evoked--made her sick at heart. For the moment she came
from under the spell of her peculiar trait--her power to do
without whimper or vain gesture of revolt the inevitable
thing, whatever it was. She paused to steady herself, half
leaning against a lofty up-piling of winter cloaks. A girl,
young at first glance, not nearly so young thereafter,
suddenly appeared before her--a girl whose hair had the sheen
of burnished brass and whose soft smooth skin was of that
frog-belly whiteness which suggests an inheritance of some
bleaching and blistering disease. She had small regular
features, eyes that at once suggested looseness, good-natured
yet mercenary too. She was dressed in the sleek tight-fitting
trying-on robe of the professional model, and her figure was
superb in its firm luxuriousness.

"Sick?" asked the girl with real kindliness.

"No--only dizzy for the moment."

"I suppose you've had a hard day."

"It might have been easier," Susan replied, attempting a smile.

"It's no fun, looking for a job. But you've caught on?"

"Yes. He took me."

"I made a bet with myself that he would when I saw you go in."
The girl laughed agreeably. "He picked you for Gideon."

"What department is that?"

The girl laughed again, with a cynical squinting of the eyes.
"Oh, Gideon's our biggest customer. He buys for the largest
house in Chicago."

"I'm looking for a place to live," said Susan. "Some place in
this part of town."

"How much do you want to spend?"

"I'm to have ten a week. So I can't afford more than twelve or
fourteen a month for rent, can I?"

"If you happen to have to live on the ten," was the reply with
a sly, merry smile.

"It's all I've got."

Again the girl laughed, the good-humored mercenary eyes twinkling
rakishly. "Well--you can't get much for fourteen a month."

"I don't care, so long as it's clean."

"Gee, you're reasonable, ain't you?" cried the girl. "Clean!
I pay fourteen a week, and all kinds of things come through
the cracks from the other apartments. You must be a stranger
to little old New York--bugtown, a lady friend of mine calls
it. Alone?"

"Yes."

"Um--" The girl shook her head dubiously. "Rents are mighty
steep in New York, and going up all the time. You see, the
rich people that own the lands and houses here need a lot of
money in their business. You've got either to take a room or
part of one in with some tenement family, respectable but
noisy and dir