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 A Girl Who Wrote
 
 "SALLIE STOOD AND GAZED AT THE KEC/KI.ESS ((H I'LE." 
 
 Page 260.
 
 A GIRL 
 WHO WROTE 
 
 By 
 
 ALAN DALE 
 
 1902 
 
 QUAIL & WARNER 
 
 NEW YORK
 
 Copyright in the United States and Great Britain, 
 BY QUAIL & WARNER,
 
 AUTHOR'S NOTE. 
 
 DURING a long and more or less vivacious communion 
 with metropolitan journalism certain impressions have 
 filtered through my mind, which I have endeavored to 
 set forth in the pages that follow. Those who imagine 
 that the particular caps in this story are designed to fit 
 individual heads in the real life of Newspaper Row 
 will most assuredly be mistaken. Although the task of 
 "steering away" from "personalities" was not an easy 
 one, it has nevertheless been accomplished to my own 
 satisfaction. Perhaps "personalities" are merely a mat- 
 ter of taste, but they are not my taste. These pictures 
 are mostly what might be called "composite." They 
 are general impressions individualized. In sheer jus- 
 tice to my own notions I claim exemption from the 
 suspicion of ridiculing my own friends. It is in News- 
 paper Row that they all lurk or it is there, at any rate, 
 that I believe them to lurk. 
 
 Some of my happiest, as well as my unhappiest, days 
 have been spent in Owldom, and now in the mellow- 
 ing maturity of my views I claim for my pictures the 
 sanctuary of what we call "the happy medium." 
 
 NEW YORK, 1902. 
 
 2129082
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 nHE solemn, portentous owls of Newspaper 
 Row blinked into New York's midnight. 
 Their time had come, and their moping hour 
 was over. The neighborhood, and all it 
 owned, was apparently theirs. Old Ben Franklin, 
 lugubriously gray, stood on his pedestal as a sen- 
 tinel. Greeley himself, in cold stone clothes, seemed 
 to jealously guard the chill Caxtonian period when the 
 owls were in travail and the careless city had left them 
 to their labor and their pain. 
 
 Newspaper Row claimed everything in sight. City 
 Hall Park, with its architecture whitened in the electric 
 light, seemed merely an annex. Tired men used this 
 park as a "short cut" to the owls' nests, into which 
 they cast as offerings all the varied human odds and 
 ends collected during the weary, throbbing day. Blue- 
 suited messengers pattered over the pavements with 
 their tributes. Serious boys, to whom the owls prom- 
 ised a "career," jubilantly entered the service, and gave 
 of their best to the blinking journalistic birds. It was 
 all grist that came to the owls. Sorrow was as nour- 
 ishing as joy. Despair was as keen a tonic as hope. 
 Death fed the owl-corpuscles as redly as life. Sorrow 
 and joy, despair and hope, death and life, made up the 
 delectable nocturnal menu. With them the owls built 
 up fat, black columns that appealed to an entire nation ; 
 and they were prosperous and potent, so that Newspa-
 
 2 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 per Row was their veritable kingdom, their right to 
 which none dared dispute. 
 
 There were few contrasting colors in external Owl- 
 dom. An isolated drug-store stood, multi-colored, in 
 the gloom, and offered cool draughts to the fevered 
 denizens of Newspaper Row. An occasional eating- 
 house set tables for those whose material weariness 
 claimed its recognition. These strange reminders of 
 the human side of things looked rather illicit and 
 ashamed of themselves. God-fearing men knew them 
 not, nor cared to know them. They sold owls' food. 
 The frou-frou of a girl's dress was usually unfamiliar 
 to them. A few of those who served the owls wore 
 girls' dresses, a'nd paid infrequent visits. But these 
 few did not count. They wore feminine garbs, but 
 they were scarcely feminine. Moreover, they eschewed 
 the luxury of frou-frou. 
 
 In an extremely large room in one of the best-regu- 
 lated nests in Newspaper Row fifty men sat catering 
 to the owls. The room was grim and plain. Decora- 
 tion would have died in it, and "modern improvement" 
 would have cried out in torture to the sun or to the 
 moon or to anything that could be sympathetically 
 apostrophized. Long rows of desks traversed the 
 room, and men sat at them in their shirt-sleeves and 
 labored. Some of these workers were grievously 
 young. They wore green shades over their eyes in 
 order to concentrate their energies, for they were try- 
 ing to make the real things of life sound like fiction, 
 and the imaginary things of fiction sound like life. 
 They were endeavoring to cast the glamour of their 
 youthful imagination upon sordid events that were 
 rarely new. It was their duty to show that the latest 
 thing in murders was quite the most sensational ; the 
 most recent marriage the showiest; the last divorce
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 3 
 
 the most harrowing; the day's gathering in of births 
 and deaths the most entertaining. They had to do 
 this every day, and of course it was trying. "Cres- 
 cendo" was the motto of Newspaper Row. The owls 
 exacted it, and the owls obtained it. 
 
 The clicking of the telegraph, the tinkling of the tele- 
 phone, the shuffling entrance of the messengers, the 
 squeaky sound of reluctant pens, the whizzing of elec- 
 tric fans, the whispers of an occasional conference, the 
 irreverent bourdonnement of office boys, the tam-tam 
 of the type-writing machine, the whirr., heard through 
 open windows, of elevated railway trains and blatant 
 cable-cars, and untraceable whistles all failed to 
 worry the men that labored. They were so used to it 
 all. It fell upon their ears, and made no impression 
 there. They paid but slight attention even to the tones 
 of their lord-in-chief, the night city editor the one 
 man in that room who gave to his voice a fine oppor- 
 tunity. They were automata. The blinking owls out- 
 side had called them in, and there they were. 
 
 The night city editor was a large person, who put on 
 his authority when he took off his coat. He wore 
 glasses and looked nervous. Occasionally an almost 
 human expression appeared in the immobility of his 
 face, but he liked to pretend that he was merely a cog 
 in the wheel. And the pretense was not difficult. He 
 looked at the owl-workers from time to time and peri- 
 odically took sheets of paper from them, glancing .at 
 what they had written thereon. If he liked it, he said 
 nothing. If he didn't like it, he said a good deal. He 
 was not there as an encouragement, but as a discour- 
 agement. In private life (which he possessed merely 
 in a nominal way) he was a tired man, with a wife and 
 children. 
 
 The night city editor looked up from beneath his
 
 4 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 green shade as a very young man with fair hair and 
 a chubby, every-day expression came into the room. 
 He was a new reporter, and had not yet acquired the 
 characteristics of Newspaper Row. 
 
 "I'm awfully sorry, sir," said this young man, as he 
 stopped in front of the night city editor's desk, "but I 
 couldn't get an obituary of Mr. Hodge. You see, he 
 only died this evening. His wife I mean his widow 
 was in such a fearful state so dreadfully cut up 
 that she begged me to go away, as she couldn't tell me 
 anything to-night. In a few days, she said, she would 
 give me his history." 
 
 An expression of blank astonishment was graven 
 upon the face of the night city editor. He looked at 
 the young man, and for a moment was unable to speak. 
 Then, as the new reporter was about to move away, 
 the use of his tongue returned to him. It never took 
 very long or very distant trips. 
 
 "See here, Robinson," he said, "I sent you to Mr. 
 Hodge's house to his late house, if you prefer it for 
 an obituary notice. You come back with this ridic- 
 ulous story of getting it in a few days. After to- 
 morrow morning we sha'n't want a line about Hodge. 
 Nobody will care a hang about him. Go right back 
 and get that notice." 
 
 Robinson, still believing in the human side of things, 
 stood still. 
 
 "But, Mr. Green," he said, "Mrs. Hodge was in hys- 
 terics when I left. I rang up the house. She had 
 gone to bed, and had just fallen asleep under the influ- 
 ence of opiates. When she heard what I wanted, she 
 began to laugh and cry, and make a terrible com- 
 motion. I never felt so sorry for anyone in my life. 
 She couldn't answer a question, and there was nobody
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 5 
 
 else there able to do so. I'm awfully sorry, Mr. Green, 
 but it wasn't my fault." 
 
 "Not your fault ?" cried the night city editor, testily. 
 "You call yourself a reporter, and come back to me in 
 this idiotic way ! A reporter daunted by a woman in 
 hysterics! A well-regulated newspaper man would 
 have told her that, for the sake of her newspaper-read- 
 ing friends, she must respect his memory by relating 
 his history. This sort of thing will soon settle your 
 fate, young man. As for your sorrow bah ! How- 
 ever, it is not too late. Let me see ; it is twelve o'clock. 
 Go back to the house as quickly as you can, and see 
 that the story is here inside of an hour." 
 
 Robinson had flushed, but now he grew pale. He 
 was a human boy, who had not yet acquired the art of 
 looking upon death through a haze of printing ink. 
 Nor did it seem possible to him that he would ever be 
 able to dip into such anguish as he had just seen, for 
 bread and butter. 
 
 "I cannot go back, Mr. Green," he said. "I I 
 wouldn't face that woman again for fifty dollars. I 
 couldn't. It was too harrowing." 
 
 The night city editor lit a cigar, threw aside the 
 match, bit his lip and was calm. 
 
 "Very well," he said. "But you will read Hodge's 
 obituary notice in the paper, just the same. I advise 
 you to do so, not that I am interested in your educa- 
 tion." 
 
 Then he called up a sallow youth, known to the office 
 as "Nervy Thomas" and gave him his instructions, as 
 follows : "Hodge died, this evening. He was a promi- 
 nent member of the Stock Exchange. We want twenty 
 lines about him to-morrow. Go up to his house in West 
 Thirty-ninth Street and get the notice from Mrs.
 
 6 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 Hodge. And hurry back, because at one o'clock you 
 will have to go to Chambers Street Hospital." 
 
 The sallow youth looked rather bored. An obituary 
 notice was an unprofitable assignment, and a mere 
 twenty-line notice irritating. Had it been a question 
 of two columns about poor Hodge he would have 
 jumped at his task, and from a weeping widow and a 
 sorrowing household have dredged a rich reward in 
 that coveted dimension of journalism generally called 
 "space." 
 
 "Couldn't you get it?" he asked Robinson, in a surly 
 tone, on his way out. 
 
 "No," replied Robinson. "The widow was in such a 
 state of mind that she couldn't talk." 
 
 The sallow youth laughed grimly. "Methinks I 
 know those widows," he said. "They weep still more 
 next day when they find no notices in the papers. Rob- 
 inson, you make me smile." 
 
 The incident faded palely from the night city editor's 
 highly sensitive mental plates. It was an insignificant 
 detail in a soul-crushing routine. He had no sympathy 
 with people who died at such inconvenient times. It 
 was bad enough when they were nationally important. 
 It was stupid and annoying when they were of mere 
 passing local interest. The night city editor took from 
 a folded white paper a square ham sandwich, and as 
 his teeth closed upon its elastic substance he was at ease 
 again, or as much at ease as a man can be who, through 
 no psychic intuition, is haunted forever by the possibil- 
 ity of a fire, a wreck, a suicide, a car strike, or a 
 railway catastrophe. In Newspaper Row anything 
 may happen, and everything should happen. The owls 
 had no sympathy with the stagnant happiness of the 
 many. 
 
 Mr. Green had scarcely brushed the last crumb of
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 7 
 
 the departed sandwich from the corrugations of his 
 waistcoat before his routine again confronted him. 
 This time routine wore a rosy and a smiling face, and 
 was represented by an energetic young man all aglow 
 with the attractive magnetism of colossal self-assur- 
 ance. 
 
 "Oh, Mr. Green," said this rubicund owl-devotee, 
 "I saw the Queen of Tahiti, and I've got a beat. It's 
 a great story, and you'll roar when you hear how I 
 got it." 
 
 There was no responsive smile in the flaccid solem- 
 nity of Mr. Green's blotting-paper face. Yet the word 
 "beat" that talismanic sesame to the subliminal con- 
 sciousness of Newspaper Row caught his ear and 
 tickled it coquettishly. A "beat" is the exclusive pos- 
 session by one owl of a piece of news. It is also 
 known as a "scoop" in New York Owldom. Poor, de- 
 luded young owls fritter away their substance in pur- 
 suit of this most elusive and demoralizing commodity. 
 When they are older they realize their folly, for a 
 "beat" is often secured at the cost of all loyalty. It an- 
 tagonizes other owls, and, in the long run, avails its 
 possessor of very little. When an owl is "beaten" his 
 lot is a sad one ; when he obtains the "beat" the credit 
 generally goes to his lord and master. 
 
 "Come, Jones," said Mr. Green, pettishly. "If you 
 have interviewed the Queen of Tahiti you have merely 
 done what you were sent to do. Sit down and write 
 your story, and you can talk afterward. You are sim- 
 ply disturbing the office." 
 
 Jones, however, had no idea of extinguishing him- 
 self. "You must listen to me, Mr. Green," he said, 
 "for you will surely appreciate my enterprise. I don't 
 often throw bouquets at myself, but this time your little 
 Jonesey was right in it."
 
 8 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 The night city editor frowned at this display of inele- 
 gance and wasted enthusiasm. Still, enthusiasm of 
 any sort was rare in Newspaper Row. It was blighted 
 early in its threatening efflorescence, as a rule. Green 
 prepared himself to listen. 
 
 "Well," began the rosy reporter, "we were all at the 
 hotel. Every paper in town was represented. I think 
 there were about twelve of us in all waiting to inter- 
 view the Queen. We sent up our cards, and were 
 ready to follow them when the bidding came. But we 
 were disappointed. The Queen positively refused to 
 be seen. She sent down word that she was travelling 
 incognita, that her visit had no official significance, and 
 that she had nothing whatsoever to say. It was no 
 use persisting, for this was her ultimatum. The fel- 
 lows saw that it was absurd to waste further time. 
 But something told me to stay. I hated to get left. 
 There and then I made up my mind that I'd see that 
 foolish old Queen and rout her out of her exclusive- 
 ness, or know the reason why." 
 
 Jones paused for effect, and also for breath. Mr. 
 Green was listening, but he didn't care to pretend that 
 he was too deeply interested, and turned over various 
 papers on his desk, as though he were selecting some- 
 thing vitally particular from their midst. 
 
 "So I stayed at the hotel," Jones resumed. "I waited 
 by the elevator, for I reasoned to myself that a Queen 
 travelling incognita was not going to stay all day in the 
 sanctity of her own room. I grew chummy with the ele- 
 vator boy, and gave him a couple of tickets that I hap- 
 pened to have in my pocket for the Bicycle Show at the 
 Madison Square Garden. He was tickled to death. Pres- 
 ently the elevator descended and a couple of ladies got 
 out, and walked across the hall into the restaurant. 
 That's the Queen and her companion,' whispered the
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 9 
 
 elevator boy, giving me a nudge. I blessed him for 
 the cue and watched them. I waited until I had seen 
 them order dinner, and then, promptly and unhesitat- 
 ingly, went into the restaurant and sat down at their 
 table. The Queen a very nice-looking woman gave 
 a start, and her companion glared and muttered, 'A re- 
 porter !' I bowed, and told them that it was quite true ; 
 that I was a reporter. I informed the Queen that I 
 had sworn I would talk to her, and, as she had refused 
 to see me officially, I had taken that course. At first 
 the lady looked very angry ; then she burst out laugh- 
 ing. 'You are the cheekiest and most audacious crea- 
 ture I have ever met/ she said ; but the tears were roll- 
 ing down her face and I knew that I had won. Then 
 they gradually began to look upon it as a supreme 
 joke. They gave me a glass of claret, and the Queen 
 grew so chatty that I couldn't get in a word edgeways. 
 I felt I was a howling success. She told me every 
 thing she knew, and in half an hour she was describing 
 her costumes to me peplums, and frills, and flounces, 
 cut on the bias. When I at last got up to go, she again 
 pretended to be very angry. But say, Mr. Green 
 that Queen's a pretty nice girl, and don't you for- 
 get it." 
 
