you smoke cigarettes!"

"No, I don't smoke. I don't like cigarettes."

"But if you liked them, _would_ you smoke?" he questioned eagerly.

"What a funny boy you are! What difference does it make what I do or
don't do?"

"Would you smoke, if you liked to?" he still insisted.

She was very much amused.

"How can I tell what I'd do if I liked to when I don't like to?"

"Do you approve of them then--for women, I mean?"

"Why do you want to know?"

"Just because I'd like to know what you think of such things--because
you seem to me to be so calm, so sane in your point of view. You
always impressed me that way--from the very first, even when you were
making fun of me."

"Why do you think I'm sane?" she asked amusedly.

"Because there's no nonsense about you. There are a lot of things I'd
like to talk to you about--things I don't quite understand--if you'd
only let me see you."

"You're seeing me now, aren't you?"

"Yes. But I can't talk about them all--at once."

"You've made a pretty good start, I should say."

Jerry laughed. "I have, haven't I? That's the way I always do when I'm
with you."

"Always?" she inquired, raising her brows with a show of dignity. "Do
you realize that I have only met you once--twice before in my
life--and then _most_ informally?"

"I feel as if I'd known you always."

"But you haven't. And I'm beginning to think I don't know you at all."

"But you do, better than anybody almost. It was awfully good of you to
come here with me today--after my meeting you the way I did. I ought
to apologize. Girls don't like to go with fellows when they come out
of saloons, but I wasn't drinking, you know."

"Oh, weren't you?"

"No," he said hastily. And then to cover a possible misconception of
his meaning, "But of course I _would_ drink, if I wanted to. I don't
see any difference between having a drink at Finnegan's and having it
in a club uptown."

She regarded him for a moment in silence and then,

"You do belong to some of the clubs, then?"

"Oh, yes. The Cosmos, the Butterfly and several others--" He broke off
with a laugh. "You see, I'm supposed to be something of a swell"--

"You don't look much of a swell today," she said with a glance at his
clothes. "And Finnegan's, though exclusive for the Bowery, is hardly
what might be called smart. I _am_ curious, Jerry. Curiosity is one of
my besetting sins--otherwise I'd never have gotten inside your wall.
I've been wondering what on