ons made to flow like
water.

As Marie Louise collected her porter and her hand-luggage for her next
exit she saw Ross Davidge just coming in. She stepped behind a large
politician or something. She forgot that she owed Davidge money, and
she felt a rather pleasurable agitation in this game of hide-and-seek,
but something made her shy of Davidge. For one thing, it was ludicrous
to be caught being turned out of a second hotel.

The politician walked away, and Davidge would have seen Marie Louise
if he had not stopped short and turned a cold shoulder on her, just as
the distant orchestra, which had been crooning one of Jerome Kern's
most insidiously ingratiating melodies, began to blare with all its
might the sonorities of "The Star-spangled Banner."

Miss Webling saw the people in the alley getting to their feet slowly,
awkwardly. A number of army and navy officers faced the music and
stood rigid at attention. The civilians in the lobby who were already
standing began to pull their hats off sheepishly like embarrassed
peasants. People were still as self-conscious as if the song had just
been written. They would soon learn to feel the tremendous importance
of that eternal query, the only national anthem, perhaps, that ever
began with a question and ended with a prayer. Americans would soon
learn to salute it with eagerness and to deal ferociously with
men--and women, too--who were slow to rise.

Marie Louise watched Davidge curiously. He was manifestly on fire with
patriotism, but he was ashamed to show it, ashamed to stand erect and
click his heels. He fumbled his hat and slouched, and looked as if he
had been caught in some guilt. He was indeed guilty of a childish
fervor. He wanted to shout, he wanted to weep, he wanted to fight
somebody; but he did not know how to express himself without striking
an attitude, and he was incapable of being a _poseur_--except as an
American posily affects poselessness.

When the anthem ended, people sank into their chairs with sighs of
relief; the officers sharply relaxed; the civilians straightened up
and felt at home again. Ross Davidge marched to the desk, not noticing
Marie Louise, who motioned to her porter to come along with her
luggage and went to hunt shelter at the Raleigh Hotel. She kept her
taxi now and left her hand-baggage in it while she received the
inevitable rebuff. From there she traveled to hotel after hotel,
marching in with the dismal assurance that she would