lim, black-clad girl, with
one of those appalling piles of fluffy hair topping her head, whisking
past behind him. Now he noticed that the restaurant was divided in
half by a screen which ran the length of the building, and that one
side--the side he had seen through the window--was for men, and the
other for women. The tables on the men's side were filled. The girl
stood beckoning from a table on the women's side. Other waitresses he
had not seen before were working here. Hiram could not back out now.
His legs trembled as he obeyed the girl's beckoning finger.

He reached the table and stumbled noisily into a seat. The girl, now
holding out a menu card, was looking at him curiously, he felt. The
blood rushed to his face; he dared not look at her. Fumblingly he took
the card and straightway dropped it on the floor.

Together they bent over to regain it. Their bodies touched. Hiram
grew sick. She recovered the card and was standing erect when he
crawfished up from the floor. He was burning up with shame. Again he
took the card, but his glazed eyes could not read a word.

Suddenly he knew that she was speaking.

"I think you'd like a ribber, medium," she was saying, "with French
fries and a dish of peas."

Hiram's head nodded without command. He knew she was leaving the
table, and something forced his eyes to her. She was turning, but her
eyes were looking back into his. In those eyes, big and brown beneath
dark, arched brows and long lashes, there was a look that thrilled him
to his soul. She was more beautiful than any woman he had seen through
all the splendor of the night, and she had flashed to him a spark of
kindness in a maelstrom of misery! Was this the girl who had been
beckoning him on?

She was coming back. She paused beside him and placed a napkin,
silver, bread and butter, and a glass of water before him. He tried to
look up, but could not. He felt her close to him as she arranged the
things before him.

She was speaking again, low, soothingly.

"Awful crowd to-night. We don't usually put single gentlemen on this
side, but I guess you won't mind. Your ribber'll be here in a minute."

She was gone again. He saw her brown hair bobbing toward the kitchen.
He watched the swing doors, eager for her return.

They burst open at last and she came forward and placed a big platter
before him, on which steamed an enormous rib steak, beside this a dish
of French-fried potatoes and a di