were injured, and
her talk incessant. Alexina couldn't make her stop.

"Jean was just such another clog as Malise," she told Georgy. "He was
forever harping about proprieties, and he wore me out trying to make
me tie my money up; Malise isn't stingy, I'll say that, though she
might have been--she's a Blair. Jean shivered over spending money. And
after there wasn't any left, he used to sit and cough and cry over
his Shakespeare about it. He had thought he was going to be a great
poet once, himself, Jean had."

In the light of the setting moon one could see Molly's childlike face;
and her voice, with its upward cadence, was more plaintive than the
face. The very look and the sound of her were sweet, seductively
sweet.

"He liked to believe himself a Gascon, too, Jean did, and he loved his
Villon too. He wasn't well ever; he couldn't always breathe, Jean
couldn't, but, _vraiment_, he could swagger as well as any."

The night was still, the streets asleep. Nearing the hotel now, the
way led past blocks of warehouses and wholesale establishments. Molly
stumbled over a grating. Georgy steadied her. They went on, their
footsteps echoing up from the flagging as from a vault.

"I'm cold," complained Molly, "and," querulously, "you know, Malise,
it will make me cough if I take cold. Jean coughed. After he coughed
for a year and the money was gone, he raised more on our things. Then
they came and seized them, except my trunks; Jean had sent those away.
I was sick, too; I took the cough from Jean, and I was afraid after I
heard one could take it, so he made me come away. Celeste had some
money. He made us come; he said it would be easier to know I was over
here, and it would be better for him at the hospital--'les soeurs sont
bonnes,' Jean said over and over."

Alexina was hearing it for the first time. People like Molly supply no
background, the present is the only moment, and Alexina was not one to
ask.

At the hotel entrance, in the ladies' deserted hallway, even the
nodding bell-boy gone, Georgy paused. Molly went and sat down in a
chair against the wall. She laughed unsteadily, though there was
nothing to laugh about. Her lids were batting and fluttering like a
sleepy child's. "I thought you said it was late, Malise," she
remarked.

"Wait," entreated Georgy of Alexina, and squared himself between her
and her mother. He was a dear, handsome boy. He gazed pleadingly at
the tall, fair-haired girl whose eyes were meeti