--when even tears wouldn't come."

"I had no idea it had been that bad." Smitherton's sympathy was genuine
and spontaneous.

"It was worse even," she went on. "He spoke of that--that afternoon when
I read the ticker tape--and knew what had happened. He said that,
properly colored, that would make a--a great scene. He said it had
drama." Her voice choked, then she added: "So you see your suggestion
will be a hard one for me to take. I should feel like--like Godiva
riding through the streets. And yet for her own people Judith went to
the tent of Holofernes. That wasn't easy, either."

They rose from the table and went out, and the girl held out her hand.
"Please don't think that I am unappreciative," she pleaded. "I know how
kind you have been--and I don't know how much longer I can hold out. You
said I could trust you, and now I know it, too. If--" her voice broke,
but her chin came up--"if I'm driven to it, I'll let you know--and be
very grateful."

"Don't let any one else talk to you," he cautioned. "Remember that this
is the capital of sharks. Now I'm going to call a taxi', and take you
home."

But she shook her head. "It's good of you," she said and her cheeks
flushed. "But I'd rather you didn't. I'm going by the people's
chariot--the subway." She was not yet quite able to conquer the old
pride that remained from the old life. She shrunk from showing him the
meanness of her quarters; she who had reigned and been toasted and lived
in the exclusive aloofness of the favored few, and who now faced
starvation. So he parted from her at the nearest kiosk of the
underground.

* * * * *

It would be a pleasant thing to paint the rehabilitation of Paul Burton,
showing how the underlying qualities of manhood rose in adversity as
they had never risen in opulence, and how love transformed him from a
weakling into a hero. But veracity intervenes. In childhood his
character had lacked stamina, and in manhood a hot-house atmosphere had
stifled even what had been there in the beginning. For a short time
after he had seen Marcia Terroll he fought the world and his own
terrible weakness with such a resolution that he utterly burned up and
consumed what spirit of combat was left within him. Perhaps the
recording angel, counting not only results but handicaps, wrote on the
great ledger of human balances a generous merit mark for even that brief
struggle.

Paul was like a weak swimmer in a strong