n
had never been beyond the walls of the forbidden city, nor would he know
any reason why the besieger should not forever be kept outside. He would
fix that next time.

He approached the window of the casting office with mingled emotions. He
did not hope to find his friend again stricken with headache, but if it
chanced that she did suffer he hoped to be the first to learn of it. Was
he not fortified with the potent Eezo wafers, and a new menthol pencil,
even with an additional remedy of tablets that the druggist had
strongly recommended? It was, therefore, not with any actual, crude
disappointment that he learned of his friend's perfect well-being. She
smiled pleasantly at him, the telephone receiver at one ear. "Nothing
to-day, dear," she said and put down the instrument.

Yes, the headache was gone, vanquished by his remedies. She was fine,
thank you. No, the headaches didn't come often. It might be weeks before
she had another attack. No, of course she couldn't be certain of this.
And indeed she would be sure to let him know at the very first sign of
their recurrence.

He looked over his patient with real anxiety, a solicitude from the
bottom of which he was somehow unable to expel the last trace of a
lingering hope that would have dismayed the little woman--not hope,
exactly, but something almost like it which he would only translate to
himself as an earnest desire that he might be at hand when the dread
indisposition did attack her. Just now there could be no doubt that she
was free from pain.

He thanked her profusely for her courtesy of the day before. He had
seen wonderful things. He had learned a lot. And he wanted to ask her
something, assuring himself that he was alone in the waiting room. It
was this: did she happen to know--was Miss Beulah Baxter married?

The little woman sighed in a tired manner. "Baxter married? Let me see."
She tapped her teeth with the end of a pencil, frowning into her vast
knowledge of the people beyond the gate. "Now, let me think." But this
appeared to be without result. "Oh, I really don't know; I forget. I
suppose so. Why not? She often is."

He would have asked more questions, but the telephone rang and she
listened a long time, contributing a "yes, yes," of understanding at
brief intervals. This talk ended, she briskly demanded a number and
began to talk in her turn. Merton Gill saw that for the time he had
passed from her life. She was calling an agency. She wanted peo