y caravanserai. She's only there for a day or two, in a room opposite
mine, hitherto vacant and only tenanted yesterday. I met her as she was
coming up the stairs. She walked heavily, poor thing. I could only see
her by the dim light of the gas-jet on the landing. It was a young face,
deeply lined and unhappy. Downstairs I came across Mrs. Milliken, my
landlady, who explained that the person I had met expected to go next
day to a hospital. The Milliken woman had known her husband. He went off
to the war, months ago, and the young wife's been teaching French and
giving piano lessons, till she couldn't work any longer. The French
government allows her twenty-five or thirty cents a day."

"I'm glad it keeps a paternal eye on the wives of its brave defenders,"
remarked Gordon.

"It does, to that extent, but it doesn't go very far in this country.
She has a remarkable face; looks a good deal like that Madonna of
Murillo's in the Louvre."

"That's a back number at this stage of the world's history. Most of us
prefer snub noses. I notice that you said she plays the piano."

"I don't see what----"

"Well, you've just had yours tuned. Oh! I forgot you said she was going
off to the hospital. Never mind, Dave, they come out again, so don't
worry. I've known you to be disturbed for a whole week over somebody's
sick dog and to go two blocks out of your way to steer a strayed and
unpleasantly ragged blind man. What is it, appendicitis?"

"Mrs. Milliken darkly hinted, I think, that it was an expected baby."

"Oh! Well, I suppose a baby had to go with a Murillo; the picture would
have been incomplete. I'm glad that this particular case appears to be a
perfectly safe one."

"What do you know about it?" I asked.

"I mean from your standpoint. I dare presume that the Milliken female
has a holy horror of sprouting infants, like all landladies. She would
naturally foresee a notice to quit from the old couple, disturbed in
their slumbers, and extravagance in the use of hot water and linen would
stare her in the face. You have made me sympathize with you for nothing,
for your Murillo-woman will vanish into space and become the handmaiden
of a scrub in the making. Henceforth, the case will only interest the
Bureau of Vital Statistics and the manufacturers of improvements on
mother's milk. Give me another cigarette."

I handed him the cardboard box, for, although I have a silver case, I
never know where it is. If I did, I wouldn't us