all that she previously had
experienced.

As to the present she perceived only vague reasons to be miserable.
Her life was Pete's and she considered him worthy of the charge. She
would be disturbed by no particular apprehensions, so long as Pete
adored her as he now said he did. She did not feel like a bad woman.
To her knowledge she had never seen any better.

At times men at other tables regarded the girl furtively. Pete, aware
of it, nodded at her and grinned. He felt proud.

"Mag, yer a bloomin' good-looker," he remarked, studying her face
through the haze. The men made Maggie fear, but she blushed at Pete's
words as it became apparent to her that she was the apple of his eye.

Grey-headed men, wonderfully pathetic in their dissipation, stared at
her through clouds. Smooth-cheeked boys, some of them with faces of
stone and mouths of sin, not nearly so pathetic as the grey heads,
tried to find the girl's eyes in the smoke wreaths. Maggie considered
she was not what they thought her. She confined her glances to Pete
and the stage.

The orchestra played negro melodies and a versatile drummer pounded,
whacked, clattered and scratched on a dozen machines to make noise.

Those glances of the men, shot at Maggie from under half-closed lids,
made her tremble. She thought them all to be worse men than Pete.

"Come, let's go," she said.

As they went out Maggie perceived two women seated at a table with some
men. They were painted and their cheeks had lost their roundness. As
she passed them the girl, with a shrinking movement, drew back her
skirts.

Chapter XIII

Jimmie did not return home for a number of days after the fight with
Pete in the saloon. When he did, he approached with extreme caution.

He found his mother raving. Maggie had not returned home. The parent
continually wondered how her daughter could come to such a pass. She
had never considered Maggie as a pearl dropped unstained into Rum Alley
from Heaven, but she could not conceive how it was possible for her
daughter to fall so low as to bring disgrace upon her family. She was
terrific in denunciation of the girl's wickedness.

The fact that the neighbors talked of it, maddened her. When women
came in, and in the course of their conversation casually asked,
"Where's Maggie dese days?" the mother shook her fuzzy head at them and
appalled them with curses. Cunning hints inviting confidence she
rebuffed with violence.

"An'