w? Perhaps. Good-bye."

"Who was that?" the noble marquis called from the room beyond.

"An imbecile who wants me to dine and go to the opera."

"Not that Paliser?"

Cassy, poking her head in at him, threw him a kiss and returned to the
Tamburini with whom, a little later, she was praying among the
worshippers that thread the sacred and silent way where Broadway and
Sixth Avenue meet.

In an adjacent basilica, the atmosphere charged with pious emanations,
with envy, malice, greed and all other charitableness, choked the girl.
But at last the holy rites were ended. To the voluntary of $109.99, she
passed into the peace of Herald Square where the ex-diva swayed, stopped
and holding her umbrella as one holds a guitar, looked hopelessly and
helplessly about.

"You're not preparing to serenade the Elevated?" Cassy bawled in her
ear.

In the slam-bang of trains and the metallic howls of surface cars that
herded and volplaned about them, the fat lady, now apparently gone mad,
was gesticulating insanely. Yet she was but indicating, or trying to
indicate, the relative refuge of a side street in which there was a
cook-shop.

Then, presently, after all the dangers that may be avoided in remaining
at home, and supplied with such delights as clam fritters offer, she
savorously remarked: "I hope I am not going to be sick."

The charm of scented streets, the sedatives of shopping, the joy of
lightsome fritters, these things, combined with the job, the unearned
cheque and the fear of losing both, made her ghastly.

Cassy, devoid of pity, said: "Have some beer."

The Tamburini gulped. "I couldn't talk to you this morning and I've got
to. It's for your own good, dearie; it is, so help me! Supposing he is a
jackanapes. What do you want? A prize-fighter? Take it from me, whether
he is one or the other, in no time it will be quite the same."

Cassy's lips curled. "Croyez-moi car j'ai passe par la." But, in mocking
the woman, she frowned. "What business is it of yours?"

The fallen star gulped again. Conscious that she had struck the wrong
note, she struck another. "Your papa is no better, is he? Between you
and me and the bedpost, I doubt if he ever will be. I doubt if he plays
again. You'll have to look after him. How're you going to? You can't
expect to sing every night to the tune of two hundred and fifty. Not
with war marching in on us. Not with everybody hard up."

Cassy had been about to order a chocolate eclair. The