e his wife would have to be enough. He
continued to draw out her story, not because he cared anything about
hearing it, but in order to spring his question finally without making
her think him more unbalanced than he was.

"Your father was a Canadian?"

"Yes; a farmer. Momma used to say she was about as good to work a farm
as a cat to run a fire-engine. When he died, she sold out for four
thousand dollars and come to New York."

"To work?"

"No, to have a good time. She'd never had a good time, momma hadn't,
and she was awful pretty. So she said she'd just blow herself to it
while she had the berries in her basket. That was how she met Judson
Flack. I suppose you know who he is. Everybody does."

"I'm afraid I haven't the pleasure."

"Oh, I don't know as you'd find it any big pleasure. Momma didn't, not
after she'd give him a try."

"Who and what is he?"

"He calls hisself a man about town. I call him a bum. Poor momma
married him."

"And wasn't happy, I suppose."

"Not after he'd spent her wad, she wasn't. She was crazy about him,
and when she found out that all he'd cared about was her four thousand
plunks--well, it was her finish."

"How long ago was that?"

"About four years now."

"And what have you been doing in the meanwhile?"

"Keepin' house for Judson Flack most of the time--till I quit."

"Oh, you've quit?"

"Sure I've quit." She was putting her better foot forward. "Now I'm in
pitchers."

He glanced at her again, having noticed already that she scarcely
glanced at him. Her profile was toward him as at first, an irregular
little profile of lifts and tilts, which might be appealing, but was
not beautiful. The boast of being in pictures, so incongruous with
her woefully dilapidated air, did not amuse him. He knew how large a
place a nominal connection with the stage took in the lives of certain
ladies. Even this poor little tramp didn't hesitate to make the
claim.

"And you're doing well?"

She wouldn't show the white feather. "Oh, so so! I--I get along."

"You live by yourself?"

"I--I do now."

"Don't you find it lonely?"

"Not so lonely as livin' with Judson Flack."

"You're--you're happy?"

A faint implication that she might look to him for help stirred her
fierce independence. "Gee, yes! I'm--I'm doin' swell."

"But you wouldn't mind a change, I suppose?"

For the first time her eyes stole toward him, not in suspicion, and
still less in alarm, but in one of the intense