 The night city editor smiled indulgently. Jones was 
 certainly a good reporter, and one day he would make 
 his mark, unless somebody killed him for his well-pre- 
 served self-assurance. The tired owls in the office had 
 stopped to drink in this loquacity. Mr. Green sent the 
 happy owl-caterer to write his wrenched interview as 
 quickly as possible. 
 
 "You might say in your article," he suggested, "that 
 the Queen selected this paper as her mouthpiece, as 
 she always reads and enjoys it in her native land." 
 
 "Certainly," replied Jones, with a mischievous
 
 io A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 snicker. "I'll reserve my true story of highway rob- 
 bery for my memoirs." 
 
 A senile reporter, with a bibulous nose and clothes 
 that had greened in the service of Owldom, entered at 
 this moment. His eyes were watery ; he appeared to be 
 in pain; he looked like the very irony of Newspaper 
 Row, considered as a "literary locality." Nobody paid 
 any attention to him, for he was never interesting. He 
 did most of the cheap jobs in the office, and generally 
 sat there, night after night, fretting away his poor old 
 bones in the despondent journalistic requirement 
 known as "emergency duty." 
 
 "I've had an accident to-night, Mr. Green," he said, 
 "and I think the paper ought to back me up and see that 
 justice is done. You know you sent me to the fire at 
 the Orpheum Theatre. I took my fire badge with me 
 and pinned it, as usual, to the lapel of my coat. But 
 this is this is an old coat" the weak, pink-lidded 
 old eyes tried to read the night city editor's rather con- 
 temptuous glance "and the lapel fell back. Well, I 
 forced my way through the crowd and the fire line. A 
 policeman who could not see my badge came up, and 
 before I could explain that I was a reporter and point to 
 my badge he had clubbed me. Oh, what a clubbing I 
 got ! You understand, Mr. Green, that at my age . . ." 
 
 The old voice broke down. The reporter was prob- 
 ably sixty years old. For two decades of his withered 
 life he had splashed aside the indignities of his calling, 
 or, if they had proved too insistent, had drenched him- 
 self into vinous oblivion. The traces of this latter 
 course had tinted his nose. This last insult, attended as 
 it was by physical pain, was too much for him. His 
 appeal to Mr. Green was quite unusual. 
 
 The night city editor was not an unkind man. Jour- 
 nalism had blunted his finer perception and glazed the
 
 A Girl Who Wrote n 
 
 sentimentality that he had possessed in his teens. He 
 could not help smiling at poor old Tomlinson's predica- 
 ment. It appealed to a rudimentary sense of humor 
 that was very rarely called into play. 
 
 "The policeman apologized after he had clubbed 
 me," Tomlinson went on, "but he laughed, and I could 
 have struck him. My point is this : These men should 
 not be allowed the indiscriminate use of clubs. It is 
 an outrage, a scandal, and a disgrace. This paper 
 should advocate the abolition of clubs. The sympathy 
 of the public would be with such a movement. Whew ! 
 my shoulder ! . . . how it aches ! . . ." 
 
 "Come, come, Tomlinson," said the night city editor, 
 sternly, "write up your story and go home. The audi- 
 ence, I understand, had left long before the fire oc- 
 curred, so that it is not a very thrilling affair. I pre- 
 sume that the theatre was amply secured by insur- 
 ance ?" 
 
 "I don't know, and I don't care!" the old reporter 
 cried. "You don't suppose that after such treatment 
 as I received I felt like worrying about insurance?" 
 
 The last vestige of his slender altruism left the night 
 city editor. The faint suspicion of human sympathy 
 that had dawned upon him as Tomlinson narrated his 
 tale of woe, died quickly away. 
 
 "So," he said icily, "the readers of this paper are 
 to be left on their fire story, forsooth, because a wide- 
 awake policeman happens to have done his duty. It 
 was not his fault that your badge was hidden. It was 
 your fault. Unless the story is fully told by you I shall 
 fine you severely. Manage as best you can, but I 
 insist upon every detail being written in full." 
 
 The old man dragged himself away. His anger 
 was dead. The very suggestion of fine had carried 
 its dreary weight. Salary day was all that he lived for,
 
 12 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 and his pittance could brook no subtraction exercise. 
 Had he been younger he might have protested more 
 effectively. But his race was nearly run, and the owls 
 blinked discouragingly at his increasing store of years. 
 He bent his aching shoulder to his task, and before the 
 paper went to press he had secured the story. 
 
 The night city editor ate another sandwich and drank 
 coffee from a thick white cup without a handle. The 
 sallow youth whose mission it had been to give the de- 
 funct Hodge a "send-off" into the next world returned, 
 still surly, but completely successful. He had, him- 
 self, held a bottle of smelling salts to the widow's nose 
 while she hysterically answered his questions as to her 
 dead husband's career. Journalism was satisfied, and 
 an obituary paragraph was respectfully reared. 
 
 And still the telegraph clicked, and the telephone 
 tinkled, and the messengers shuffled in, and the pens 
 reluctantly squeaked, and the electric fans whizzed, and 
 the office boys whispered, and the type-writer tam- 
 tam'd, and through the open window came the distant 
 whirr of the elevated trains and blatant cable-cars.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 HE figures of a man and a woman, rapidly 
 crossing City Hall Park, approached the owls' 
 nests. The man was young, but in the elec- 
 tric glare he looked somewhat haggard and 
 care-streaked. He wore evening dress, and his over- 
 coat was thrown open so as to reveal that conventional 
 garb of sleek respectability. The girl was also young. 
 A bloom that was not necessarily of youth, however, 
 tinted her cheeks, her lips were reddened into a 
 faithful caricature of Cupid's bow, and her hair was 
 chemically golden and artistically dishevelled. She 
 was rather flashily dressed, and the unusual gleam of 
 shoulders through her open cloak attracted the atten- 
 tion of the somnolent park loungers. 
 
 At the entrance to the nest to which allusion has 
 already been made, the man and woman stopped. 
 
 "I'll leave you now, Sallie," he said, "if you are quite 
 sure you don't want me to see you home. I don't in 
 the least mind waiting until you have turned in your 
 copy, you know, if you would prefer it. You know 
 that." 
 
 "Go home, my dear boy," said Sallie, carelessly. "I 
 shall be an hour, at least, and Mr. Childers will ride 
 up with me in the Elevated as far as Twenty-third 
 Street. Thanks for your escort, old man. And now, 
 your humble, but beautiful friend, Sarah otherwise 
 Sallie Sydenham, will give the general public a taste 
 of her quality. Yes, Mr. Covington, the spirit is about 
 to move your coy young friend, Sarah. Good-night 
 and be good." 
 
 He was about to leave her, but something was evi-
 
 14 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 dently preying upon his mind something 1 that he 
 hated to say, because it was so pharisaical. So he 
 spoke quietly, diffidently, and rather nervously. 
 
 "It was a horrid play, Sallie, wasn't it? It was a 
 disgraceful thing. But, if I were you, I should dismiss 
 it in a few words. After all after all you are a 
 woman." 
 
 He looked at the sensational little girl standing near 
 him and sighed. How jealously the owls seemed to 
 blink! Sallie laughed. Her laughter began tremu- 
 lously, but it gathered strength as it went on, and it 
 ended with a peal that sounded quite genuine. 
 
 "Don't be silly, Charlie," she said presently. "You 
 mean well, but you really are a dreadful Philistine. 
 Thanks for remembering that I am a woman. I 
 thought you had forgotten it long ago. However, I 
 can't help it, you know I really can't. It is not my 
 fault. I had nothing to say in the matter. Good-bye. 
 You are making me late." 
 
 She trudged up the steps and into the office. Charlie 
 Covington had nothing more to say. He shrugged his 
 shoulders, lifted his hat, and withdrew. At that hour, 
 with the spectral park stretching out like a ghostly map 
 before him, the departure of Sallie Sydenham seemed 
 rather pathetic. A few moments later he was at the 
 Park Place station on his way uptown. 
 
 "Well, Miss Sydenham," said the night city editor, 
 as the girl entered the office looking as though she had 
 escaped from the dressing-room of a theatre, "you're 
 late. Did the new play amount to anything?" 
 
 His face had lighted up, not because Sallie wore pet- 
 ticoats, which in Newspaper Row are not unusual, and 
 are generally as uninteresting as mere trousers, but be- 
 cause the girl amused him. She was in great favor 
 in the nest, for she wrote brightly and unconvention-
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 15 
 
 ally. She was also looked upon as quite irrepressible, 
 and her bump of reverence was merely rudimentary. 
 The reporters stopped writing as she entered and 
 looked at her hopefully, for she ran in other grooves 
 than they, and she brought with her a whiff of the real, 
 human, outside world. 
 
 "I've got a story that will curl your hair, Mr. Green," 
 she said, throwing aside her cloak and revealing a bod- 
 ice cut rather low, but one that was decidedly shabby. 
 (Mr. Green had no hair, but did not seem pained by 
 the inelegant figure of speech.) "That play will be the 
 most thoroughly discussed topic in New York to-mor- 
 row. It is simply uproariously improper. You 
 don't mind, Mr. Green, if I even go so far as to say 
 that it is indecent? The girl the heroine was a 
 very sweet creature, who imagined that she had been 
 led astray, but er wasn't quite sure. During an en- 
 tire act her uncertainty preyed upon her mind and 
 also upon ours." 
 
 Sallie laughed, and the night city editor sprang from 
 his seat as though it had been stuffed with elastic en- 
 thusiasm. The young men in the office looked at Miss 
 Sydenham through their smiles. Two or three of 
 them the youngest colored slightly as they realized 
 that they were listening to the chatter of a girl. The 
 others, who prided themselves upon unbudging Bo- 
 hemianism, were eager and amused. This was spice, 
 coming from a woman's lips, and they absorbed it 
 greedily as nocturnal seasoning to their insipid work. 
 
 "The audience was aghast," Sallie went on; "because, 
 as you know, Mr. Green, New York loves to be proper. 
 I don't see why, do you? Personally, I don't believe 
 in advertising such a play, because it was silly. No 
 girl could possibly. . . . But really, Mr. Green, I 
 suppose you are not an authority on girls. What I was
 
 1 6 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 going to say was that I can write something exceed- 
 ingly meaty, if you like. Shall I let myself loose?" 
 
 Mr. Green was standing where that elastic enthusi- 
 asm had pitched him. His face was aglow, and he 
 looked almost happy. This was better than a tame 
 "obituary." An exclusive interview with the Queen 
 of Tahiti was small potatoes beside it. The fire at the 
 Orpheum could go and burn wherever it chose. 
 
 "Miss Sydenham," he said majestically, "to what is 
 the stage coming? To what is our dramatic license 
 leading us? Are the licentious days of the Restora- 
 tion (was it the Restoration?) returning to us? When 
 simple, budding girls are taken by their mothers to see 
 plays that must bring the blush of shame to their 
 cheeks it is time to cry halt. The realm of fiction is 
 large and chaste the realm of life is larger and 
 chaster yet a degenerate stage must, forsooth, seek 
 material in the sewers, and fling its reeking miasma 
 in the noses of a misguided public." 
 
 "That's capital," said Sallie, biting her pen. "Thanks 
 for the 'reeking miasma!' I shouldn't have thought 
 of it. But I won't say anything about 'simple, budding 
 girls.' There are none nowadays. You malign the 
 sex, my dear sir. We decline to be simple, and we 
 never bud. We are mature, or we are immature ; there 
 isn't much difference. I merely mention this, dear Mr. 
 Green. I happen to be a girl, you know, and well, 
 you don't." 
 
 As she made this remark in quick flippancy she was 
 surprised to find that she was thinking of Charlie Cov- 
 ington. He had reminded her of her sex just a few 
 moments ago, and now she was launching a similar 
 suggestion at the night city editor. 
 
 "Pitch in," said Mr. Green, emphatically. "Let us 
 take a stand. Let us go on record as absolutely shud-
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 17 
 
 dering at this play. Tell the story of the entire piece, 
 omitting nothing, and I wonder if I could get three 
 seats for to-morrow night. It's my day off, and I 
 should like to see something good." 
 
 The reporters were still smiling. Sallie Sydenham 
 was such a gorgeous joke! One of them, who had 
 been reared in old-fashioned courtesy, brought her a 
 chair. She smiled at him, surprised, but grateful, and 
 sat down. Another gave her some "copy" paper, and 
 a third offered her a cigarette. She pretended to look 
 dreadfully shocked at this. But the young man who 
 offered the cigarette did not notice that through the 
 bloom on her face she flushed slightly. Mr. Green still 
 stood, reflective, watching her closely. 
 
 "How how did the play affect you as a woman?" 
 he asked rather timidly. "I don't mean as a critic but 
 er as a woman." 
 
 Sally looked serious, but for one second only. Quick- 
 ly through her mind was flashed the idea that this ques- 
 tion was unnecessary. She was not earning her living 
 by means of a pictorial display of reluctant woman- 
 hood. Reluctant womanhood was charming outside 
 of Newspaper Row. 
 
 "It amused me immensely," she said. "I love these 
 problems as farcical possibilities, you know. I kept 
 thinking about that heroine, and wondering no, I 
 sha'n't tell you what it was I wondered. She looked so 
 sorry for herself, poor thing. She was in such a state 
 of agitation. I don't know why. Where ignorance is 
 bliss. ... I must really begin, Mr. Green." 
 
 The night city editor looked slightly embarrassed. 
 Accustomed as he was to the unconventionality of Sal- 
 lie Sydenham, her amazing candor shocked him. Even 
 the men in the office would have frowned at the task of 
 chronicling this dramatic obliquity. Yet it merely
 
 1 8 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 amused Miss Sydenham, and not a serious thought was 
 filtered by it through her mental sieves. Was she 
 merely lacking in moral appreciation? He looked at 
 her face as she sat there beginning her article. It was 
 as bland as that of a fledgeling. The light from the 
 green-shaded electric globe fell in a yellow clot on her 
 chemically-prepared tresses. He saw that she was a 
 graceful girl. The nape of her neck was almost clas- 
 sic. But she was so badly dressed . . . this was 
 the first time he had ever really thought about her. 
 Perhaps these observations were due to the fact that he 
 had been listening to a story from her lips that would 
 have been whispered in a smoking-room. He walked 
 away and was at once night city editor again. He 
 wondered if it would be any use "ringing up" Dr. 
 Parkhurst, and asking him to roast the stage. He 
 knew that the eminent clergyman would hail the chance 
 of roasting anything, even at a moment's notice. Then 
 he sat down and wrote to the theatre for three 
 seats. Mrs. Green must positively see that play. He 
 bad intended taking her to a performance of "Much 
 Ado About Nothing" at the Broadhurst, but she was 
 a busy little woman and had no time for Shakespeare 
 except as a sort of refuge for the destitute. 
 
 In the meantime Sallie Sydenham wrote fast and 
 furiously. Occasionally she smiled, and once she 
 laughed aloud. After the laughter she paused for a 
 moment and erased what she had written. Then she 
 looked rather affectionately at the erasure and laughed 
 again. Sheet after sheet she filled. Periodically some- 
 body came up and took the finished sheets away from 
 her. Nothing daunted her. The noise in the office 
 was simply a faint murmur in her ears. 
 
 She rose at last, and handed the final sheet to Mr. 
 Green. A great fatigue seemed to possess her. Her
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 19 
 
 eyes had lost their brightness, her flippancy had van- 
 ished ; the smiling expression with which she had en- 
 tered the office had been replaced by one that seemed 
 to suggest melancholy. Her hair had escaped from its 
 confining pins, but she did not seek to rearrange it. 
 She put on her cloak in a listless way, and fastened on 
 her large, gaudy hat rather defiantly. 
 
 "I suppose that Mr. Childers is still in his office?" 
 she asked, in a tired voice, of one of the office boys. 
 
 Yes, Mr. Childers was still there. Miss Sydenham 
 nodded a good-night to Mr. Green and threw a wan 
 smile at the reporters. One of them the polite youth 
 who had brought her a chair told her that he was 
 going uptown and would be glad to see her home. She 
 thanked him gratefully, but she would not trouble him. 
 The young man murmured a few diffident words, and 
 seemed to be rather ashamed of himself. 
 
