d in them, the sort of men they were,
and the sort of things they talked about found raw nerves all over him.
On another errand, he realized, he wouldn't have minded. But it seemed
as if Rose herself were somehow soiled by the necessity of visiting
places like this in search of information about her.

The feeling he had come back with from that down-state town to which he
had fled, that she was in a miry pit from which, at any cost, she must
be saved, had been a good deal weakened during the ten days that had
intervened since then. Her having sent back that hundred dollars; what
Portia had said about her courage; Harriet's notion that a stage career,
if properly managed, was something one could at least pretend not to be
ashamed of; and, most lately, what Jimmy Wallace had said about the New
York director who thought she had a future--all these things had
contributed to the result.

But this pursuit, from one drinking bar to another, of the only man who
could tell him where she was, was bringing the old feeling back in
waves.

"Here we are," said Jimmy, as they entered the third place. It was a
cramped cluttered room, thick with highly varnished, carved woodwork and
upholstered leather. Its principal ornament was a nude Bouguereau in a
red-draped alcove, heavily overlighted and fearfully framed; the sort of
picture any one would have yawned at in a gallery, it acquired here,
from the hard-working indecency of its intent, a weak salaciousness.

Rodney found himself being led up to a group in the far corner of the
bar, and guessed rightly that the young man with the high voice and the
seemingly permanent smile, who greeted Jimmy with a determined
facetiousness, "Hello, old Top! Drunk again?" was the man they sought.

"Not yet," said Jimmy, "but I'm willing to help you along. What'll it
be?" Then to Rodney: "This is Mr. Alexander McEwen, the leading liar
among our local press agents." He added quickly: "You didn't come around
this afternoon, so I suppose there's nothing stirring. How's business
over at the Globe?"

"Immense," said Alec. "Sold out three times last week."

"Do you hear anything," Jimmy asked, "about the road company, what
they're doing?"

"Rotten," said Alec. "But that don't worry Goldsmith and Block. They
sold out their road rights to Block's brother-in-law."

"By the way," said Jimmy, "who's the girl in the sextette that's quit?"

"Doris Dane?" said little Alec. "Say no more. So you were on that