ring in?"

"Six dollars a week."

The young man smiled. "Never mind," he said; "eat your soup."

It did her good, that soup. It was strong and very hot. It put heart
into her. When she had finished, he laughed gleefully.

"It's all very well to talk about rice-powder, and cucumber-cream, and
beauty-sleeps, but all you needed to make you look perfectly lovely was
a cup of soup. That scarf's becoming to you, too."

She blushed happily. She had lost all fear of him.

"What are you pinching yourself for?" he asked.

"To see if I'm awake."

"You are," he said, "wide awake. Take my word for it, and I hope you're
having a good time."

The Chinaman poured something light and sparkling into her glass from a
bottle dressed in a napkin. Misgivings returned to her. She had heard of
girls being drugged.

"You don't have to drink it," said the young man. "I had some served
because dinner doesn't look like dinner without champagne. Still, after
the thoroughly unhappy day you've put in, I think a mouthful or two
would do you good."

She lifted the glass of champagne, smiled, drank, and choked. He laughed
at her merrily.

All through dinner he kept lighting cigarettes and throwing them away.
Between times he ate with great relish and heartiness.

Lila was in heaven. All her doubts and fears had vanished. She felt
thoroughly at home, as if she had always been used to service and linen
and silver and courtesy.

They had coffee, and then they strolled about in the moonlight, while
the young man smoked a very long cigar.

He looked at his watch, and sighed. "Well, Miss," he said, "if we're to
get you safe home to your mother!"

"I won't be a minute," she said.

"You know the way?"

She ran upstairs, and, having put on her hat, decided that it looked
cheap and vulgar, and took it off again.

He wrapped her in a soft white polo-coat for the long run to New York.
She looked back at the lights of his house. Would she ever see them
again, or smell the salt and the box and the roses?

By the time they had reached the Zoological Gardens at Fordham she had
fallen blissfully asleep. He ran the car with considerate slowness, and
looked at her very often. She waked as they crossed the river. Her eyes
shrank from the piled serried buildings of Manhattan. The air was no
longer clean and delicious to the lungs.

"Have I been asleep?"

"Yes."

"Oh," she cried, "how could I! How could I! I've missed some of it. And
it never