 "Good-night, Miss Sydenham," called out the night 
 city editor. "Your article is a scorcher, and will be 
 quite as much talked about as the play. Ha ! ha ! You 
 know how to call a spade a spade, don't you ?" 
 
 Mr. Green laughed in supreme good humor. His 
 labors would end very shortly, and he felt delighted to 
 think that to-morrow's newspaper would not be inef- 
 fective. Everything came to him who waited in 
 Owldom, as in other realms. Without any effort this 
 excellent "stuff" from Sallie Sydenham's pen had fallen 
 at his feet. He rubbed his hands jubilantly, unfurled 
 a ham sandwich, and masticated it slowly and grate- 
 fully. 
 
 The reporters were leaving, for the world had gone 
 to bed and there was nothing more for them to do. 
 The world, in its slumber, is not interesting in News- 
 paper Row. It retired, perhaps, unnecessarily late, 
 and it occasionallv misbehaved itself at the most un-
 
 20 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 seemly hours. But even Owldom has its rules and 
 regulations. Mr. Green saw that his force was van- 
 ishing. He stretched himself and yawned. 
 
 Outside in the corridor Sallie Sydenham's high- 
 heeled shoes clanked over the tessellated halls. These 
 were almost deserted. Once or twice an owl flitted 
 across her path and stared at her as though she were 
 a curiosity. She stood for a moment and leaned 
 against the wall. She was certainly unusually ex- 
 hausted. None of the men seemed to know the mean- 
 ing of fatigue, and yet they had been laboring far more 
 diligently than she. She braced herself up with the 
 thought that she might have been sewing all day . . . 
 or cooking all day ... or teaching all day ... or 
 doing a dozen of the other absurd things that tradition 
 has assigned to women. She might have been mar- 
 ried, and the mother of a family . . . 
 
 Miss Sydenham paused at the door of the managing 
 editor's room and knocked. A jovial, youthful voice 
 said, "Come in." She fastened her cloak quickly, set 
 her hat straight upon her yellow hair, opened the door, 
 and entered. It was a very restful little room, with a 
 carpet, a few pictures on the walls, a fresh and bracing 
 atmosphere, and a certain suggestion of refinement. 
 All this appealed to her. Mr. Childers sat in his chair, 
 and nodded smilingly as he saw her.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 ACK CHILDERS, the managing editor, was 
 known in Newspaper Row as a "white man." 
 This tribute was reverent testimony to his 
 numerous graces. He had been for many 
 years in Owldom, but his disposition was unspoiled, 
 his mind was gentle and sympathetic, and his sincerity 
 unquestionable. He was quite unusual in Owldom. 
 Few survived the ordeals through which he had passed. 
 Journalism had hurled its abuses at Childers, as at the 
 rest of the crowd ; but the managing editor seemed to 
 have escaped its influences. He was absolutely hu- 
 man. He could look upon the real events of life from 
 an unfettered man's point of view. News came to the 
 office that grieved him, that amused him, that angered 
 him. He could still experience ordinary sensations. 
 The blunting of the finer perceptions, that is a sure 
 though gradual process in Newspaper Row, was an 
 evolution unknown to him. He despised in his heart 
 of hearts the men who won the golden approval of 
 journalism. He had no sympathy with the reporters 
 who impertinently wriggled behind the curtains of pri- 
 vate life, in their pursuit of duty and in their quest of 
 sensation. He did the prescribed thing by them, as 
 managing editor, but he would not have cared to asso- 
 ciate with them personally. In fact, he was a "white 
 man" as far as his instincts went. His subordinates 
 adored him, and went to him with all their grievances, 
 assured of his human help. It was almost a pleasure 
 to have a grievance, so that Jack Childers could 
 straighten out its wrinkles and convolutions. He did 
 it so easily, and with such sincerity.
 
 22 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 Mr. Childers wore good clothes, ate good meals, and 
 was a member of several reputable clubs. The neglect 
 of personal appearance, that begins when the owls 
 blink, was something that he could not understand. 
 His clothes came from the finest tailor ; his collars and 
 neckties fitted into the very latest styles ; his hats and 
 shoes were discarded with the edicts of fashion. Yet 
 he was not a "clothes-wearing man," by any means. 
 He would have passed serenely unnoticed in an ordi- 
 nary crowd. In a gathering of journalists, however, 
 he would have been singled out instantly. 
 
 Nobody could order a dinner more artistically than 
 Jack Childers. The dinner-discussing man, in usual 
 life, is a rather tiresome parody, but it was re- 
 freshing to know that Mr. Childers had re- 
 tained even his gastronomic refinements. He never 
 patronized the criminal dyspepsia-breeders of the 
 neighborhood. He felt sorry when he saw able- 
 bodied young men, whose fatigued brains clamored for 
 nutriment, sitting down at midnight to cold pie and 
 iced milk. It shocked him to watch the night city 
 editor swallowing ham sandwiches at hours when that 
 sort of ballast is vetoed by good form. He classed 
 these offenders with the savages who ate earth for the 
 sake of "filling up." Yet he was not unduly fastidious, 
 and he thoroughly appreciated good old-fashioned Bo- 
 hemianism. But Murger's Bohemia and that of News- 
 paper Row were severely dissociated. The one was 
 picturesque ; the other was unwholesome and squalid. 
 
 Mr. Childers lived with an extremely strait-laced 
 aunt and a highly unsophisticated cousin. At least, 
 the world viewed them in that light. With them he 
 occupied an ornate apartment in Central Park West. 
 They associated with "nice" people, and lived up to the 
 little courtesies and refinements of life. The managing
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 23 
 
 editor did not talk "shop" with his aunt and cousin. 
 The jargon of Owldom was quite unknown to them, 
 and the machinery of journalism never whizzed in their 
 ears. Their life was not amusing, but it was discreet 
 and well-appointed, and they lived it quietly and tidily. 
 It had no frayed edges or threadbare corners. 
 
 "So you've finished, Miss Sydenham," Mr. Childers 
 said cordially, as Sallie entered the room. "You look 
 tired." 
 
 Sallie sat down and felt the grateful influence of the 
 sanctum. "I was rather played out," she said, "and I 
 thought I'd come in here before going home. You are 
 not busy ?" 
 
 "I've finished," he said, glancing at some papers and 
 pigeonholing them. Then, after he had made some 
 pencilled notes upon a yellow pad before him, he went 
 on : "The eternal grind is over for to-day or perhaps 
 I had better say until later in the day. Shall we ride 
 uptown together? Or perhaps you have " 
 
 She interrupted him quickly, and he noticed that her 
 fingers trembled slightly. "Thank you so much," she 
 said. "I shall be very glad. I don't think that any- 
 body would run away with me no such luck ! But 
 if you don't mind me inflicting myself upon you once 
 more well, I'll do it." . 
 
 She took up a paper while he closed his desk, and 
 prepared himself for the homeward journey the one 
 human event of her day. He noticed how atrociously 
 she was dressed. Her low-cut bodice was simply 
 "faked" together, and her skirt was garish and ugly. 
 Mr. Childers was not disposed to look upon the femi- 
 nine journalist as a woman. Still, as he had never shed 
 his regard for the sex, in spite of the quaint specimens 
 with which he came in daily contact, he allowed his 
 masculine eye a little outing at Miss Sydenham's ex-
 
 24 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 pense. Sallie, as a rule, was a great fund of amuse- 
 ment to him. He enjoyed her chatterbox utterances, 
 and was entertained by the quaint views of things that 
 she invariably took. He liked riding uptown with her 
 in the small hours of the morning, when none of the 
 friends for whose opinion he cared, could see him. He 
 was not a bit of a snob, but he respected the proprie- 
 ties. They were designed for general use, and they 
 were very good things in their way. 
 
 They walked slowly across City Hall Park, that 
 spread out like a silver map before them, bathed in an 
 argentine mixture of moon and electricity. Battered, 
 cheerless men dozed on the seats, and stragglers 
 slouched furtively by with the furtiveness that comes 
 on at night, like a fever, and disappears in the day- 
 time. Jack Childers, in his fashionably cut raglan, 
 hurried as he looked at this disconsolate humanity. Sal- 
 lie Sydenham took some loose silver from her 
 pocket which was hidden in the folds of her dress, 
 and was difficult to extricate and gave it to a gray old 
 man with a hopeless, wrinkled face. Mr. Childers stood 
 rather impatiently while she did this. Then he lighted 
 a cigarette and they moved quickly on. Sallie chatted 
 persistently, her temporary lethargy dissipated. She 
 was anxious to live up to her conversational reputation 
 and to entertain her companion. It was very easy to 
 amuse him, for he was interested in everything. He 
 loved to hear her ruthless comments upon the men in 
 the office, whom she saw with his eyes plus her own 
 native drollery. But it was when she discussed the 
 women of Owldom that his sense of humor was espe- 
 cially gratified. She declined to take them seriously, 
 and she saw all their eccentricities exquisitely magni- 
 fied. She "had no use" for any of them, she always 
 said, and preferred the men. She uttered epigrams
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 25 
 
 at their expense, that would have made the fortune 
 of the average epigram-monger. 
 
 "I read your article in proof to-night," he said, when 
 they were in the train. "It was excellent a brilliant 
 piece of newspaper work. I simply howled with laugh- 
 ter at your description of the heroine." 
 
 Sallie Sydenham was silent. She had been talking 
 with almost feverish exuberance on the topics that 
 pleased him, "guying" everybody, including herself. 
 This remark of his embarrassed her. She never 
 thought of him when she wrote. She liked to believe 
 that he was too busy to occupy himself with her arti- 
 cles. 
 
 "Did she really " he began. 
 
 "Oh, please, Mr. Childers," she interrupted, "I'm 
 rather tired of the subject after having spun out a col- 
 umn of it." 
 
 The remembrance of the unsavory heroine rather 
 nauseated her. Yet she had laughed on the subject 
 with the men in the reportorial room. She had dis- 
 cussed the matter with Mr. Green in her usual airily 
 audacious way, and had not been conscious of the least 
 impropriety. She had even felt a sense of elation at 
 the knowledge that she had secured what Owldom 
 knows as "a good story." And now her evening's ex- 
 perience lay heavily upon her recollection. She looked 
 at the smooth, kind, attractive face of the man sitting 
 beside her on the cross-seat of the elevated train, and 
 an illogical sense of dissatisfaction possessed her. She 
 generally chatted about the theatres with him, for he 
 rarely patronized the playhouse, and preferred it at sec- 
 ond-hand from Sallie's lips. To-night the theatre was 
 a singularly distasteful subject. 
 
 "That kind of play can never become popular," Mr. 
 Childers said thoughtfully. "Human nature in-
 
 26 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 stinctively recognizes what is good for it and what is 
 not. We like to preach a little, in order to hurry on the 
 intuition, so to speak, but things right themselves by 
 a law as immutable as that of gravitation. Still, Miss 
 Sydenham, I congratulate you. You did the righteous 
 very well, indeed. Everybody will want to see a play 
 that you lampoon so very cleverly. And, between our- 
 selves, it won't hurt them." 
 
 Sallie did not answer. She turned from him and 
 looked from the window at the rows of silent houses, in 
 which she saw an occasional gleam of light, and the 
 outline of some nocturnal household overlooked by the 
 persistent "Elevated." That phrase, "between our- 
 selves," hurt her. He seemed to forget that, after all, 
 she was a woman. She was willing that he should 
 forget this in the office, but outside . . . 
 
 "If I had known about this play," he went on, " 
 would have gone with you to the theatre to-night. I 
 so seldom see anything, and I should rather have en- 
 joyed watching the effect of this piece upon the women 
 in'the audience. Why didn't you tell me that there was 
 a sensation on the tapis?" 
 
 "Don't you think" and she tried to infuse her usual 
 spirit of flippant impudence into her words "that you 
 would have been more comfortable at a play of this sort 
 with a man?" 
 
 Mr. Childers laughed, and looked at her in keen 
 amusement. There was no doubt about it; she was 
 really a very funny girl quite an unusual character. 
 
 "No," he declared jovially. "If you don't mind my 
 saying so, I should have preferred being with you. 
 You see things that would not be apparent to a man. 
 That is why you are so valuable to the office, my girl. 
 You are better than a man. My sex is too stern to treat 
 these things humorously. The masculine critic goes in
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 27 
 
 for beautiful essays on morality which we don't want. 
 You don't. You own the most valuable weapon of all 
 the power to show it up under the lens of ridicule, 
 and to discuss it from an unconventional point of view. 
 I read what you said about the heroine to-night to half 
 a dozen of the editorial writers, and they laughed so 
 that I thought they would have collapsed. You see, I'm 
 crowning you with compliments. You are woman 
 enough to appreciate them, I'm sure." 
 
 "How well you know us, Mr. Childers," she said, 
 with a laugh that was not caused by sheer and undi- 
 luted satisfaction. "It is really quite marvellous. Yes, 
 I do like compliments. You have just paid me a very 
 pretty one, indeed. Are you sure that you realize it?" 
 
 Jack Childers felt that perhaps he did not quite un- 
 derstand her. He knew that there was some furtive 
 sarcasm in her words, but he had no idea where it 
 lurked. Her mood was an unusual one. Perhaps she 
 was "guying" him, for her own innate delectation. He 
 had meant to say extremely pleasant things to her, for 
 he sincerely admired the recklessness of her work, and 
 as a managing editor, cast in a human mould, he 
 thought that encouragement would do her good. He 
 occasionally used it with the other men. The other 
 men! 
 
 "If I realize that I have paid you a very pretty com- 
 pliment?" he said, repeating her question. "I tried to 
 do so to make it fit. Some girls like to be told that 
 they are pretty . . . others that they are clever. . . ." 
 
 "And others that they are men," she added, rather 
 defiantly. 
 
 He laughed heartily. Sallie Sydenham was herself 
 again, and her pertness was reasserting itself. He 
 did not notice the defiance in her tone, perhaps because 
 he was not looking for any such commodity.
 
 28 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 "Yes, women are strange creatures," he went on, tak- 
 ing her words at their face valuation. "You can beat 
 us at so many things, and you are so vain about it. Men 
 are different. They would be rather indignant if they 
 were asked to write fashion articles, or advice to moth- 
 ers, or household recipes. They would hate it. But 
 you you are happy when I tell you that you write like 
 a man, only much better than the average man, and 
 that your view of subjects that generally shock him is 
 frankly entertaining." 
 
 "Yes, it makes me very happy," she replied gravely. 
 "And you," she asked, after a minute's pause, "do you 
 find it easy, when you are talking to a woman a wo- 
 man like myself, for instance to forget that, after all, 
 she does belong to the sex ? Does it does it not em- 
 barrass you, just a little bit, at times?" 
 
 She did not look at him as she asked the question. 
 The train had stopped at the Eighth Street station, and 
 she was apparently watching two giggling girls who 
 were being propelled into the car by a couple of rather 
 tough-looking young men. 
 
 "At first it was a bit odd," Mr. Childers answered, 
 anxious to please her (of course, it would please her) 
 by not admitting that his chivalrous instincts had for 
 at least a year violently rebelled at the anomaly. 
 "You see, I was brought up in such an old-fashioned 
 way, to look upon women as household bric-a-brac. 
 Even now, when we have finished dinner at home, my 
 aunt and cousin would be shocked if I did not rise from 
 the dining-room table and hold the door open while 
 they passed to the drawing-room. I mention that just 
 to show you that I was educated to hold the sex in rev- 
 erence. At first, as I said, it was a bit odd to over- 
 come these tendencies. I did it by positively refusing 
 to consider the newspaper woman as anything else but
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 29 
 
 . a man. She does a man's work, and earns a man's sal- 
 ary. And now it is quite easy, and even amusing. 
 And I look upon you, Sallie, as a jolly good fellow as 
 one of the boys, in fact." 
 
