that it was a sharp spur that urged on to success all men who were not
degraded and hopeless drudges. So that her knowledge that Martin was so
poor that he had pawned his watch and overcoat did not disturb her. She
even considered it the hopeful side of the situation, believing that
sooner or later it would arouse him and compel him to abandon his
writing.

Ruth never read hunger in Martin's face, which had grown lean and had
enlarged the slight hollows in the cheeks. In fact, she marked the
change in his face with satisfaction. It seemed to refine him, to remove
from him much of the dross of flesh and the too animal-like vigor that
lured her while she detested it. Sometimes, when with her, she noted an
unusual brightness in his eyes, and she admired it, for it made him
appear more the poet and the scholar--the things he would have liked to
be and which she would have liked him to be. But Maria Silva read a
different tale in the hollow cheeks and the burning eyes, and she noted
the changes in them from day to day, by them following the ebb and flow
of his fortunes. She saw him leave the house with his overcoat and
return without it, though the day was chill and raw, and promptly she saw
his cheeks fill out slightly and the fire of hunger leave his eyes. In
the same way she had seen his wheel and watch go, and after each event
she had seen his vigor bloom again.

Likewise she watched his toils, and knew the measure of the midnight oil
he burned. Work! She knew that he outdid her, though his work was of a
different order. And she was surprised to behold that the less food he
had, the harder he worked. On occasion, in a casual sort of way, when
she thought hunger pinched hardest, she would send him in a loaf of new
baking, awkwardly covering the act with banter to the effect that it was
better than he could bake. And again, she would send one of her toddlers
in to him with a great pitcher of hot soup, debating inwardly the while
whether she was justified in taking it from the mouths of her own flesh
and blood. Nor was Martin ungrateful, knowing as he did the lives of the
poor, and that if ever in the world there was charity, this was it.

On a day when she had filled her brood with what was left in the house,
Maria invested her last fifteen cents in a gallon of cheap wine. Martin,
coming into her kitchen to fetch water, was invited to sit down and
drink. He drank her very-good health, and in return she dra