r intelligence and her too sympathetic heart were
together a strong force for sadness in her life, as they cannot
but be in any life. In this world, to understand and to
sympathize is to be saddened. But there was in her a force
stronger than either or both. She had superb health. It made her
beautiful, strong body happy; and that physical happiness
brought her up quickly out of any depths--made her gay in spite
of herself, caused her to enjoy even when she felt that it was
"almost like hard-heartedness to be happy." She loved the sun
and in this city where the sun shone almost all the days,
sparkling gloriously upon the tiny salt particles filling the
air and making it delicious to breathe and upon the skin--in
this City of the Sun as she called it, she was gay even when she
was heavy-hearted.

Thus, she was no repellent, aggravating companion to Rod as she
awaited the cataclysm.

It came in the third week. He spent the entire day away from her,
toward midnight he returned, flushed with liquor. She had
gone to bed. "Get up and dress," said he with an irritability
toward her which she had no difficulty in seeing was really
directed at himself. "I'm hungry--and thirsty. We're going out
for some supper."

"Come kiss me first," said she, stretching out her arms. Several
times this device had shifted his purpose from spending money on
the needless and expensive suppers.

He laughed. "Not a kiss. We're going to have one final blow-out.
I start to work tomorrow. I've taken a place on the _Herald_--on
space, guaranty of twenty-five a week, good chance to average
fifty or sixty."

He said this hurriedly, carelessly, gayly--guiltily. She showed
then and there what a surpassing wise young woman she was, for
she did not exclaim or remind him of his high resolve to do or
die as a playwright. "I'll be ready in a minute," was all she said.

She dressed swiftly, he lounging on the sofa and watching her.
He loved to watch her dress, she did it so gracefully, and the
motions brought out latent charms of her supple figure. "You're
not so sure-fingered tonight as usual," said he. "I never saw
you make so many blunders--and you've got one stocking on wrong
side out."

She smiled into the glass at him. "The skirt'll cover that. I
guess I was sleepy."

"Never saw your eyes more wide-awake. What're you thinking about?"

"About supper," declared she. "I'm hungry. I didn't feel like
eating alone."

"I ca