 He was sincerely anxious to show her how much he 
 thought of her. He emphasized the "jolly good fel- 
 low" vehemently, and when he elaborated the expres- 
 sion into "one of the boys" he felt that his apprecia- 
 tive testimony to Sallie's sterling merit could go no 
 further. He looked at her, to note in her face the 
 pleasure that he was sure he had conferred. But Miss 
 Sydenham's eyes were enigmatical. She was still 
 watching the giggling girls and the rather tough-look- 
 ing young men in the seats opposite. The boys were 
 calling the girls "peaches" and "daisies" in fervent, 
 normal, east-side approval. It was a somewhat rowdy 
 and vulgar quartette, but Sallie saw in it rude health 
 and the eternal fitness of things. These uncouth Lu- 
 bins were not regarding their Dulcineas as jolly good 
 fellows. They saw them in all their pictorial feminin- 
 ity such as it was. Sallie could not help sighing. 
 Yet she could imagine these girls, a few hours later, 
 with dust-cloths on their heads, going through a dozen 
 household duties that she would have loathed. Still 
 she sighed. 
 
 "You are very kind, Mr. Childers," she said, for he 
 was looking rather disappointed at the silence with 
 which she received his remarks. "It is nice to live 
 one's life as a good fellow. Petticoats are a horrible 
 nuisance, aren't they? How would you like all girls 
 to be good fellows ?" 
 
 "Oh, no no, thanks I won't go so far as that," he 
 protested argumentatively. "One must have contrast. 
 The gentle, unsophisticated, girly girl is very restful. 
 I don't think that we could get along without her, do
 
 30 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 you, Miss Sydenham? After all, we must have our. 
 homes, and the jolly good fellows wouldn't be happy 
 there, would they ?" 
 
 "No," she said, and she laughed for so long that the 
 giggling girls and the rather tough-looking young men 
 were silenced. "They would want to put their feet on 
 the table, wouldn't they? They would sit and smoke 
 instead of attending to the house. They would shock 
 all their neighbors, and bring grief to the heart of the 
 landlord. Oh, they would be quite impossible. They 
 would be like fishes out of water. It is so much nicer 
 for them to associate fraternally with the Toms, and 
 the Dicks, and the Harrys, and to do their work for 
 them. Long live the jolly good fellows!" 
 
 Mr. Childers felt that he had made a hit with Sallie 
 Sydenham. He had struck what they call "a respon- 
 sive chord." 
 
 "Suppose you had to be gentle and unsophisticated," 
 he went on, for a little embroidery on the theme would 
 not be amiss. "What a gorgeous joke you would be! 
 I can imagine you ordering boiled mutton for dinner, 
 and 'sorting the clothes' on Monday mornings. You 
 really would be awfully amusing. I should love to see 
 you at it." 
 
 "I should be very funny," said Sallie, quietly. "But 
 it wouldn't give me much scope. And perhaps even 
 you would look upon me as a failure, after a time, when 
 I was forced to be dreadfully proper." 
 
 "You couldn't be," he retorted gallantly for he was 
 always gallant, and it took this unusual form in deal- 
 ing with this unusual girl "you couldn't be, even if 
 you tried very hard. You would make some awful 
 break, and live up to your reputation." 
 
 "Undoubtedly," she said, still very quietly. "But I 
 would sooner not try the experiment. It would be so
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 31 
 
 exceedingly risky. This is Twenty-third Street, Mr. 
 Childers my station. I must hurry. Good-night." 
 
 "Shall I see you to your house?" But as he asked 
 the question he took from his pocket a newspaper, and 
 prepared to read it during the rest of his trip home. 
 
 "Certainly not," she said, smiling. "For Heaven's 
 sake, don't pretend to treat me as though I were the 
 gentle, unsophisticated 'home' contrast. In twenty 
 minutes from now Miss Sarah Sydenham will be sit- 
 ting en negligee, with her dear little feet she takes 
 sevens on her landlady's unblemished bureau cover, 
 and" sinking her voice "she will have just one 
 cigarette before she retires. There will be no brandy- 
 and-soda because she can't get it. Perhaps she 
 would if she could. Good-night, Mr. Childers. I al- 
 ways enjoy a chat with you as one of the boys." 
 
 He saluted her with mock reverence, and spread out 
 his paper. Sallie pushed her way out of the train 
 and walked rather solemnly down the stairs of the ele- 
 vated railway station. A man, slightly the worse for 
 drink, spoke to her in Twenty-third Street, noticing 
 her pink cheeks and the bedraggled finery that she 
 wore. She laughed in his face, and, tapping him on 
 the shoulder, said : "Go home." He stared at her in 
 astonishment, and wondered what he had been drink- 
 ing.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 WLDOM, in its feminine aspect, offered an al- 
 luring contour to the uninitiated. The cheer- 
 less little office on the seventh floor, into 
 which Jack Childers, managing editor, had 
 swept his newspaper chorus, looked as though it were 
 tenanted by a tealess tea-party. The treasures of a 
 rapacious journalism were there, for it was now gener- 
 ally felt in Newspaper Row that woman's soft, ma- 
 ternal instinct if it could be obtained was a good 
 thing to own. Only the cynics believed that the hard, 
 paternal powers of men were better able to cope with 
 the newspaper nugget, and professed to see in the 
 newspaper lady a diluted imitation in corsets (some- 
 times) of a newspaper gentleman. As a chorus, how- 
 ever a chorus that was not called upon to sing tra- 
 l a -l a this little gathering of feminine owls appealed 
 very strongly to Sallie Sydenham's sense of humor. 
 She held herself aloof from the chorus, and the chorus, 
 as will be shown, resented that fact. 
 
 The prime and most expensive desk was occupied by 
 a stout, flaccid lady with pimples, who conducted a 
 column entitled "How to be beautiful." She had 
 made a study of the question, impersonally, of course, 
 and her work was much admired. She had special 
 recipes for the removal of freckles and chilblains, and 
 her advice in the matter of pimples was looked upon 
 as second in importance to none. The fact that her 
 own face was not unspotted from the world used to 
 amuse Miss Sydenham, who wondered why the tal- 
 ented lady failed to patronize her own remedies. It 
 never occurred to frivolous Sallie that perhaps Mrs.
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 33 
 
 Amelia Amberg Hutchinson had no time to worry 
 about her own imperfections. Her clients always com- 
 municated with her by letter. Had they called to see 
 her, the list of Mrs. Hutchinson's adherents might 
 have diminished. They looked upon her, through her 
 writings, as a possible Venus. She told them how to 
 reduce their weight, and how to cope with a too 
 retrousse nose. She was a great authority on etiquette, 
 and preached the consistent doctrine that a low-neck 
 dress worn in the morning was decidedly bad form. 
 This, one would think, was a self-evident fact. But it 
 was just the kind of fact that the journalistic lady loved 
 to elaborate upon, and in candor it must be said that 
 her correspondents liked to read her luminous and un- 
 answerable arguments. 
 
 Mrs. Hutchinson sat at her desk, blinking in the 
 morning sun, with a pile of unopened letters before 
 her. The sun fell upon her disordered complexion, 
 but did not worry her, as it had no questions to ask 
 and was not embarrassing. 
 
 Very near to Mrs. Hutchinson that is to say, near 
 to her desk, and not to her heart was an elongated 
 damsel, familiarly known among the feminine owls as 
 Lamp-Post LAicy. Lamp-Post Lucy wore a very short 
 skirt, betraying feet that would (in the language of the 
 office) have supported the Equitable Building or the 
 Brooklyn Bridge. She was "in journalism," as she 
 never tired of telling, because she loved a "literary 
 life." From earliest childhood she had written. At 
 the age of six she had composed a poem, entitled "The 
 Apple Blushed," that had been published in the bi- 
 weekly journal of her native town. She felt that she 
 had a mission, though at present it seemed to have been 
 lost in the shuffle. Her daily duty was to give advice 
 to love-sick men and women. Sallie Sydenham in-
 
 34 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 sisted that as Lamp-Post Lucy had never been kissed 
 for a step-ladder would have been necessary in order to 
 reach her ruby lips it seemed absurd to make her an 
 authority on affairs of the heart. But the old argument 
 that it is possible to criticize a plum-pudding, without 
 being able to make one, was Sallie's answer when she 
 attempted to reason the matter out with Jack Childers. 
 
 Lamp-Post Lucy was quite spectacular in her moral- 
 ity. To that large majority of her feminine corre- 
 spondents craving to know whether good usage al- 
 lowed a girl to embrace a man before she was engaged 
 to him, she invariably replied in the negative, and added 
 that such a course would be heinous. To be sure, her 
 correspondents seemed to live for East Side dances and 
 promiscuous "clam-bakes," to which they could never 
 go alone. But Lamp-Post Lucy was fervidly conscien- 
 tious, and her responsibilities weighed upon her. She 
 had reduced her work, as much as possible, to a system. 
 She knew exactly what to say to each brand of sufferer, 
 as a barber recognizes in the 'upturned chins of his cli- 
 ents the call for brushes soft, medium, or hard. She 
 had one parcel of stock advice for the frequent dam- 
 sel who had discovered her Lothario to be "a married 
 man," and a father several times ; another for the coy 
 young Sadie or Mamie who dangled a brace of Lubins 
 from her string: and yet a third variety for the intro- 
 spective maiden who wondered why she was so cold 
 and unresponsive. Sallie declared that if, by mistake, 
 Mrs. Hutchinson's complexion recipes crept into 
 Lamp-Post Lucy's column, and Lamp-Post Lucy's ad- 
 vice should be tendered to Mrs. Hutchinson's constit- 
 uents, the world would wag just as amiably. 
 
 The most attractive woman in the office was Mrs. 
 Hapgood Hipton, dubbed by the irreverent masculine 
 owls Happy Hippy, and greatly envied. She was the
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 35 
 
 magnet that drew the men to this cheerless feminine 
 sanctum. Her hips bulged and wobbled as she walked ; 
 she was always very highly perfumed spiced, Sallie 
 Sydenham called it and when she spoke (to the other 
 sex) she drew very close to her prey and whispered 
 insidiously. Nobody knew exactly what she did for 
 her salary. She was always "writing a story that was 
 going to make a sensation," and consulting every avail- 
 able editor about it ; but it never seemed to appear, and 
 was never even "set up." Happy Hippy used to sigh 
 a good deal, and wish that she were married, arid re- 
 moved from the torments of journalism. She had se- 
 cured a divorce from one husband, who had been jeal- 
 ous of her popularity with the literary set (he was a 
 grocer) and had treated her very badly. Newspaper 
 life was killing her, she said, and she simply couldn't 
 endure it much longer, as it was so very hard on a 
 woman. Then she would slide away, her hips wob- 
 bling, and exhaling patchouli from every pore, to see 
 if Mr. Childers had arrived, and to ask his advice about 
 her story. She liked Jack Childers immensely, but she 
 could not tolerate the horrible persons who sat in their 
 shirt sleeves and ate ham sandwiches. Jack Childers 
 remembered that she was a woman, and she was not 
 inclined to let him forget it. She amused the other 
 men, enveloping them in the pungency of her essences, 
 and flattering their eye with the saliency of her perpet- 
 ual hips. 
 
 At the back of the room, in a pensive pose of inex- 
 orable prettiness, sat the Poet Laureate of the office, 
 one of the most significant features of Newspaper Row. 
 She did not write poetry because she was obliged to do 
 so, she told everybody whom she could button-hole. 
 Her husband, to whom she was completely and un- 
 selfishly devoted, was in the slot-machine industry, and
 
 36 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 in receipt of a handsome salary that kept her as near 
 to luxury as her somewhat socialistic beliefs permitted 
 her to go. Poetry was her interpretation of life, the 
 outlet for her strong psychic instinct. It was her "su- 
 praliminal self" that was recognized in Newspaper 
 Row; her "subliminal" consciousness asserted itself 
 at home, and it was extremely beautiful. 
 
 Such material accessories as clothes naturally had 
 very little meaning to so exquisite and pellucid an en- 
 tity as the pale poetess, and they were what ordinary 
 women would call "badly made." A dusky line above 
 her collar seemed to indicate that a little of the pro- 
 saic compound that the world acknowledges as soap- 
 and-water would have substantially aided Anastasia's 
 supraliminal self in a sanitary way. Her soulfulness, 
 however, rendered the conventionalities of life unneces- 
 sary. Nothing less than soulfulness can, as a rule, 
 effect this, and Anastasia Atwood knew it. At home 
 she wore Grecian costumes, and wound velvet bands 
 round her luxuriant, dishevelled tresses. She had a 
 passion for "receptions," at which she recited her own 
 poems to a weak lemonade accompaniment. Sallie 
 had attended a reception, on one occasion, before the 
 poetess had dubbed her obnoxious, and suggested 
 chloroform as a happy substitute for the weak lemon- 
 ade. She thought it cowardly of Mrs. Atwood to lure 
 inoffensive people to her lair and then riddle them with 
 her own home-made poetry. 
 
 The desk next to that occupied by Mrs Atwood be- 
 longed to Eva Higgins, the famous feminine "inter- 
 viewer," who had been secured on account of the wo- 
 man's delicacy that she brought to a mission usually 
 entrusted to vain and wordy men. Miss Higgins was 
 five-and-forty, addicted to a kind of nervous wink that, 
 in her youth, would have been provocative, and quite
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 37 
 
 disposed to look upon the entire world as mere subjects 
 for her work. She "interviewed" everybody, and it 
 was remarkable that all her victims spoke alike 
 charmingly and poetically. The beauty of her own 
 mind affected them, it was supposed. She had "talked" 
 with Spike Hennessy, the safe-breaker, and Mr. Hen- 
 nessy's views of life were as sweet and unaffected as 
 those of Calve, the operatic star. The late Dr. Tal- 
 mage had prattled in the same delectable vein as Anna 
 Held, and it was noted, on one occasion, when she in- 
 terviewed Sarah Bernhardt and Bishop Potter on the 
 same day, that they both said "Sacrebleu!" several 
 times. The Bishop wrote to the paper, protesting that 
 he had never uttered such a picturesque but suspicious 
 expression, but the paper stood by Miss Higgins, who 
 had notes to show as testimony. She had made her 
 greatest hit by means of an interview with the late Li 
 Hung Chang, in which that eminent gentleman had 
 talked gushingly of the two-step, and had declared 
 that the figures of American dances and women 
 were the finest on earth. It was popularly believed 
 that if Miss Higgins were assigned to interview the 
 Eden Musee, all the wax figures would talk in the 
 effusive and paragraphic manner that had been proved 
 so entertaining, and that the Pope or the King of 
 England would not have hesitated to utilize that man-" 
 ner. She had a marvellous faculty for the inter- 
 view. Sallie Sydenham uncharitable Sallie! de- 
 clared that Eva's motto was, "All coons look alike to 
 me." But Miss Sydenham was frivolous, and unwor- 
 thy of association with so serious a topic. 
 
 Miss Mamie Munson, who received a small salary 
 for telling impecunious womanhood how to look like 
 fashion plates on nothing a year, and suggesting the 
 best way of converting cast-off clothes into garments
 
 38 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 that would have startled Fifth Avenue on fete-days, 
 was a handsomely garbed young woman, inclined to 
 look upon journalism somewhat apologetically. Miss 
 Munson was always extremely tired, but was never 
 weary of explaining that, like Mrs. Atwood, she "didn't 
 work in a newspaper office" from necessity. She liked 
 it, and mother always said that it was demoralizing for 
 a girl to idle away her time. Mother believed that if 
 a young woman kept her days fully occupied, her 
 health and happiness would be assured. Miss Munson 
 was, possibly, the best dressed woman in the office. 
 Her clothes were, in fact, exquisite, and she revelled 
 in them. She was an ardent theatre-goer, and the 
 office supplied her with dead-head tickets. Some of 
 the other ladies, when life was aggressively stale, liked 
 to listen to her criticisms of plays, because they were 
 very severe after the orthodox manner of "dead- 
 head" comment. Mamie Munson said that she could 
 have afforded to buy her own seats, but mother thought 
 that it would have been a silly thing to do, in view of 
 the fact that managers loved to see well-known jour- 
 nalists at their playhouses, and that to sit through their 
 productions was really a form of subtle flattery. 
 Sometimes Miss Munson went into "society," and the 
 next day the feminine owls had a graphic description of 
 ' her dress, made from a Felix model, and of her bou- 
 quet, furnished by Fleischman from a design. 
 
