established a bank account, and to date had not drawn a check against
it; which speaks well for her will power, an attribute cultivated, not
inherited.

Kitty was as pleasing to the eye as a basket of fruit. Her beauty was
animated. There was an expression in her eyes and on her lips that spoke
of laughter always on tiptoe. An enviable inheritance, this, the desire
to laugh, to be searching always for a vent to laughter; it is something
money cannot buy, something not to be cultivated; a true gift of
the gods. This desire to laugh is found invariably in the tender and
valorous; and Kitty was both. Brown hair with running threads of
gold that was always catching light; slate-blue eyes with heavy black
fringe-Irish; colour that waxed and waned; and a healthy, shapely body.
Topped by a sparkling intellect these gifts made Kitty desirable of men.

Kitty had no beau. After the adolescent days beaux ceased to interest
her. This would indicate that she was inclined toward suffrage. Nothing
of the kind. Intensely romantic, she determined to await the grand
passion or go it alone. No experimental adventures for her. Be assured
that she weighed every new man she met, and finding some flaw discarded
him as a matrimonial possibility. Besides, her unusual facilities to
view and judge men had shown her masculine phases the average woman
would have discovered only after the fatal knot was tied. She did not
suspect that she was romantical. She attributed her wariness to common
sense.

If there is one place where a pretty young woman may labour without
having to build a wall of liquid air about her to fend off amatory
advances that place is the editorial room of a great metropolitan daily.
One must have leisure to fall in love; and only the office boys could
assemble enough idle time to call it leisure.

Her desk faced Burlingame's; and Burlingame was the dramatic editor, a
scholar and a gentleman. He liked to hear Kitty talk, and often he lured
her into the open; and he gathered information about theatrical folks
that was outside even his wide range of knowledge.

A drizzly fog had hung over New York since morning. Kitty was finishing
up some Sunday special. Burlingame was reading proofs. All day
theatrical folks had been in and out of this little ten-by-twelve
cubby-hole; and now there would be quiet.

But no. The door opened and an iron-gray head intruded.

"Will I be in the way?"

"Lord, no!" cried Burlingame, throwing do