the most wonderful thing she knew of
that girls from whom life exacted so much could remain so ready--so
happily eager--for life.

There was one thing to which she had made up her mind. Amid the
confusion of her thinking and the sadness of her spirit one thing she saw
as clear. There was something wrong with an arrangement of life which
struck that hard at life. The very fact that the capacity for life
persisted through so much was the more reason for its being a thing to be
cherished rather than sacrificed.

"Let's walk up this way," she was saying; "walk over the river. The
bridge is a good place just now."

Katie's face was white and tense as some of the faces they had left
behind "No," he said impetuously. "Let's not. Let's do something jolly!"

She shook her head "I have a feeling we're going to find her to-night."

Katie was always having that feeling. But as she looked then he had not
the heart to remind her of the many times it had played her false.

Many girls passed them on the bridge, but not Ann. "I can never make up
my mind to go," she said. "I always think I ought to wait till the next
one comes round the corner."

A girl who appeared to be thinking deeply passed them, turning weary eyes
upon them in languid interest.

"I wonder _what_," Katie exclaimed. "What she's thinking about," she
explained. "Maybe she's come to the end of her string--and if she has,
hundreds of thousands of people about her--oh I think it's terrible"--her
voice broke--"the way people are crowded so close together--and held so
far apart. Everybody's _alone_. Nobody _knows_."

For a second his hand closed over hers as it rested on the railing of
the bridge, as if he would bear some of the hurt for her, that hurt she
was finding in everything.

Despite the extreme simplicity of her dress she looked out of place
standing on that bridge at that hour; he was thinking that she had not
lost her distinction with her buoyancy.

Her face was quivering. "Katie," it made him ask, "don't you think you'd
better--quit?"

She turned wet eyes upon him reproachfully. "From _you_?"

"But is any--individual--worth it?"

"Oh I suppose no 'individual' is worth much to you," she said a
little bitterly.

There was a touch of irony in the tender smile which was his only
response.

They stood there in silence watching men and women come and go--solitary
and in groups--groups tired and groups laughing--groups respectable and
groups questi