 Miss Munson very nearly conflicted with Rita Eisen- 
 stein, the "society" writer, who signed her articles 
 "Dolly," and wrote in the first person singular, in order 
 to convey the idea that she was "in it." Miss 
 Eisenstein, who lived in a charming house in East 
 Broadway, and bought her jaunty, natty hats in Di- 
 vision Street, was the finest society writer in New York 
 City. She had an overbearing style that was most
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 39 
 
 fascinating, and when she wrote that "Mrs. Vander- 
 bilt told me this," and "I whispered that to the Duchess 
 of Marlborough, who used to be my little friend, Con- 
 suelo," she carried conviction. She admitted the ultra- 
 exclusive set only to her column, and talked of it as 
 Dickie, and Jimmie, and Billy, and Jack. She knew 
 all its foibles, and had a genius for exploiting them. 
 Her success was due to the fact that she appeared to be 
 personally present at the swagger functions of which 
 she wrote in such incandescence. In summer her 
 accent was Newport, and in autumn she did one coun- 
 try house after the other in blithe succession. She 
 brought the methods of the giddy butterfly, perpetually 
 and frolicsomely on the wing, to her work. She said 
 that she lived in East Broadway because it was far 
 from the madding crowd, a fact that it was impossible 
 to controvert. But Sallie asserted that East Broad- 
 way had a crowd of its own that was far maddinger. 
 
 All these admirable, self-supporting women, assem- 
 bled in Owldom's feminine sanctum, looked somewhat 
 surly on this particular morning. Mrs. Amelia Am- 
 berg Hutchinson, Lamp-Post Lucy, Happy Hippy, An- 
 astasia Atwood, Eva Higgins, Mamie Munson, and 
 Rita Eisenstein appeared to have something on their 
 minds. Men endure a mental incubus in stoic medita- 
 tion; women do not believe in passive endurance as 
 long as a grievance can be aired. 
 
 "To my mind," said Mrs. Amelia Amberg Hutchin- 
 son, looking furiously at the letter of a correspondent 
 who wanted to know what to do with a birthmark "to 
 my mind, Miss Sydenham's article is an outrage. A 
 woman may know a good deal, but she has no right to 
 jocularly discuss forbidden subjects. Miss Syden- 
 ham's jests about the heroine in that play are scandal- 
 ous. My impulse is to resign from a paper that pub-
 
 40 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 lishes and apparently indorses such unseemly levity. 
 Positively, I blush when I think of it. She writes 
 like a man like a conscienceless libertine. Surely, a 
 virtuous woman, and it is barely possible, though dis- 
 tinctly improbable, that she is a virtuous woman 
 should hesitate before she sells herself at so much a 
 line." 
 
 "Ah, dear Mrs. Hutchinson," chirruped the pale 
 poetess, "Miss Sydenham writes so badly that it really 
 doesn't much matter what she says. There is no psy- 
 chic quality to her work. It is superficial, valueless. 
 I did not read the article to which you refer. Harry 
 kept the paper from me. The silly boy ! He said : 'No, 
 Anastasia, this is a vulgar, pernicious affair, and you 
 shall not sully your beautiful thoughts with it.' He 
 takes such good care of me, worried as he is with all 
 the business of the slot-machines. Ah, my dear Mrs. 
 Hutchinson, those machines, prosaic though they be, 
 are a terrible anxiety. But his salary is enormous, and 
 I tell him to dwell upon that only. May I" very tim- 
 idly "may I read Miss Sydenham's article? Do you 
 do you think that it will hurt me ?" 
 
 Lamp-Post Lucy, who was striding up and down the 
 room in her yacht-like boots, handed a paper to the 
 poetess, and Mrs. Atwood glanced furtively, reluc- 
 tantly, and fearfully at it. 
 
 "Sallie Sydenham makes the office impossible for all 
 of us," said Lamp-Post Lucy, viciously. "How can I 
 give plausible advice to my correspondents, with this 
 horrible thing on the next page? Why can't women 
 deal with feminine subjects, instead of trying to out- 
 man man ? Miss Sydenham must have written this in 
 a taphouse. How a gentleman like Jack Childers can 
 be seen with her even crossing City Hall Park at the 
 dead of night is something that I can't understand "
 
 A Girl Who Wrote -41 
 
 "Was he seen with her ?" cried Happy Hippy, press- 
 ing her pneumatic hips, to see if they were still resil- 
 ient. "You don't say so ? When? By whom?" 
 
 "Oh, that's an old story," retorted Lamp-Post Lucy, 
 bitterly. "They ride uptown together every night, if 
 you please. And the office boy told me that he had 
 heard Mr. Childers nearly splitting his sides with 
 laughter at Miss Sydenham's article. Isn't it perfectly 
 fiendish?" 
 
 Happy Hippy rose with a sublime look of injured 
 innocence struggling through the rice-powder on her 
 face. "I have an appointment with Mr. Childers about 
 my story," she said, looking at her watch, "and I think 
 I shall just let him perceive that the women in this 
 newspaper office have a few opinions of their own. 
 When I read that article this morning I put my break- 
 fast aside, unable to eat. It was so coarse, so indeli- 
 cate I am referring to the article. If it had been 
 signed 'Tommy the Tough,' nobody would have com- 
 plained ; but for a woman to boldly put her signature 
 to such a wicked apology for immorality " 
 
 "We all know it," declared Lamp-Post Lucy, sitting 
 down and crossing her legs. "Not for the largest for- 
 tune would I put my name to an unfeminine word. I 
 don't believe in it. To be brilliant it is not necessary 
 to be indecent. And though men laugh at Sallie Syd- 
 enham, they despise her in their heart of hearts. Men 
 like a womanly woman," she added, flapping her huge 
 feet until they looked like propellers that didn't propel. 
 
 At that moment a wail was heard from the end of 
 the room, and Anastasia Atwood fell back limply in her 
 chair for a moment only. She was herself again at 
 the end of that moment. She sat there, waving a fan 
 and apparently making a supreme effort to speak. And 
 she spake.
 
 42 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 "Iniquity!" she cried. "Sheer iniquity! A pen in 
 the hand of Messalina would produce just such an 
 odious tirade. I wish I could say that I didn't under- 
 stand it, but I'm married and I do. I am no shud- 
 dering vestal" with a sardonic look at Lamp-Post 
 Lucy, who assuredly was, or, at any rate, a non-shud- 
 dering one "but if I tried I could not give utterance 
 to such indescribable testimony to the possession of a 
 scoffing, tainted, worldly-wise mind. Harry was right. 
 I should never have read this. I cannot write^my poem 
 on 'The Warmth of the Cold Snow' to-day. 'My mind 
 has been ruthlessly disturbed." 
 
 "In my set," said Rita Eisenstein, quickly, to efface 
 Anastasia Atwood, whom she hated, "in my set there 
 is, of course, a tendency to er looseness of expres- 
 sion and to a certain kind of picturesque coarseness. I 
 heard Mrs. Jack Boothby say 'Hell!' the other night, 
 when Jim Van Oilish trod on her train and tore it to 
 shreds. (By the bye, I promised her not to write this, 
 and^sha'n't.) But Sallie Sydenham goes too far. . . . 
 I'm not a prude though at Hillsdale, Long Island, 
 last autumn, Joe Van Rensselaer said that I was, be- 
 cause I locked my door at night. No, I'm not a prude, 
 but I think that every woman should at least write from 
 a clean mind, for her own sake as well as for that of 
 other people. If Miss Sydenham were compelled to be 
 refined as we are my opinion is that she couldn't 
 write a line. Her lack of refinement is her stock- 
 in-trade." 
 
 "Undoubtedly," agreed Mrs. Amelia Amberg Hutch- 
 inson, in her agitation advising the lady with the birth- 
 mark to use a hair restorer. "Miss Eisenstein is right." 
 "Miss Eisenstein, going each day from Fifth Ave- 
 nue to East Broadway, can be relied upon for healthy 
 opinions. She combines .the thought of the fashion-
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 43 
 
 able world with that of the slums," remarked the poet- 
 ess, with an emphasis that was delightful in its un- 
 restrained malice. If Miss Eisenstein hated Mrs. At- 
 wood, the poetess returned the sentiment with com- 
 pound interest. 
 
 "That is an unkind dig," declared Mamie Munson, 
 who loved to see the literary wage-earners bickering, 
 and who, from the vantage point of her sheltered desk, 
 enjoyed many a verbal can-can and a vituperative fling. 
 "Mother has made me promise never to read anything 
 that Sallie Sydenham writes. She says that it would 
 be Greek to me, anyway. I think I should understand 
 it, though" with a simper "don't you?" 
 
 "I do, indeed, dear," responded Lamp-Post Lucy. 
 "You may know nothing of Greek and sometimes, 
 love, your English seems a trifle misty but oh, yes, 
 you'd understand Sallie." 
 
 Miss Munson grew red in the face and lost her tem- 
 per with wonderful rapidity. There were moments 
 when she hated the office into which she had been 
 forced by the inevitable "uncontrollable circumstances" 
 and this was one of the moments but she loved the 
 pose of juvenility and innocence. It was the only lux- 
 ury obtainable, and she was not going to permit its 
 molestation with a good grace. 
 
 "You're jealous," she cried noisily; "jealous I say 
 jealous ! You're all so mad you don't know what to 
 do because Miss Sydenham makes more money than 
 you do, and doesn't have to write about warts, and hair- 
 restorers, and etiquette; or isn't obliged to grind out 
 doggerel verses. You are all furious because she's 
 the most talked-about woman in the office." And the 
 irate Miss Munson muttered "Spiteful cats!" in a 
 sotto-voce that was not as sotto as it might have been. 
 
 "Silence 1" commanded. Mrs. Amelia Amberg Hutch-
 
 44 A G*rl Who Wrote 
 
 inson, majestically. "Silence. I will not permit such 
 language in the office, Miss Munson. I shall appeal 
 to Mr. Childers. You and your desk are here on suf- 
 ferance only. Try and conduct yourself in a seemly 
 manner, if you wish to remain. And your mother, if 
 she takes as much interest in your welfare as you wish 
 us to believe, should keep you at home, especially as 
 you are not obliged to indulge in these labors. Per- 
 sonally, I confess that I need my salary I am not 
 ashamed to confess it or nothing would induce me to 
 appear daily in an office where ribaldry is accepted 
 and flaringly published." 
 
 Miss Munson said nothing. Her readily inflam- 
 mable fuse had burned itself out. She felt a trifle 
 sorry that she had gone on record as a semi-defender 
 of the detestable Sallie Sydenham. She had ascribed 
 her own pardonable sentiments to the other ladies. It 
 was a pity. 
 
 Happy Hippy wobbled from the room, leaving a trail 
 of stagnant perfume behind her. She was rather tired 
 of these magpies, and infinitely preferred the masculine 
 regions of the office. She was fond of remarking that 
 she could always "get along" with men, but could 
 scarcely cope with the pettiness of her own sex. 
 
 "As for my doggerel verses," said the pale poetess 
 with biting emphasis, "they may be weak" they were 
 in the last stages of anaemia "but they bring me let- 
 ters from all over the world. Not for a million a year 
 would I waste myself on dramatic criticism. I did it 
 once, at the request of Mr. Childers. It was enough. 
 . . . Never again." 
 
 Mrs. Atwood had, indeed, tried theatrical criticism 
 before Sallie's advent, but her soulfulness had stood 
 in her way. She had criticized musical comedy .from 
 the "Hamlet" point of view, and had discussed Palais
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 45 
 
 Royal farce from the platform of the old comedies. 
 "San Toy" had failed because it was so trivial com- 
 pared with "Coriolanus," and "The Gay Parisians" 
 was voted a detestable frivolity for the reason that it 
 "fell down" beside "The School for Scandal." She 
 had preached morality when nobody wanted it, and had 
 inveighed against immorality when to discover it a 
 powerful microscope would have been necessary. 
 
 "Dear Mrs. Atwood," bleated Rita Eisenstein, "your 
 criticisms were lovely, and even though you never 
 write another, they will live. I shall never forget the 
 way in which you proved that the leading characters 
 in Tlorodora' were utterly ridiculous compared with 
 those in I think it was 'The Merchant of Venice.' It 
 was so unanswerable." 
 
 "Thank goodness I never imperilled my immortal 
 soul by discussing sexual matters in the language of a 
 scavenger!" retorted the poetess, who, like Bunthorne, 
 was very terrible when thwarted. "If one's record be 
 soiled" 
 
 "Gargle with a weak solution of peroxide of hydro- 
 gen," wrote Mrs. Amelia Amberg Hutchinson, mur- 
 muring the words almost cooingly. 
 
 "And tell him that to win you he must renounce to- 
 bacco," scribbled Lamp-Post Lucy, with soft insistence. 
 
 Rita Eisenstein and Mamie Munson laughed loudly, 
 and a Kilkenny conflict seemed likely to re-establish 
 itself in this cosy, secluded little sanctum, when the 
 possibilities were interrupted by the arrival of Atkin- 
 son Smith, the business manager. Mr. Smith was fol- 
 lowed by Happy Hippy, who had met him on his way 
 up, and who sweetly and clingingly held his arm, so 
 that escape was cut off. Atkinson Smith was a hand- 
 some man, with a jovial disposition. He was ex- 
 tremely fond of the weaker sex, and though he looked
 
 46 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 upon feminine journalists as parodies, and was wont 
 to remark at his club that to see the fair ones travestied 
 was at times discouraging, still he would occasionally 
 forsake his trousered associates and wander to the sanc- 
 tum where petticoats prevailed. Any petticoats were 
 better than none at all. 
 
 The demeanor of the ladies changed with his en- 
 trance. The features of Mrs. Amelia Amberg Hutch- 
 inson settled themselves into her favorite "happy-wife- 
 and-mother" expression, and the milk of human kind- 
 ness seemed to ooze from her lips. The thick encrusta- 
 tion of malice that disfigured the symmetry of Anas- 
 tasia's face was replaced by a sort of rapt mysticism 
 that was extremely pleasing. Lamp-Post Lucy made 
 an effort to hide her boots, and adopted the pose of a 
 goddess surprised at her bath. Mamie Munson cast 
 down her eyes in the manner of an ingenue suddenly 
 confronted with the male marvels of mundane revela- 
 tion, but found time to send a happy smile in Mr. 
 Smith's direction. Rita Eisenstein "sat high" at her 
 desk, in extremely "good form," and bent her head 
 gracefully in acknowledgment of a salute that Mr. 
 Smith did not make. Eva Higgins had launched her- 
 self into an "interview" with Mrs. Carrie Nation, whose 
 views on Maeterlinck, and the drama of symbolism, she 
 was allowing the popular temperance lady to prattle 
 about skittishly. Miss Higgins was, therefore, dead to 
 the world. It was her chronic condition. 
 
 "Good-morning, ladies," said the business manager, 
 cheerfully, with a rotund and thick-lipped geniality. 
 "I'm sorry to interrupt your labors." He smiled at 
 some passing thought, for he knew those labors of old. 
 Then he resumed : "This paper intends to celebrate its 
 anniversary next week by a reception held from ten 
 o'clock until midnight. We have invited many nota-
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 47 
 
 bilities, and the occasion will er be an interesting 
 one. I want you all to be present, if possible. There 
 will be a cold collation." 
 
 He knew that feminine journalists were at one with 
 their brethren in the matter of collation cold, warm, 
 or tepid. At the mention of "cold collation" Mrs. 
 Amelia Amberg Hutchinson swallowed invisible food, 
 and Anastasia Atwood emitted a sound that, if she had 
 been an ordinary, unpoetic, every-day mortal, would 
 have seemed very much like "smacking" her lips. 
 
 "We should like the entire staff to be represented," 
 he went on, "and I hope you will all find it convenient 
 to appear. If any of you see Miss Sydenham I wish 
 you would kindly tell her of this." 
 
