, and falsely
tempting, and of baked apples swimming in a pool of syrup. These flanked
by ketchup bottles and geometrical pyramids of golden grape-fruit.

Coffee and hot roast beef sandwiches, of course, in a place like that.
"And," added Fanny, "one of those baked apples. Just to prove they can't
be as good as they look."

They weren't, but she was too hungry to care. Not too hungry, though, to
note with quick eye all that the little restaurant held of interest, nor
too sleepy to respond to the friendly waitress who, seeing their dusty
boots, and the sprig of sumac stuck in Fanny's coat, said, "My, it
must have been swell in the country today!" as her flapping napkin
precipitated crumbs into their laps.

"It was," said Fanny, and smiled up at the girl with her generous,
flashing smile. "Here's a bit of it I brought back for you." And she
stuck the scarlet sumac sprig into the belt of the white apron.

They finished the day incongruously by taking a taxi home, Fanny yawning
luxuriously all the way. "Do you know," she said, as they parted, "we've
talked about everything from souls to infants' wear. We're talked out.
It's a mercy you're going to New York. There won't be a next time."

"Young woman," said Heyl, forcefully, "there will. That young devil
in the red tam isn't dead. She's alive. And kicking. There's a kick in
every one of those Chicago sketches in your portfolio upstairs. You said
she wouldn't fight anybody's battles to-day. You little idiot, she's
fighting one in each of those pictures, from the one showing that girl's
face in the crowd, to the old chap with the fish-stall. She'll never die
that one. Because she's the spirit. It's the other one who's dead--and
she doesn't know it. But some day she'll find herself buried. And I want
to be there to shovel on the dirt."

CHAPTER TWELVE

From the first of December the floor of the Haynes-Cooper mail room
looked like the New York Stock Exchange, after a panic. The aisles were
drifts of paper against which a squad of boys struggled as vainly as a
gang of snow-shovelers against a blizzard. The guide talked in terms of
tons of mail, instead of thousands. And smacked his lips after it. The
Ten Thousand were working at night now, stopping for a hasty bite of
supper at six, then back to desk, or bin or shelf until nine, so that
Oklahoma and Minnesota might have its Christmas box in time.

Fanny Brandeis, working under the light of her green-shaded desk lam