naires think they can play all the horses and
win,--get into heaven and sell gold bricks on the side. But I guess most
of 'em don't think about heaven. They just use the church for a front,
and take in strangers in the back alley,--downtown."

Hodder was silent, overwhelmed by the brutal aptness of her figures. Nor
did he take the trouble of a defence, of pointing out that hers was not
the whole truth. What really mattered--he saw--was what she and those
like her thought. Such minds were not to be disabused by argument; and
indeed he had little inclination for it then.

"There's nothing in it."

By this expression he gathered she meant life. And some hidden impulse
bade him smile at her.

"There is this," he answered.

She opened her mouth, closed it and stared at him, struck by his
expression, striving uneasily to fathom hidden depths in his remark.

"I don't get on to you," she said lamely. "I didn't that other time.
I never ran across anybody like you."

He tried to smile again.

"You mustn't mind me," he answered.

They fell into an oasis of silence, surrounded by mad music and laughter.
Then came the long-nosed waiter carrying the beefsteak aloft, followed by
a lad with a bucket of ice, from which protruded the green and gold neck
of a bottle. The plates were put down, the beefsteak carved, the
champagne opened and poured out with a flourish. The woman raised her
glass.

"Here's how!" she said, with an attempt at gayety. And she drank to him.
"It's funny how I ran across you again, ain't it?" She threw back her
head and laughed.

He raised his glass, tasted the wine, and put it down again. A sheet of
fire swept through him.

"What's the matter with it? Is it corked?" she demanded. "It goes to
the right spot with me."

"It seems very good," he said, trying to smile, and turning to the food
on his plate. The very idea of eating revolted him--and yet he made the
attempt: he had a feeling, ill defined, that consequences of vital
importance depended upon this attempt, on his natural acceptance of the
situation. And, while he strove to reduce the contents of his plate,
he racked his brain for some subject of conversation. The flamboyant
walls of the room pressed in on every side; comment of that which lay
within their limits was impossible,--but he could not, somehow, get
beyond them. Was there in the whole range of life one easy topic which
they might share in common? Yet a bond existed between this wom