 The ladies pursed their lips and shot glances at each 
 other. Even the subject of the cold collation was tem- 
 porarily forgotten. Mrs. Amelia Amberg Hutchinson 
 was the first to recover her equanimity. 
 
 "If there is going to be plenty of champagne, Mr. 
 Smith," she said playfully, with hippopotamic airiness, 
 "I think you may rely upon Miss Sallie Sydenham's 
 presence." 
 
 "No, Amelia," quoth the poetess, emphatically; "it 
 will be a very tame affair for Miss Sydenham. Sheer 
 respectability, you know, will frighten her. I'm afraid, 
 Mr. Smith," turning to the business manager, "that 
 Miss Sydenham will never appear." 
 
 "Oh, she'll come right enough,"- interposed Lamp- 
 Post Lucy. "There'll be a few actors on hand, I'm 
 sure, and she can tell them funny stories. Sallie won't 
 desert us." 
 
 "Did you did you read her article on the new 
 play, Mr. Smith ?" asked Mamie Munson, coquettishly, 
 but in tones so low that they were scarcely audible. 
 
 The ladies cast down their eyes in apparent dismay.
 
 48 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 Mrs. Amelia Amberg Hutchinson averted her flaccid 
 face and stared at the wall. The pale poetess looked 
 at the ceiling, as though she wanted to get up as high 
 as possible. Happy Hippy gasped, and cast imploring 
 glances at Atkinson Smith, as though to say, "Don't 
 don't admit it." Lamp-Post Lucy planted her feet 
 firmly on the floor, with her limbs in two counties. 
 Rita Eisenstein rose, walked to the window, and played 
 an air upon the pane. 
 
 The business manager was vastly amused and en- 
 joyed it all hugely. 
 
 "Certainly I read her article," he answered. "I al- 
 ways read them wouldn't miss them for worlds. 
 They're the best thing in the paper cut rather low at 
 the neck, of course, but none the worse for that.. Sal- 
 lie is a caution so unconventional, isn't she?" 
 
 "Mr. Smith," said Mrs. Amelia Amberg Hutchinson 
 in a funereal voice, "would you let your dear little boys 
 and girls read Sallie Sydenham's articles ?" 
 
 "Before I can answer that question, my dear lady," 
 replied the business manager, with a smile, "I feel that 
 it would be necessary, and respectable, to marry. I'm 
 not married." Happy Hippy, who speculated upon his 
 celibacy, gave him a winning look. "But Sallie doesn't 
 write for children," he added. 
 
 "No," sighed the pale poetess, sorrowfully. "To 
 the babes and sucklings she carries no appeal. Ah, 
 me!" 
 
 "Perhaps I had better send a line to her house," said 
 Atkinson Smith, thoughtfully, feeling that sufficient for 
 the day was the journalistic petticoat thereof, and 
 turning to go. "Don't forget to come, any of you. 
 You won't be shocked, I can promise. Good-morning." 
 
 Their original expressions returned to the faces of 
 the perturbed ladies as soon as Atkinson Smith had
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 49 
 
 gone. These expressions were now heightened by dis- 
 comfiture. It would have been very easy -to announce 
 a supply of well-conceived contempt for this business 
 manager, who apparently held feminine propriety so 
 lightly. But it would have been useless. After all, he 
 was, by his own confession, unmarried. Perhaps he 
 was a rake. To a rake Miss Sydenham would un- 
 doubtedly make a fervent appeal. This idea spread 
 with telepathic contagion among the ladies. They 
 worked on silently for a half hour. At the end of that 
 time Mrs. Amelia Amberg Hutchinson arose, and in a 
 voice that trembled slightly she spoke as follows : 
 
 "The only thing to do, in order to rectify the licen- 
 tious spirit of this office, is to cut Miss Sydenham 
 openly. As we are to appear at this reception, and she 
 is also to be there, the occasion seems to me to be an 
 inspired one. Ladies, let us show, by a discreet for- 
 bearance and a seemly self-repression, that Miss 
 Sydenham is not er is not er in our class." 
 
 The pale poetess murmured a chaste "Amen ;" Hap- 
 py Hippy nodded approvingly; Miss Munson threw 
 up her eyes to the white-washed ceiling, and seemed 
 to register a vow; Lamp-Post Lucy tapped her boots 
 assentingly on the floor; Eva Higgins paused in her 
 manipulation of Mrs. Carrie Nation's sweet and fra- 
 grant mind to show that she was acquiescent, and Miss 
 Eisenstein shook Mrs. Amelia Amberg Hutchinson's 
 moist red hand and beamed upon that benevolent ma- 
 tron. 
 
 By which it will be seen that the way of the trans- 
 gressor is hard, and all the harder when the way is 
 macadamized by the feminine process. The virtue that 
 hath its own reward was thereafter luminous in the 
 feminine sanctum on the seventh floor.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 HARLIE COVINGTON was one of the for- 
 tunate many who are not tortured by the too 
 strenuous idea. He was known to his 
 friends as a "charming fellow," which meant 
 that he was socially colorless and pleasantly non-ag- 
 gressive. He was on the outside edge of journalism, 
 and was consequently popular in Newspaper Row, be- 
 cause he conflicted with nobody. Mr. Covington 
 wrote agreeable reviews of disagreeable books, and en- 
 couraged the budding author to bud. It was not a 
 very exhilarating pastime, but Mr. Covington was sat- 
 isfied, because it was undoubtedly quite respectable. 
 He collected autograph copies of valueless publica- 
 tions, and was looked upon with delight by the authors 
 thereof, who loved to present "works" that few seemed 
 inclined to purchase. 
 
 Mr. Covington's supreme ambition was to be looked 
 upon as "a man about town." His desires went no 
 further. He belonged to a club or two, and was care- 
 ful to be on view in the windows thereof once or twice 
 a week. He lived in a bachelor apartment, with a 
 housekeeper. At six o'clock regularly he donned his 
 evening clothes, and ate his solitary chop in well- 
 groomed state. Of late his post-prandial entertain- 
 ment had consisted in escorting Miss Sallie Sydenham 
 to the playhouse. 
 
 He was sincerely interested in the girl. It was 
 through his "outside" influence that she had obtained 
 a footing in Owldom. He had first met her while she 
 was trying to eke out a living by teaching the young 
 idea an occupation that she thoroughly loathed. Her
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 51 
 
 candor and ingenuousness had appealed to him, 
 and he had set out to better her condition, with mo- 
 tives so pure and selfish that they had laid themselves 
 open to uncharitable criticism. He had watched her 
 rapid, mushroom progress, and deplored the means 
 she used to accomplish it. He was genuinely attached 
 to her. It flattered his vanity "man about town" 
 that he was to be seen at "opening nights" with a 
 girl so universally talked about as Sallie. He liked 
 to hear the crowd murmur as they entered the play- 
 house she, in her ostentatious mock-finery, he in the 
 very severity of rigid, uncompromising evening garb. 
 Mr. Covington was amused at the frequent charges 
 that he wrote Miss Sydenham's criticisms. As a 
 sense of humor was entirely foreign to him, and a 
 frivolity of style distinctly antipodal to his nature, he 
 might have been even more legitimately amused than 
 he was. 
 
 This young man had lovable qualities, and his short- 
 comings were merely superficial. His sincerity shone 
 from his face. He avoided the petty jealousies, the 
 stinging disappointments, the deadening of the finer 
 nature's susceptibilities, and the ostracising necessi- 
 ties of newspaper life. He knew that they existed, 
 but did not care to take chances. His life was simple 
 and uninspiring. What the world thought that was 
 everything to him. It was a species of altruistic 
 selfishness, if there be such a paradoxical combination. 
 He estimated his own value by the fictitious tag that 
 Mrs. Grundy stitched to him. 
 
 Mr. Covington entered his club one morning in 
 feverish haste. It was his custom to read the morning 
 papers there, as it gave him the leisurely pose of a 
 flaneur. He usually sat in a leather chair by a large 
 window, and ambled through his task. Passers-by
 
 52 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 nodded to him occasionally, which pleased him, and 
 the "Hallo, Charlie!" that greeted him at times was 
 music to him. Such easy, unstudied popularity was 
 delightful. 
 
 On this occasion Charlie appeared to be ill at ease. 
 He took up the paper for which Miss Sydenham wrote, 
 but did not open it. He had a presentiment of un- 
 pleasantness. He had accompanied Sallie the night 
 before to a music-hall, and the memory of the enter- 
 tainment was particularly galling. The feature of the 
 programme had been a duel, fought by two arch 
 young women. The conventionalities had been blithe- 
 ly disregarded. After disrobing for the contest, the 
 girls had -horrified the audience by appearing stripped 
 to the waist, without the traditional fleshings. New 
 York likes its forbidden fruit well hidden, and the ex- 
 hibition had been received with righteous howls of 
 disgust. Ladies had risen and departed, men had 
 hissed, and there had been a sort of pandemonium. 
 
 Charlie Covington, as he sat with the still unopened 
 paper in his hand, tried to recall his own sensations. 
 He thought he hoped that he had felt embarrassed, 
 for Sallie's sake rather than for his own ; but he could 
 not be quite sure of it. Miss Sydenham had laughed 
 apathetically at the crass stupidity of the "feature," 
 and had declined to move from her box. She had rea- 
 soned, with some apparent logic, that a newspaper 
 writer was valueless if carried away too completely by 
 personal sentiments. It might be "good journalism" 
 to profess these sentiments, but to experience them 
 veritably was the very height of weakness. 
 
 "I am here," she had said, "to tell the public what I 
 see, and there is no reason why I should allow my own 
 sweet personal modesty to do my readers out of their
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 53 
 
 daily dose. They are not responsible for the sad fact 
 that I am a perfect lady." 
 
 Sallie had sat there and had seemed to enjoy watch- 
 ing the expressions on the faces of the men and wo- 
 men, and Mr. Covington certainly remembered it 
 he had failed to argue the matter with her. He had 
 stayed, as though convinced, and he had laughed. He 
 recalled his laughter a light, mirthless laughter. This 
 was the truth; there was no doubt about it. Yet 
 Sallie was a girl, and a pretty girl ; and he was a man 
 at the apogee of his virility. What was there in the 
 mystic exigencies of journalism that had dulled those 
 facts for him last night? Charlie Covington always 
 prided himself upon his chivalry, and surely a man 
 could not write himself away from that. 
 
 He sighed, and the paper rustled in his hand. If 
 Sallie had taken a correct and serious view of an ex- 
 tremely degrading exhibition, he would have no cause 
 for self-reproach. He could even justify his course 
 in allowing her to remain. 
 
 As he read the article his face fell. A dull, brick- 
 red glow spread along his forehead, and he bit his mus- 
 tache with febrile zest. Miss Sydenham had "guyed" 
 the entire thing, and had hurled at it the shafts of a 
 misdirected ridicule. Hundreds of people might read 
 this, and laugh. To Charlie Covington it was hor- 
 rible. Miss Sydenham had religiously closed her eyes 
 to the impropriety of the undressed duel. "There 
 was no excuse for it," she wrote, "inasmuch as both 
 ladies were so exceedingly ill-formed that the artistic 
 sense was shocked. The challenging girl looked so 
 much like a Hottentot that we simply screamed for 
 corsets. The other resembled a jelly that had not 
 'jelled,' and the public felt sorry for her. Action on
 
 54 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 the part of the authorities will be unnecessary. Who 
 would care to interfere with a Hottentot or a jelly?" 
 
 Charlie Covington let the paper fall, sincerely 
 grieved. His eyes looked through the club window, 
 but saw nothing. For the first time the cries of "Hal- 
 lo, Charlie !" were unheard by him. Miss Sydenham's 
 article would cause discussion, but of the wrong sort, 
 and her motives would be impugned certainly with 
 justice. If she had only taken a woman's view of the 
 show just for once! If she had but allowed an in- 
 jured femininity to shine through her article! In 
 every paper that day this nauseating duel had probably 
 been ferociously "roasted," and Sallie Sydenham had 
 laughed at it as no man would have dared to laugh. 
 They would all say that she was lacking in the moral 
 sense, and . . . and . . . other hateful things. If 
 she had written as she surely must have felt, all would 
 have been well. The comments of a girl, or a wife, 
 or a mother, would ha.ve been valuable. She might 
 have attacked the thing from each or all of these 
 points. Sallie had lost a valuable opportunity, and 
 had deliberately sacrificed morality to a perverse flip- 
 pancy. It was maddening. 
 
 He told himself that it was all his fault; that the 
 disgrace lay at his door as surely as it did at hers. 
 The whole episode was simply disgusting. He rose 
 and walked up and down, raging against journalism. 
 Sallie needed a moral support. A woman might think 
 that she could wade through the improprieties, man- 
 like and alone, to emerge unsullied. But he did not 
 think that it was possible. "He that touches pitch 
 shall be defiled therewith," he remembered; and how 
 much more she? It was awful to think of this young 
 woman wasting her God-given wit in cesspools. And 
 yet ... and yet ... he thought of Amelia Am-
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 55 
 
 berg Hutchinson, Anastasia Atwood, Lamp-Post Lucy, 
 and the other untrousered specimens of Owldom. They 
 were journalism's substitute for so-called "womanly 
 women," but how distasteful and repulsive! Was 
 there no medium between their canting stupidity and 
 Sallie's revolutionary recklessness? 
 
 She knew no women, and if he believed what she 
 said had no desire to do so. Women were either 
 jealous of her vogue, or opposed to her ruthless frank- 
 ness. Sallie could neither interest women nor feel in- 
 terested in them. She had no ideas on the servant-girl 
 question but humorous ones. Her convictions on the 
 subject of stewing prunes or preserving tomatoes were 
 positively sinful. She hated to be asked her 
 opinions on current literature, the emptiness of 
 which she despised. She laughed at the high-falutin 
 gibberish of Marie Corelli, and the fervid mock-hero- 
 ics of Hall Caine. Poetry she could not understand, 
 except that of Anastasia Atwood, which appealed to 
 her distressing sense of the ludicrous. 
 
 Charlie Covington realized, perhaps for the first 
 time, that Sallie was quite impossible. Some influ- 
 ence, however, must be brought to bear upon her. If 
 she could only be induced to form some girl friend- 
 ship, what an inestimable boon it would be for her. 
 This constant association with the other sex, this noc- 
 turnal haunting of the newspaper office, this perpetual 
 quest for a humorous outlook, were demoralizing. He 
 fancied that Miss Sydenham was more alive to the 
 good opinion of Jack Childers than to that of anybody 
 else. 
 
 He was very fond of Jack Childers, whose amiable, 
 unspoiled nature he admired. Childers must surely 
 see that this girl was ruining herself. He. must cer- 
 tainly realize that she was jeopardizing her reputation
 
 56 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 even for newspaper purposes. He would see Jack 
 Childers at once. The idea came to him as though in 
 swift inspiration. He would consult the managing 
 editor immediately. There was no time to be lost. It 
 seemed to him as though the Tenderloination of this 
 girl were achieving itself suddenly. The process must 
 be arrested before it was too late. Charlie Covington 
 was not addicted to an intensity of energy, but five 
 minutes after he had decided to see Mr. Childers he 
 was on his way downtown. 
 
 The soles of Mr. Childers' patent leather boots were 
 in unsullied evidence, elevated gracefully upon an ad- 
 joining desk, as Charlie Covington was admitted to the 
 tiny office in which Sallie Sydenham was wont to seek 
 nocturnal nepenthe after her day's work. Mr. Childers 
 was meditating, and the thoughtful American, when he 
 meditates, uplifts his feet. In other countries the ordi- 
 nary cerebrating male rivets his eyes upon the ceiling; 
 in America, it is always the feet that clamor for the 
 skyward pose. The managing editor came back to 
 earth as his visitor entered, and gave to Mr. Covington 
 the cordial greeting of the outside world instead of 
 the uncompromising grunt that is characteristic of 
 Owldom. 
 
 "This is kind of you, Charlie, old man," he said in the 
 soothing, amiable voice that to his reporters was pleas- 
 antest music. "You don't favor me very often, I'm 
 sorry to say. Sit down and make your miserable life 
 happy." 
 
