prejudice--anything but want of perseverance, circumspection,
industry: the obviousness of the fact remains.

Until half-past five her work goes on just the same as before lunch,
and then up town on the elevator. Dry snow is spotting the swirling
wind that eddies round the corners; the sidewalks are thick with
hurrying people; the elevator is packed to the platforms with men and
women tightly crushed together, worse even than coming down. She
dines at a little Italian restaurant, where the proprietor, his wife,
and children personally attend on their customers; it is known only to
a few who mostly know each other--constant _habitues_--magazine
writers and magazine artists, and miscellaneous, but interesting,
nondescripts; and her dinner, with Italian wine included, costs forty
cents. It is the pleasantest part of the day for her--men and women of
that little writing, artistic, thoughtful, and, in a way, thoughtless
set she had known for years; men who could never boom themselves or
others, or keep up a bluff even enough to advertise themselves; the
slow steps of actual merit made their progress seem like marking time.
Ruggles, commonly known to his friends as Rembrandt, saw her home--old
Ruggles, who painted better pictures than half the foreigners who came
to New York, but who would never be a prophet in his own country. Nice
old boy, Ruggles; but the fire was burning low in him, its only fuel
being the ashes of disappointment.

The sky had cleared, and the moon shone out on the glorious old
square, and red lights suggestive of old port and big wood fires
streaked the silent snow from the windows. "Bully, isn't it?" And the
silent pressure of her arm was affirmative of complete understanding.
Her tiny sitting-room was warm; the cheap eastern rugs and dark green
background of the walls and some clever original sketches, all were in
the harmony of taste that loved restfulness. She lit the gas-stove of
imitation logs; Ruggles wheeled a chair in front of it and filled his
pipe; from his match she glowed a cigarette, and with a great sigh of
relief and tiredness lay back on the sofa.

Then they chatted chum-like of many things. She was doing well--doing
a man's work and getting a man's pay, supporting her mother and the
two younger girls in the country. It was a strain; but is not
successful effort Brian L'Estrange's definition of happiness? So they
chatted on until it was time for Ruggles to go.

"Thank you so much fo