he
_Commercial_ and with all I've got in the world--three hundred
dollars and a trunk full of good clothes, I'll break into Broadway."

Susan had listened with bright eyes and quickened breath, as
intoxicated and as convinced as was he by his eloquence.
"Isn't that splendid!" she exclaimed in a low voice.

"And you?" he said meaningly.

"I?" she replied, fearing she was misunderstanding.

"Will you go?"

"Do you want me?" she asked, low and breathlessly.

With a reluctance which suggested--but not to her--that his
generosity was winning a hard-fought battle with his vanity, he
replied: "I need you. I doubt if I'd dare, without you to back
me up."

"I've got a trunk full of fairly good clothes and about a
hundred dollars. But I haven't got any play--or any art--or any
trade even. Of course, I'll go." Then she hastily added, "I'll
not be a drag on you. I pay my own way."

"But you mustn't be suspicious in your independence," he warned
her. "You mustn't forget that I'm older than you and more
experienced and that it's far easier for a man to get money than
for a woman."

"To get it without lowering himself?"

"Ah!" he exclaimed, looking strangely at her. "You mean, without
bowing to some boss? Without selling his soul? I had no idea you
were so much of a woman when I met you that day."

"I wasn't--then," replied she. "And I didn't know where I'd got
till we began to talk this evening."

"And you're very young!"

"Oh, but I've been going to a school where they make you learn fast."

"Indeed I do need you." He touched his glass to hers. "On to
Broadway!" he cried.

"Broadway!" echoed she, radiant.

"Together--eh?"

She nodded. But as she drank the toast a tear splashed into her
glass. She was remembering how some mysterious instinct had
restrained her from going with John Redmond, though it seemed
the only sane thing to do. What if she had disobeyed that
instinct! And then--through her mind in swift ghostly march--past
trailed the persons and events of the days just gone--just gone,
yet seeming as far away as a former life in another world.
Redmond and Gulick--Etta--yes, Etta, too--all past and
gone--forever gone----

"What are you thinking about?"

She shook her head and the spectral procession vanished into the
glooms of memory's vistas. "Thinking?--of yesterday. I don't
understand myself--how I shake off and forget what's past.
Nothing seems real to me but the future."

"Not