ing drizzle and a reek of fog which veiled
the tops of the taller buildings. As he waited for an answer to his
ring, he could hear the fog-horn voice groaning over river and bay as
though some huge monster were troubled in its sleep.

Then Marcia opened the door and as he made his way along the four-foot
hall to the small living-room he discovered that she, too, was pale and
distraite.

"What is it?" he demanded with that sympathy which always lay close to
the surface of his nature. To his astonishment, the girl whose courage
and composure had become the reliance of his own weakness dropped on the
disguised cot and buried her face in her hands while her slim figure
shook to her sobbing, among the cushions.

Paul stood embarrassed and perplexed. Then, moved by impulse, he crossed
to the lounge and his hand fell with a gently caressing touch upon her
arm. "Why, little girl," he remonstrated softly, "where is your gay
bravery--what has happened?"

She sat up then and almost impatiently shook his hand away. After that
she rose to her feet.

"That's just it," she declared, and for the first time in their
acquaintanceship her eyes shone with an angry gleam, which quickly faded
again into distress. Her tear-stained face confronted him accusingly
"Everybody talks about my intelligence--and my courage. That's not what
I want. I'm just human and I want a human chance."

"What sort of chance?" he asked in that vague distress which confuses a
man and makes him stupid, at sight of a woman's tears.

She lifted her head defiantly. "A chance to work and live and be
happy," she told him vehemently. "A chance to support my child and
myself. They all praise me, but no one will hire me. I'm tired of
fighting--unspeakably tired." Once more her face went into the support
of the two small hands and her body shook.

"But your part in the new piece--don't you get it?" he questioned.

"They gave it to another woman," she told him faintly between her
fingers. "A woman who--who is the friend of the author."

Heretofore Paul had always felt a half-submerged diffidence with Marcia,
such a partially acknowledged deference as one accords to another who
has drunk deeper of life and more extensively built wisdom from
experience. With her his easy pose of acknowledged genius that passed
current in the drawing-rooms lost its assurance, and with her he was at
his best because most natural. But this was a new Marcia, a Marcia whose
delicate, chi