indicating Mary Louise.

Before following the waiting boy, she held out her hand impulsively to
Claybrook and looked into his eyes.

"Thank you so much," she said. "I don't know what I would have done
without you. It's all so ridiculous. Tell you all about it sometime."

She left him standing there in front of the desk, with a puzzled look
upon his face, a big, reliant, kindly figure. He had not asked her a
single question. He had come to her assistance when she needed it
sorely. His was a friendship worth having.

She waited until the bell-boy had left her in the room and then she
closed the door and locked it. Then she threw herself face down upon
the bed and buried her flushed cheeks in the pillow. What a
disgraceful, disreputable affair it all was. All on account of her own
blindness and folly. She felt like a little child helped out of a
scrape. But all the mischief was not remedied. She at least could find
other lodgings to-morrow. She would not wait another day. Thanks to
Claybrook she was in off the street. Suppose she had had to spend the
night on a park bench? Once that had had a humorous sound to it.
Claybrook _was_ a masterful person. He had made that clerk step
around. How humiliating it had all been.

She got up and switched off the lights. Then she lay down again and
watched the twinkle of the lamps of an electric sign about a block
away across the roofs. What was she going to do about Maida? What was
she going to do about the tea room? Something would have to be done.
It was impossible to go on with it any further.

She would have to buy Maida out. She could force her to sell, she
supposed. But where would she get the money? She was already in debt
for part of her share. Perhaps Maida would buy her out. What would she
do then? Go back to Bloomfield? Just when the venture was beginning
to pan out nicely? Not without a struggle, she wouldn't. Back and
forth she debated the question, her mind a welter of confused
decisions.

After a while she fell asleep....

Two days later she met Claybrook again. Nothing had been decided.
Maida had seemed utterly indifferent. "Perfectly satisfied with things
as they are," she had said; there was a diabolical stubbornness in her
manner. She made capital of her own inertia. She was as cool as if
dealing with an entire stranger. Finally, after two days of backing
and filling, of bickering and contesting, she had named her price.
"Fifteen hundred," she had said and