tarded development, left her without
interest in the fact that the newcomer was a man. From the slight
glance she had given him when she heard his step, she judged him to be
what she estimated as an elderly man, quite far into the thirties.

She went back to her own thoughts which were practical. There were
certain measures which she could take at once, after which there would
be no return. Once more she was not appalled. She had lived too near
the taking of these steps to be shocked by them. Everything in life is
a question of relativity, and in the world which her mother had
entered on marrying Judson Flack the men were all so near the edge of
the line which separates the criminal from the non-criminal that it
seemed a natural thing when they crossed it, while the women....

But as her thoughts were dealing with this social problem in its
bearing on herself, her neighbor spoke.

"Funny to watch those kids playing with the pup, isn't it?"

She admitted that it was, that watching children and young animals was
a favorite sport with her. She answered simply, because being
addressed by strange men with whom she found herself in proximity was
sanctioned by the etiquette of her society. To resent it would be
putting on airs, besides which it would cut off social intercourse
between the sexes. It had happened to her many a time to have engaging
conversations with chance young men beside her in the subway, never
seeing them before or afterward.

So Allerton found getting acquainted easier than he had expected. The
etiquette of _his_ society not sanctioning this directness of response
on her part, he drew the conclusion that she was accustomed to
"meeting fellows halfway." As this was the sort of person he was
looking for, he found in the freedom nothing to complain of.

With the openness of her social type she gave details of her biography
without needing to be pressed.

"You're a New York girl?"

"I am now. I didn't use to be."

"What were you to begin with?"

"Momma brought me from Canada after my father died. That's why I ain't
got no friends here."

At this appeal for sympathy his glance stole suspiciously toward her,
finding his first conjectures somewhat but not altogether verified.
She was young apparently, and possibly pretty, though as to neither
point did he care. He would have preferred more "past," more
"mystery," more "drama," but since you couldn't have everything, a
young person utterly unfit to b