y had noticed a couple of young women on the lower steps of the
adjacent flat, quite within ear-shot, and at once he began in a loud,
harsh voice:

"Well, y' know, we can't wait for our rent forever; I'm only the
collector, and I've nothing to do with repairs. Pay your rent that's
three months overdue, and then--"

But Blix pulled him within the house and clapped to the door.

"Condy RIVERS!" she exclaimed, her cheeks flaming, "those are our
neighbors. They heard every word. What do you suppose they think?"

"Huh! I'd rather have 'em think I was a rent-collector than a
book-agent. You began it. 'Evenin', Miss Lady."

"'Evenin', Mister Man."

But Condy's visit, begun thus gayly, soon developed along much more
serious lines. After supper, while the light still lasted, Blix read
stories to him while he smoked cigarettes in the bay window of the
dining-room. But as soon as the light began to go she put the book
aside, and the two took their accustomed places in the window, and
watched the evening burning itself out over the Golden Gate.

It was just warm enough to have one of the windows opened, and for a
long time after the dusk they sat listening to the vague clamor of the
city, lapsing by degrees, till it settled into a measured, soothing
murmur, like the breathing of some vast monster asleep. Condy's
cigarette was a mere red point in the half-darkness. The smoke drifted
out of the open window in long, blue strata. At his elbow Blix was
leaning forward, looking down upon the darkening, drowsing city, her
round, strong chin propped upon her hand. She was just close enough for
Candy to catch the sweet, delicious feminine perfume that came
indefinitely from her clothes, her hair, her neck. From where Condy
sat he could see the silhouette of her head and shoulders against the
dull golden blur of the open window; her round, high forehead, with the
thick yellow hair rolling back from her temples and ears, her pink,
clean cheeks, her little dark-brown, scintillating eyes, and her firm
red mouth, made all the firmer by the position of her chin upon her
hand. As ever, her round, strong neck was swathed high and tight in
white satin; but between the topmost fold of the satin and the rose of
one small ear-lobe was a little triangle of white skin, that was partly
her neck and partly her cheek, and that Condy knew should be softer
than down, smoother than satin, warm and sweet and redolent as new
apples. Condy im