 Charlie Covington was too nervous to sit, and there 
 was not sufficient room to walk. So he hovered un- 
 comfortably in the vicinity of Mr. Childers, who, his 
 nerves being well-trained and non-refractory, was not 
 annoyed. 
 
 "I'm rather upset to-day, Childers," he said, "and I
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 57 
 
 thought I'd run in and see you. It is a purely per- 
 sonal matter, and I beg that you will consider it as 
 such. The fact is that I am the miscreant who took 
 Miss Sydenham to that loathsome affair at the music 
 hall last night. I I can't tell you how painful it is to 
 me to admit it. But it is the truth, and and though 
 I might have influenced her, or have tried to influence 
 her, to write in a very different strain, I I'm sorry to 
 say I didn't." 
 
 Jack Childers looked for a moment in amaze at the 
 troubled face of his friend. His instincts told him 
 that the Quixotic Covington was self-reproachful. But 
 on his desk before him was Sallie Sydenham's "story," 
 cut out and on view, and as he remembered it he burst 
 out laughing. 
 
 "I'm glad you didn't try to suppress Sallie," he said, 
 simmering from his laughter to a smile. "We should 
 have missed a good deal if you had. Her story to-day 
 was quite the happiest thing in the paper. It has made 
 a hit. I read it twice, and laughed more heartily at 
 the second reading than at the first. Sallie has such a 
 refreshingly novel way of looking at things." 
 
 Charlie Covington peered at Mr. Childers for a 
 moment without speaking. Then he said: "I don't 
 believe that she really looks at things in the reckless 
 way that you imagine. She expresses herself in this 
 abandoned style because she is encouraged to do so. 
 But old man don't you think it's rather rough on a 
 girl ? Isn't it just a trifle low-down to allow any young 
 woman to flaunt herself before the public as a as a 
 in this loose and degraded way ? Do you think that, 
 as a man, you are justified in countenancing it?" 
 
 Jack Childers was surprised, and he looked it. If 
 Charlie Covington had been anybody else, he would 
 have laughed him to instant subjection. But he had a
 
 5 8 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 keen admiration for this slim young clubman who had 
 one foot in journalism and the other in Utopia. 
 
 "My dear fellow," he said, "you are blue to-day. 
 You are out of sorts. Sallie has written a good many 
 articles for us, and they have all been rather low at the 
 neck and short at the skirt. But they are clever and 
 they are brilliant. It is refreshing to find a woman 
 who does not deal with these matters as my corps of 
 petticoated frumps would do, if they had the chance. 
 You must remember that we pay Miss Sydenham an 
 unusual salary, and that she justifies it by unusual 
 work." 
 
 "Oh, I know, I know all that," Mr. Covington re- 
 torted impatiently. "That is not the point. Sallie is 
 a gi r i an d a young girl thoughtless, extravagant, 
 and foolish. She has no idea what she is doing for 
 herself. She is sowing a terrible seed, and she will 
 surely reap a cruel harvest." 
 
 Jack Childers sighed. He hated copy-book senti- 
 ments. "As ye sow, so shall ye reap" seemed to him 
 a somewhat banal idea for the fastidious Mr. Coving- 
 ton to iterate. 
 
 "This is not a Sunday-school, my boy," he said 
 rather coldly, "and there is no reason why Miss Syd- 
 enham should believe that it is. She is a nice, jolly 
 girl, and I like her immensely. Personally, as well as 
 professionally, I appreciate her. Let her alone, Char- 
 lie. When she is fifty she can write recipes for pick- 
 led cabbage, and advice to those who are freckled and 
 seedy. There is plenty of time." 
 
 "You do not understand me," persisted the other. 
 "I said at the beginning that this was personal. Would 
 you care to see your cousin's name signed to Miss 
 Sydenham's article of to-day?" 
 
 Jack Childers was displeased, and a flush mounted
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 59 
 
 to his forehead. "Leave Miss Hampton out, Charlie," 
 he said, "and don't, for Heaven's sake, be heroic. Miss 
 Sydenham is not my cousin. If she were, I should be 
 very sorry indeed to see her in journalism in any ca- 
 pacity. What what on earth is the matter with you 
 to-day?" 
 
 "Sallie values your good opinion," Mr. Covington 
 continued, ploddingly, blindly seeking a weak point 
 in the managing editor's armor coat. "I know she 
 does. One word from you would do a great deal, and 
 I think you should speak it. The girl is ruining her- 
 self for a salary. As you say, she has written many 
 decollete effusions, and I have never even alluded to 
 them. But last night she went too far. There is a 
 happy medium in everything. Besides, it is bad for the 
 paper to champion a woman who apparently I say 
 apparently forgets her sex." 
 
 Mr. Childers folded his arms, and could not resist 
 the temptation of winking at the serious young man. 
 He was restored to good humor, and he realized that 
 if Sallie's article brought forth such protests from a 
 friend, it was indeed even more startling than he had 
 imagined. Jack Childers knew the value of startling, 
 and it appealed to him. 
 
 "If I thought that it would hurt the girl," he said 
 presently, with sincerity, "I would do as you suggest, 
 Charlie. But it cannot hurt her. Sallie is a little 
 devil, and all the preaching in the world would not re- 
 duce her work to the flabby platitudes of a seam- 
 stress." 
 
 "Miss Sydenham's better self detests all this," Mr. 
 Covington declared emphatically. "I am sure of it. 
 She assumes a pose, but in reality she is sensitive, mod- 
 est, and more femininely decorous than all your 
 frumps."
 
 60 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 Mr. Childers shrugged his shoulders. "I dare say," 
 he remarked. "Why not ? But I am not as interested 
 in Sallie's better self as I am in her journalistic dupli- 
 cate. Why should I be? Come, Charlie, old man, 
 don't you see that you are you are way off? Prob- 
 ably Bernhardt has a better self, and is a loving 
 mother and a doting grandmother. But when she plays 
 Camille and Tosca and other discordantly moral ladies, 
 we accept her at her face value, and are thankful 
 for it. How is the book world ?" 
 
 Mr. Covington sat down, fidgeted, crossed his legs, 
 stared at the brass door-knob as though it were a crys- 
 tal globe that brought to his consciousness submerged 
 visions or an unimagined futurity, and spoke slowly. 
 
 "Suppose, old man," he said, "suppose, just for a 
 moment, that you were in love with Sallie Sydenham 
 what would you do? Would this pose, that you enjoy 
 so much at present, appeal to you as a happy one? 
 Would your chivalrous sentiments still sink themselves 
 in editorial approval of 'a good thing'?" 
 
 The young man's crystal-gazing was ineffective. 
 The managing editor laughed heartily, and Charlie 
 Covington saw that he had gone astray in his hypothet- 
 ical case. 
 
 "My imagination is a fairly good one," said Mr. 
 Childers. "It is not called into play very frequently, 
 as you may suppose. Still, I like to give it an airing, 
 and shake out the moths occasionally. But I cannot 
 place it in the position that you suggest. Why ask me 
 to picture myself as in love with the strange ladies of a 
 newspaper office ? Are you going to wed me to Amelia 
 Amberg Thingummy, or make me a co-respondent to 
 Mr. Anastasia Atwood? I admit, my dear fellow, 
 that Sallie is not in their class, never was, and never
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 61 
 
 will be. But ... I am not going to fall in love with 
 her. When I do, she will not be asked to write for a 
 living. Poor Sallie ! . . ." 
 
 He sighed involuntarily, and was not quite as amused 
 as he had been. Then he looked rather sharply 
 at the dejected features of Charlie Covington, after 
 which his usual charming manner reasserted itself, and 
 he glanced tenderly at this unsullied friend of his. He 
 had always liked Charlie Covington, and now he felt 
 fonder of him than ever, for he saw his scruples and 
 understood, though he failed to appreciate, them. 
 
 "Live and let live, Charlie," he said. "Sallie is earn- 
 ing a man's salary by a man's work. If she is careful, 
 she can quit journalism in a year or two, and marry 
 or not marry, or do whatever she likes. Give the girl 
 a chance, and don't preach her out of her originality 
 and enthusiasm. She isn't our sister, or our mother, 
 or our sweetheart, but merely a good fellow. I always 
 tell her so. I'm quite fond of her, and we have rare 
 old talks. I wish she smoked. Over a pipe, Sallie and 
 I could have fine times." 
 
 "That is the trouble," Mr. Covington insisted. "It 
 is this terrible atmosphere that oppresses her. She 
 lives such a life! She should have women friends. 
 She should associate occasionally with her own sex." 
 
 "Why don't you tell her so?" cried Mr. Childers. 
 "Surround her with women, if you think it is better. 
 Personally, I don't agree with you. Sallie needs con- 
 genial spirits, and women are not such ... for her, 
 at any rate. But try it, old man, and see what it will 
 do. Why don't you suggest it to her?" 
 
 "I have no influence with Miss Sydenham," he an- 
 swered, with a tinge of bitterness. "She likes me, but 
 I am merely an escort. Perhaps I do her even more
 
 62 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 harm than good. I suppose that people talk about see- 
 ing us together all the time. I wish you would sug- 
 gest the idea of feminine friends to her." 
 
 "Not I," retorted Childers. "It is none of my busi- 
 ness, and I prefer to keep Sallie for myself. I may be 
 selfish, but I shall not interfere. She must do as she 
 likes, as far as I am concerned. And she will come to 
 no harm. I think I can promise you that. It is not 
 the outspoken woman who comes to grief. There is no 
 corrosive influence in a plain expression of frank opin- 
 ion. It is these terrible petticoated frumps with the 
 repressed ideas that go more swiftly to perdition. I'd 
 trust Sallie further than I would the Anastasia hus- 
 band, slot-machine industry, and inspirational poems 
 notwithstanding." 
 
 Charlie Covington's depression was heavy, and he 
 could not shake it off. It clung to him like an Old 
 Man of the Sea and seemed to throttle him. He now 
 felt sorry that he had approached Jack Childers on this 
 subject, as his mission had proved to be so signally 
 unsuccessful. He tried to believe that he had been 
 making mountains out of molehills, but from his im- 
 mutable view-point he could not bring himself to that 
 belief. He could even see the case from Mr. Childers' 
 position, but that fact brought no satisfaction to 
 his mind. The only thing to do was to subject Miss 
 Sydenham to some outside influence something that 
 would oust her thoughts from the eternal routine 
 of Newspaperdom. Her avowed antipathy to women 
 might, after all, be part of her pose. He was not clever 
 enough to fathom the depths of her character. He 
 would do what he could, for he could not help feeling 
 responsible for her welfare. 
 
 But he could not discuss irrelevancies with Jack 
 Childers to-day. With a heavy heart he left the news-
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 63 
 
 paper office, on the stairs of which he heard two un- 
 fledged office boys indulging in ribald laughter, and evi- 
 dently analysing the obliquities of Sallie's article. He 
 heard one lad say : "She's a warm one, ain't she?" To 
 which the other replied : "A regular scorcher." 
 And his spirits sank to their lowest ebb.
 
 64 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 ALLIE shook the dust of Newspaper Row 
 from her feet, and with the contents of her 
 mail-box unopened, and stowed away in her 
 pockets, she proceeded homeward, there to 
 bask in the luxury of "a night off." Theoretically, 
 Sallie revelled in the idea of this solitary, inactive 
 evening, far from the nocturnal, moping owls and the 
 disgruntled masculinity of Owldom. She buoyed her- 
 self up with the anticipation of this respite. Yet the 
 anticipation was invariably its most cheering feature. 
 
 She hated and she knew that she hated the dull, 
 unillumined, meditative evening that was hers when 
 she shook off her shackles and retired to her little six- 
 room kennel and its shabby respectability. It was all 
 so dreary, so morgue-like, and so uninspiring. She 
 lived in a tightly filled apartment house, near the con- 
 venient Elevated station and lines of clanging, whiz- 
 zing, orange-tinted cable-cars. But when her hall door 
 had closed, she felt as Robinson Crusoe must have 
 felt on his desert island. 
 
 She had discovered that New York is probably the 
 least sociable and the most inquisitive city in the world. 
 The crowding humanity with which Sallie's house 
 bulged was devoted to "nine refined families, without 
 children." These families were heavily, oppressively, 
 dismally, and lugubriously respectable. Perhaps if the 
 Malthusian idea had been less rigidly suggested by the 
 owner of the house, the "nine refined families" might 
 have been tinted by some of the hues of humanity. As 
 it was, their reputable childlessness and indefatigable 
 propriety turned the milk of their sympathy into a sort
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 65 
 
 of curd of relentless curiosity. Not one of the child- 
 less matrons in the house had ever called upon the 
 lonely girl, or sought to dissipate the titillant suspicions 
 that her demeanor and her unchaperoned celibacy pos- 
 sibly aroused. The matrons preferred the titillant sus- 
 picions that gave spurious spice to their own addled, 
 abortive lives. 
 
 Why did she live alone? What respectable girl 
 ever lived alone? How was it that no women ever 
 came to see her ? Was it true that she had been to the 
 theatre, "writing pieces for a paper," when she silently 
 let herself in, always after midnight? Could any wo- 
 man legitimately afford to live in these apartments, 
 without husband or protector? They could have an- 
 swered all these questions quite easily, but they pre- 
 ferred not to do so. A satisfactory solution of these 
 problems would have been most . . . unsatisfactory. 
 
 In houses like this, where dank respectability is a 
 blight upon the uplifting tendency of the human soul, 
 and where the proprieties stalk like ghouls in the ceme- 
 tery of sympathies stark and dead, the boon of blithe 
 and recreative intercourse is impossible. Sallie was 
 left severely alone ; but nine women watched her ; nine 
 pairs of eyes, from which the cradle gleam had been 
 crushed, knew the exact amount of her grocer's, butch- 
 er's, and baker's bills ; nine opaque, prosaic minds tried 
 to read the truth of her Bohemianism in distorted 
 script ; nine pairs of hands were ready to pull her down, 
 if she gave them the opportunity, and nine pairs of feet 
 would have jumped upon her willingly when down. 
 Yet it was a very typical New York apartment house. 
 Sallie did not consciously exact sociability. Had she 
 done so, she could have found it in the so-called slums. 
 It is there that the cultivation of exotic selfishness is 
 stupidly neglected.
 
 66 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 This condition of things appealed most strenuously 
 to Sallie's gorgeous sense of humor. It tickled her, 
 and she enjoyed it. She had learned of its existence 
 in some mysterious way possibly through Rosina, her 
 colored maid, a most devoted damsel with a coffee- 
 cream complexion, who easily absorbed outside influ- 
 ences. Sallie was pleased to feel like the veiled lady 
 in the melodramas that she loved to "guy." She re- 
 joiced in picturing herself as leading, perhaps, a dou- 
 ble life as though one were not enough! Perhaps 
 these ladies thought she had a "cheeyild" conveniently 
 hidden, and two or three well-seasoned husbands in 
 deftly scattered localities. 
 
 She was not anxious to know her sister occupants. 
 She felt that they were kitchen-y creatures the sort 
 of women who are always flitting around dusting 
 things and arranging furniture. She disliked the 
 brand very cordially, except for purposes of humor. 
 
 And now and now she was home again. The cov- 
 eted respite had come at last, and with its advent she 
 experienced her usual sense of dissatisfaction and 
 weariness. Newspaper Row certainly took all her pith 
 from her and left but a husk. She never realized how 
 necessary were its moil and excitement to her until she 
 was "home" in solitary glory. 
 
 Even now the temptation to plunge into the contents 
 of her mail, before she had partaken of her lonely din- 
 ner, was strong upon her. Under such conditions 
 small grievances, like ill-weeds, grew apace, and invol- 
 untary exaggeration achieved preposterous results. So 
 Sallie sat down to her unenlivened meal and allowed 
 Rosina to appeal to her appetite. The tinted hand- 
 maiden was as loquacious as the rest of her race, and 
 Sallie was too weary to rejoice in a dignified silence. 
 Rosina's prattle was restful, and she put no extin- 
 guisher upon it.
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 67 
 
 "The people downstairs," said Rosina, as she poured 
 out a glass of cheap claret for Sallie (vintage, the day 
 before yesterday; caves, those of the corner grocery), 
 "are always asking about you. At least, their girl is, and 
 I suppose that she has her instructions. They kind o' 
 think you're in the chorus somewhere. Susan, the girl, 
 asked me for tickets, so that she could see you." 
 
