pear, in a
picture of a lake shore with a hotel porch, the flat sheen of
photographed water, rushing boats, and a young hero with wavy black
hair, who dived for the lady and bore her out when she fell out of a
reasonably safe boat. The actor's wet, white flannels clung tight about
his massive legs; he threw back his head with masculine arrogance, then
kissed the lady. Una was dizzy with that kiss. She was shrinking before
Walter's lips again. She could feel her respectable, typewriter-hardened
fingers stroke the actor's swarthy, virile jaw. She gasped with the
vividness of the feeling. She was shocked at herself; told herself she
was not being "nice"; looked guiltily about; but passionately she called
for the presence of her vague, imaginary lover.

"Oh, my dear, my dear, my dear!" she whispered, with a terrible
cloistered sweetness--whispered to love itself.

Deliberately ignoring the mother who waited at home, she determined to
spend a riotous evening going to a real theater, a real play. That is,
if she could get a fifty-cent seat.

She could not.

"It's been exciting, running away, even if I can't go to the theater,"
Una comforted herself. "I'll go down to Lady Sessions's this evening.
I'll pack mother off to bed. I'll take the Sessionses up some ice-cream,
and we'll have a jolly time.... Mother won't care if I go. Or maybe
she'll come with me"--knowing all the while that her mother would not
come, and decidedly would care if Una deserted her.

However negligible her mother seemed from down-town, she loomed gigantic
as Una approached their flat and assured herself that she was glad to be
returning to the dear one.

The flat was on the fifth floor.

It was a dizzying climb--particularly on this hot afternoon.

Sec. 6

As Una began to trudge up the flat-sounding slate treads she discovered
that her head was aching as though some one were pinching the top of her
eyeballs. Each time she moved her head the pain came in a perceptible
wave. The hallway reeked with that smell of onions and fried fish which
had arrived with the first tenants. Children were dragging noisy objects
about the halls. As the throb grew sharper during the centuries it took
her to climb the first three flights of stairs, Una realized how hot she
was, how the clammy coolness of the hall was penetrated by stabs of
street heat which entered through the sun-haloed windows at the stair
landings.

Una knocked at the door of her flat with th