for it and starved for it and suffered for it! And I earned with it the right to spend it, the right, I tell you!"

Bobby shrank back a little before such fierceness. The boy felt a faint suspicion of what had not before occurred to him: that the man was crazy. But the next second the gentle smile returned to soften the tense mouth, and the boy's fear vanished. No one could fear Donaldson when he smiled.

In front of the modest shop with its quaint sign swinging above the door, they paused. Donaldson found it difficult to believe that he now had the right to enter. To him this store had never been anything else but a part of the scenery of life, a part of the setting of some foreign world at which he gazed like a boy from the upper galleries of a theatre. He had rebelled at this, looking with some hostility at the well groomed men and women who accepted it with such assurance that it was for them alone, but now he realized the pettiness of that position. With a few unmortgaged dollars in his pocket, he was instantly one of them. He could stride in and use the quiet luxury of the place as his own.

For half an hour then, he browsed about the sun-lit shop, selecting here and there bits with which to brighten his room during the week. He picked out an engraving or two, several English prints which seemed to welcome him like old friends, and a marine in water color because of the golden blue in it. His bill exceeded that of the department stores, and Bobby confidently delivered himself of the opinion that he had been soaked, "good and plenty."

From here Donaldson began an extravagant course down Fifth Avenue that left the boy, who watched him closely every time he paid his bill, convinced that he had on his hands nothing short of an Arabian Prince such as his sister had told him of when he had thought her fooling. They wandered from book store to art store, to Tiffany's, to an antique shop back to another book store and then to where in his lean days he had seen a bit of Dresden that brought comfort to him through its dainty beauty. He took for his own now all the old familiar friends who had done what they could through store windows to brighten those days. They should be a part of him; share his week with him. There was that old hammered copper tray which in the sun glowed like a cooling ember; there was that hand-illumined volume of Keats which he had so long craved; there was that vase of Cloisonne, that quaint piece of ivory browned with age, that old pewter mug reflecting the burden of its years in its sober surface. All these things he had long ago known as his own, and now he came to claim them.

"Mine, all mine!" he exclaimed to the boy. "And was n't it decent of them to wait for me?"

"They was waitin' for you all right," agreed Bobby. "They seen you comin'. They waits fer the easy marks."

"Yes," returned Donaldson, ignoring the latter's sarcasm. "They saw me coming when yet I was a great way off. They knew me, so they waited. I told them all to wait and some day I would come to them."

"D' yuh mean that ivory monkey waited?"

"For nearly a year."

Bobby did not reply, but his respect for Donaldson fell several degrees.

"There is one thing more, boy," exclaimed Donaldson; "I need flowers."

He ordered sent to his room two dozen rich lipped roses, a half dozen potted plants, and a small conservatory of ferns. Then he started back to the hotel.

It took the boy several trips to carry the bundles upstairs even when they were piled to his eyes. When he finished, Donaldson held out his hand.

"I 've had a mighty pleasant afternoon with you," he said. "And I hope we 'll meet again. What's your number?"

"Thirty-four fifty-seven."

"Well, thirty-four fifty-seven, give us your hand in case we lose one another for good."

The boy gingerly extended his grimy paw. When he removed it, he found himself clutching a ten-dollar bill.

Donaldson remained in his room only long enough to arrange his treasures and slip into his evening clothes. There was too much outside to be enjoyed for him to appreciate yet the luxury of his indoor surroundings. He had a passion for people, for crowds of people. He had thought at first that he might attend the theatre, but he realized now that the stage puppets were but faint reflections of the stirring drama all about him—the playwright's plot less gripping than that in which he himself was the central figure. To pass through those doors would be more like stepping out of a theatre into the leaden reality of life as he had seen it before yesterday.

For an hour or more he rubbed shoulders with the press that was on its way to find relief from their own lives in the mimic lives of others behind the footlights. To him in the Now it was comedy enough to watch them as they filed in; it would have been an anticlimax to have gone further. He craved good music, but a search of the papers did not reveal any concert of note, so he sought one of the popular restaurants, and, choosing a table in a corner, devoted himself to the ordering of his dinner. He was hungry and took a childish delight in selecting without first studying the price list.

When he had concluded, he took a more careful survey of the room. His wandering gaze was checked by the profile of the woman whose eyes had haunted him ever since he had first seen them in Barstow's laboratory. It was Miss Arsdale, and opposite her sat a tall, thin-visaged young man. As the latter turned and presented a full face view, Donaldson was held by the peculiarity of his expression. His hot, beadlike eyes burned from a white sensitive face that was almost emaciated; his thin lips were set as though in grim resolution; while even his brown hair refused to lend repose to the face, but, sticking out in cowlicks, added to the whole effect of nervousness still further exaggerated by the restless white hands. Over all, like a black veil, was an expression as of one haunted by a great fear. The man both repelled and interested Donaldson. There was a shiftiness about the eyes that excited suspicion, and yet there was in them a silent plea that asked for sympathy. Save for the eyes, the face had a certain poetic beauty due to its fine modeling and its savage intensity. The longer Donaldson studied it, the more sympathy he had for it. He had the feeling that the fellow had gone through some such crisis as his own.

But it was difficult to define the girl's relationship to him. There was not the slightest trace of family resemblance between them, and yet the man was hardly of a type that she would choose for so intimate a friend as her presence here with him suggested. She did not talk much, but seemed rather to be on the alert to protect him as from some unseen danger which appeared to hang over him. She followed his eyes wherever they wandered, and clearly took but little pleasure in being here.

Donaldson found the oddly matched couple absorbing his interest not only in the other guests but also in his dinner. He finished in almost the undue haste with which ordinarily he devoured his daily lunch and with scarcely more appreciation of the superior quality of these richer dishes. With his black coffee he rolled a cigarette. The familiar old tobacco brought him back to himself again so that for a few minutes he was able to give himself up to the swirling strains of the Hungarian orchestra. But even through the delicious intoxication of the waltz, the personality of this girl asserted itself to him. He got the impression now that she herself was in some danger. He wished that he had asked Barstow more about her. She had not noticed him as yet. He had watched closely to see if she turned. As he studied her it seemed certain that she was by no means enjoying herself in her present company. If given half an opportunity he would go over and speak to her.