at the
Astor House. It's nice upstairs there."

"With Bob Culver?"

She laughed. "I haven't seen him since I left his office. You know, Mr.
Tetlow took me with him--back to your old firm. I didn't like Mr.
Culver. I don't care for those black men. They are bad-tempered and
two-faced. Anyhow, I'd not have anything to do with a man who wanted to
slip round with me as if he were ashamed of me."

She was looking at Norman pleasantly enough. He wasn't sure that the hit
was for him as well as for Culver, but he flushed deeply. "Will you
lunch with me at the Astor House at one to-morrow?"

"I've got an engagement," said she. "And I must be going. I'm awfully
late." He had an instinct that her engagement on both days was with the
same man. "I'm glad to have seen you----"

"Won't you let me call on you?" he said imploringly, but with the
suggestion that he had no hope of being permitted to come.

"Certainly," responded she with friendly promptness. She opened the
shopping bag swinging on her arm. "Here is one of my cards."

"When? This evening?"

Her laugh showed the beautiful deep pink and dazzling white behind her
lips. "No--I'm going to a party."

"Let me take you."

She shook her head. "You wouldn't like it. Only young people."

"But I'm not so old."

She looked at him critically. "No--you're not. It always puzzled me. You
aren't old--you look like a boy lots of the time. But you always _seem_
old to me."

"I'll try to do better. To-night?"

"Not to-night," laughed she. "Let's see--to-morrow's Sunday. Come
to-morrow--about half past two."

"Thank you," he said so gratefully that he cursed himself for his folly
as he heard his voice--the idiotic folly of so plainly betraying his
feelings. No wonder she despised him! Beginning again--and beginning;
wrong.

"Good-by." Her eyes, her smile flashed and he was alone, watching her
slender grace glide through the throngs of lower Broadway.

At his office again at three, he found a note from Tetlow inclosing
another of Dorothy's cards and also the promised check. Into his face
came the look that always comes into the faces of the prisoners of
despair when the bolts slide back and the heavy door swings and hope
stands on the threshold instead of the familiar grim figure of the
jailer. "This looks like the turn of the road," he muttered. Yes, a turn
it certainly was--but was it _the_ turn? "I'll know more as to that," said
he with a glance at the clock, "about thi