to do anything for one o' them?"

"He said he was an American citizen," answered Miss Pilgrim; "and Mr.
Selby wouldn't help him; so he was qualified. What made it difficult
in his case was that somehow I never found out what he'd done; and
the Chief of Police was queer about him too. I remember once that he
told me that if he were to let the man go, he'd be afraid to sleep at
nights, for fear he'd hear children's voices weeping in the dark. I
couldn't get anything else out of him. And the next time I went,
they'd found out that the Mormon wasn't an American at all; he'd just
been in the States for a couple of years and then come back to
Russia. So there wasn't any more I could do."

Waters put his empty glass upon the square iron tray by the samovar.
He reached under his chair for his cap.

"That's so," he agreed. "You couldn't do nothin' for that feller.
Maybe you'll land with the next one."

He smiled at her across the little table. He understood now why the
gaunt room reflected nothing of her. It was a city of refuge she had
built and the refugees had failed to come; it was a makeshift temple
of her patriotism and her pity. He caught her small answering smile,
noting with what a docility of response her lips shaped themselves to
it. No doubt she had smiled just as obediently at the "Mormon."

"It's a great idea, too," he went on. "Maybe Selby's all right as far
as he goes, but he certainly don't go very far. This here" he
gathered the room into his gesture "starts off where he stops. It's
great!"

It was good to see her brighten under the brief praise.

"Then you see now what I meant when I told you to come here to me?"
she asked. "Because I'll do everything I can, and the Chief of Police
will always listen to me. And you will come, won't you, if you should
happen ever to need help or or anything?"

"Why, you bet I will," he promised heartily. "I reckon I got a right
to. You're my vice-vice and we don't want to waste a room like this."

Watching her while he spoke, he had to hold down a smile which
threatened to show. She needed somebody in trouble and she was
relying on him.

She left open the door for him while he went down the winding
staircase, that he might have light to see his way. When he was at
the bottom, he looked up, to see her head across the handrail,
silhouetted above him and still oddly recognizable and suggestive of
her. Her voice came down to him, echoing in the well of the stairway.