretext of business, but it did not require any great acumen
to discover that he came chiefly to see her.

Now, thinking that it might divert her mind from her misery, Helen
turned her back to the wind and drew out his note for a second reading.
One would scarcely have gathered from her expression as she turned the
pages that she was reading a cordial dinner invitation.

Everything about it grated upon her--and the note was so eminently
characteristic. She observed critically the "My dear Miss Dunbar," which
he considered more intimate than "Dear Miss Dunbar." She disliked the
round vowels formed with such care that they looked piffling, and the
elaborately shaded consonants. The stiffness, the triteness of his
phraseology, and his utter lack of humor, made his letters dull reading
but most of all his inexact use of words irritated her--it made him seem
so hopeless--far more so than bad spelling. She even detested the
glazed note paper which she was sure was a "broken lot" bought at a
bargain in a department store.

"To-night I have a matter of supreme importance to impart," she read,
"make every effort to join me. The evening may prove as eventful to you
as to me, so do not disappoint me, Mignonne."

"Mignonne!" Her lips curled. "Idiot! Imbecile! Ignoramus!"
Savagely--"_Donkey!_"

She leaned a shoulder against the cold bricks of the warehouse, her head
drooped and a tear slipped down her cheek to turn to frost on the dark
fur of her muff.

Helen was too analytical and she had had the opportunity of knowi