 Sallie smiled. "Do I look so chorus-y, Rosina?" she 
 asked. 
 
 "Not to me," declared the maiden, rather reluctant- 
 ly; "but I suppose they notice that er er " She 
 hesitated, and would probably have colored if nature 
 had left a place for such visible emotionalism in the 
 dusky tint of her skin. 
 
 "Notice what?" queried Sallie, sipping her wickedly 
 up-to-date claret. 
 
 Rosina was silent for a moment. Then she said 
 slowly : "That you don't look quite like other people." 
 
 "Come, out with it, my girl," cried Miss Sydenham, 
 beginning to enjoy herself. "Why don't I look like 
 other people? I have two eyes, and a nose, and two 
 arms. For all they know to the contrary, I don't pos- 
 sess a wooden leg. Why am I unlike other people?" 
 
 "Well," said Rosina, rather shamefacedly, "Susan 
 says that you rouge your face terribly, and that private 
 ladies she called them private ladies never do. I'd 
 sooner not have told you, Miss, but perhaps it is best 
 for you to know what they say. I told Susan that it 
 was a lie." 
 
 "But it isn't, Rosina," retorted Miss Sydenham. "It 
 is quite true. See," and with her serviette, slightly 
 moistened, she rubbed her cheek, and held up the scar- 
 let stain for inspection. 
 
 The handmaiden looked astonished. "Of course, I 
 knew that you did it, Miss," she gasped, "but I thought
 
 68 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 it best to tell Susan you didn't, because er well, be- 
 cause " 
 
 "Because what ?" 
 
 "Oh, Miss Sydenham," the girl responded awkward- 
 ly, "why are you so strange? You know I'm sure 
 you know. People think it isn't respectable." 
 
 "Let them think," Miss Sydenham said, as she slow- 
 ly dissected her mutton-chop. She was in a mood 
 that is popularly and inelegantly described as "cussed." 
 Possibly the dignity of this proceeding may not be par- 
 ticularly impressive, but when a lonely girl is compelled 
 to sit in comparative solitude with the alternative of 
 silent dignity or frivolous loquacity, she may prefer 
 the latter, even if she be forced to indulge in it with 
 none but a domestic and her own domestic. 
 
 Rosina bustled around rather aimlessly. Her good- 
 natured face was under a cloud. She was restless and 
 uneasy, for she was quite devoted to her scatter-brained 
 mistress, and very nearly understood her complex char- 
 acter. 
 
 "I'm older than you are, Miss Sallie," she said pres- 
 ently, when the rice-pudding stage had approached, 
 "and I'm only a colored girl. But seems to me and 
 you'll forgive me for saying it, Miss that you make 
 a mistake." 
 
 Sallie sighed. She thought of Charlie Covington, 
 and of Jack Childers, and of a good many other people 
 and things. And she sighed again as she said: "I 
 make a good many, Rosina." 
 
 "Oh, no, Miss. You know your own business ; but 
 but wouldn't it be a good thing for you, Miss Sal- 
 lie, if you stopped these folks chattering? If they 
 knew you they'd like you. I'm sure if you asked them 
 up to "afternoon tea occasionally they'd come, and er 
 well, it would kind of be a good thing for you all
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 69 
 
 alone as you are. They don't amount to much, but 
 they're better than none at all. It isn't good for a girl 
 like you always, always to be by yourself. It isn't 
 natural." 
 
 Sallie put her elbows on the table and leaned her 
 head upon her hands. She was amused and slightly 
 impressed by poor Rosina's words. She liked this 
 faithful, humble thing, who had begun by calling her 
 "honey," and whom she had weaned from an apparent- 
 ly endearing epithet that had made her feel like a coon 
 song. 
 
 "I am not quite alone, Rosina," she said, with forced 
 gayety. "You're here, aren't you? You can defend 
 me. I don't want these people, and I won't have them. 
 You can tell them that I paint, and that I put my feet 
 on the table it is my table and that I smoke, and 
 go to the devil generally." 
 
 "But you don't, Miss," was the quiet rejoinder, "and 
 there is no use pretending to do such things. I wish 
 you'd get married, Miss Sallie. I do, indeed. Girls 
 hadn't ought to live like men, when they are real 
 real girls, even if they play that they're not." 
 
 "Then you positively think that, after all, I am a real, 
 real girl, Rosina ?" 
 
 " 'Deed 'n I do, honey," she said, relapsing for a 
 moment into dialect, and then shaking it off. "You 
 can't fool this child. You're a real girl, right enough." 
 
 "Give me a light, Rosina," Miss Sydenham went on 
 a moment later, after producing a cigarette. "Thanks, 
 very much," puffing forth a cloud of smoke rather rue- 
 fully. "And now" lifting one small foot after the 
 other and deliberately putting both on the table "now 
 do you think I'm a real girl ?" 
 
 The colored maid chuckled. In her honest heart 
 she was a bit startled; but Rosina belonged to a race
 
 70 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 that loves entertainment, and her young mistress was 
 as good as a variety show. She had laughed at less 
 humorous stage incidents in her loud yet melodious 
 way. 
 
 "Answer me, Rosina," Miss Sydenham persisted. 
 "Take a good look first. Here I am cigarette deli- 
 cately poised between my fingers all my feet rudely 
 elevated on the mahogany signs of revelry every- 
 where" She pointed to the cheap claret bottle with- 
 out a label, and to the luxurious remains of the muddy 
 rice pudding. "You see how horribly unwomanly it 
 all is. No crochet, no embroidery, no stockings to 
 darn nothing nothing nothing. Tell me even now 
 am I a real woman?" 
 
 Sallie waited impatiently for the answer, as she found 
 elevated feet most uncomfortable (how could Jack 
 Childers invariably sit with them perched aloft?) and 
 the cigarette smoke irritated her bronchial tubes most 
 alarmingly. 
 
 "Even now," replied Rosina, with a grin that seemed 
 to be all wool and a yard wide, "you're a real girl, and 
 you ought to be a wife and a mother ; and you will be, 
 when the right man comes along. And I dare say I 
 shouldn't be surprised if you knew that right man 
 now, and was just waiting for him to say 'Be 
 mine.' " 
 
 Sallie flushed quickly, and then laughed rather 
 mirthlessly. She was very nearly amused, but not 
 quite. Rosina jarred upon her nerves somewhat se- 
 verely. She was rather vexed that she had counte- 
 nanced this dialogue. But it was better than 
 soliloquizing. She rather envied Hamlet and other 
 soliloquizing gentlemen who could ease their souls by 
 saying lovely things to nobody in particular. Such 
 habits must be comforting as the confessional. If she
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 71 
 
 had only been born into stage life instead of real life, 
 nothing would have mattered, for on the stage the vil- 
 lain in his cell, and the hero on a desert island, are never 
 silent or lonely. They talk to the stones or the grass, 
 and are quite happy and chatty. 
 
 She sent Rosina away and put her feet down. Then 
 she threw away the cigarette, which she had so often 
 tried, unsuccessfully, to enjoy. Carefully she placed 
 the cork in the bottle of evil claret, and laughed aloud 
 as she recalled Jack Childers' epicurean remarks on 
 the subject of claret. "After a bottle has been opened 
 it is no good except to drink immediately," he had said. 
 "Even the hole made by a corkscrew spoils claret. It 
 should never be kept. And never buy cheap claret. 
 Water is much healthier and pleasanter." And then 
 she recalled it all quite readily he had spoken of 
 Pommard, and Beaune, and St. Julien, and St. Estephe. 
 She wondered what he would think of her pet brand, 
 bought at the grocer's, with a tin of tomatoes and some 
 strawberry jam? 
 
 The idea tickled her fancy so that she laughed con- 
 tinuously for at least two minutes. He would think 
 that she was very squalid. Jack Childers was one of 
 those many men who discuss wine as though it were a 
 religion.. He had a regular wine creed. He could 
 argue about Pommery as though it were Christian Sci- 
 ence. Once he had been seriously offended with her 
 because she had insisted upon putting sugar in her 
 Sauterne. They had dined together that night it 
 was a busy office night and neither had been able to 
 go uptown. Mr. Childers was most devout on the sub- 
 ject of wine. 
 
 The table had been cleared, and Rosina, with one 
 or two sympathetic glances at her mistress, had re- 
 tired to the kitchen. Miss Sydenham felt that she was
 
 72 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 now strong enough to open her mail, and prepared her- 
 self for its usual revelations. 
 
 The first letter she opened was from a "gentleman," 
 who gave his name and address. He had read her 
 "racy" articles for a long time with keen delight. But 
 it was her frank and breezy handling of the duel inci- 
 dent at the music-hall that had at last induced him to 
 write to her. He would be extremely glad to meet her. 
 He was young and affluent, and he added, as a sort of 
 afterthought, in the nauseating language of the crea- 
 tures who frequent the "personal" column of public 
 organs, that he was "very fond of fun." 
 
 Sallie tore up the letter in a fury, and the fact that, 
 by her work, she had laid herself open to just such in- 
 sult was no balm to her indignation. It was disgust- 
 ing, and for a moment, a wild idea of answering the 
 letter flitted through her brain. It was several minutes 
 before she was able to smile again, and to place the in- 
 cident where it belonged. 
 
 Letter No. 2 was from an actress whom Sallie had 
 called fat. "You you, of all people, should be careful 
 how you criticize personal appearance," wrote the in- 
 furiated lady. "Why, you're more made up than any 
 of us with your red cheeks and your bleached 
 hair . . ." 
 
 Then came a note signed "Wife and Mother," beg- 
 ging Sallie to reform before it was too late. This 
 kindly correspondent insisted that Sallie had an immor- 
 tal soul, which she was jeopardizing by her reckless, 
 ruthless work. "What shall it profit a man aye, and 
 a woman," she wrote, sexing the Biblical quotation 
 comfortably to fit the situation, "if she win the whole 
 world and lose her own soul?" 
 
 The anonymous letter is popularly supposed to have 
 no sting. Logic is always played effectively around it,
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 73 
 
 and this logic says that if a writer be too cowardly to 
 sign his name to his communication, his bark must be 
 worse than his bite. But all this is unavailing. The 
 anonymous letter is invariably cruel. Those that came 
 to Sallie Sydenham, and they were many, wounded her 
 deeply. 
 
 The handwriting of the next letter was familiar to 
 her. It was that of her only sister, Lettie, in Chicago, 
 and Sallie's eyes moistened as she opened it. The 
 "family" instinct, repressed and starved as it was, nev- 
 ertheless asserted itself. 
 
 "My darling old girl," wrote Lettie, "I feel so terri- 
 bly like an Old Woman of the Sea as I write these lines, 
 that I am quite ashamed of myself. It's about those 
 singing lessons. The one lesson a week has been get- 
 ting along very nicely, and Mme. Valerie seemed to 
 think it enough. You remember we told her that we 
 were not millionaires. Well, to put it briefly, the lady 
 now declares that two will be absolutely necessary, and 
 that if I wish to continue I cannot do with less. Isn't 
 it horrid? I do so hate asking you for more money, 
 you dear, good, hard-working girl, but I know you 
 would be indignant if I didn't tell you the whole truth. 
 It means ten dollars a week more and more music 
 and oh, I loathe myself . . ." 
 
 Sallie's eyes grew even moisten She was grateful 
 for this letter from the one person in the world who 
 really loved her, for her real self. Many "self-support- 
 ing" girls would have regarded Lettie as a very serious 
 incubus. To Sallie this responsibility was one of the 
 few genuine pleasures of her life. She was thankful 
 that she was able to respond in coin, and if Sallie played 
 her part in Newspaper Row too realistically for the 
 fastidious, she never forgot that it gave her the power 
 to aid Lettie.
 
 74 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 And so it came about that the contents of the next 
 letter, which bore the signature of Charlie Covington, 
 fell even natter than they would have done under less 
 strenuous circumstances and conditions. This was the 
 letter : 
 "My Dear Sallie: 
 
 "Your article on that luckless music-hall show pained 
 me more than I can tell you. If you choose to so think, 
 you can call it selfish pain, for I have reproached 
 myself bitterly ever since for my criminal behavior in 
 allowing you to remain in the theatre. But, putting 
 aside my own feelings, don't you see can't you see- 
 that you are injuring yourself, and that in the long run 
 these methods, which your ill-advised newspaper 
 friends laugh at to-day, will ruin you? My dear girl, 
 you surely believe that I am your friend. I have tried 
 to show you that I am. And I say that you must posi- 
 tively be a little more careful. Don't sacrifice all that 
 is best in a woman, for the sake of the trivial applause 
 of those who don't care a hang what happens to you. 
 In a year or two, at this rate, you will be useless. 
 I felt so mortified that I contemplated calling at your 
 house to see you about it. I know you would have 
 welcomed such a visit, because it would have been so 
 unconventional. But for your own sake I nipped my- 
 self in the bud. Do, for goodness' sake, try and cul- 
 tivate the acquaintance of a few women. . . ." 
 
 Sallie threw the letter aside rather contemptuously. 
 She felt sorry to think that Charlie Covington was so 
 genuinely irritated ; but it could not be helped. The 
 role of the cut-and-dried newspaper woman was so 
 odious to her that she would continue to steer as far 
 away from it as she possibly could. She had no incli- 
 nation to be a frump. And she smiled as she thought 
 of Jack Childers' remarks on his army of trained jour-
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 75 
 
 nalistic ladies poetesses, freckle removers, recipe 
 writers, and "society" butterflies. Anything rather 
 than roles like that. She refused to sink to such a 
 level. 
 
 "They say," ran Sallie's thoughts, "that the newspa- 
 per woman unsexes herself. What is worth doing at 
 all is worth doing well. If I've got to unsex myself, I 
 may as well do it as thoroughly as possible." 
 
 In her heart she had no faith in this flippant solution 
 of a tedious problem. Sallie knew that, as a matter of 
 fact, a woman can remain a woman even in a newspa- 
 per office, if she cares to do so. The trouble was that 
 nobody cared to do so. Amelia Amberg Hutchinson, 
 Happy Hippy, Lamp-Post Lucy, and Anastasia At- 
 wood were not women. They were feeble imitations 
 of men. They had the weaknesses of their own sex, 
 and the impudent self-reliance of the other. Sallie 
 did not care for counterfeits. 
 
 The next envelope contained Mr. Atkinson Smith's 
 invitation to the newspaper anniversary celebration and 
 the cold collation! Sallie was young enough to feel 
 rather pleasantly excited about this. In fact and 
 those who have already dubbed her "strong-minded" 
 will be grieved to hear it she forgot everything else, 
 and like a vain little popinjay began to wonder if her 
 blue silk evening dress, with the lace, would be good 
 enough. 
 
 "I suppose Jack Childers' aunt and that wonderful 
 cousin of his will be there," she said aloud, "and I'm 
 simply pining to see them. And I must look nice, for 
 he will surely introduce me and then Charlie Coving- 
 ton will be satisfied, for I shall know a woman or two. 
 That kind of woman I'm willing to know." 
 
 She rose and walked up and down, rather sur- 
 prised to see the sepia features of Rosina in the door-
 
 76 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 way. The handmaiden, roused by the sound of her 
 mistress's voice, was in hopes that somebody had at last 
 slipped in to relieve the monotony of the girl's evening. 
 But she saw that Sallie was alone, and her face fell. 
 
 "If you've got to talk to yourself, honey I mean 
 Miss Sallie then we had better call in some neighbors, 
 or somebody. They say that those who talk to them- 
 selves talk to the devil." 
 
 Miss Sydenham laughed in sheer cheeriness of spirit. 
 "You're very rude, Rosina," she said; "but it doesn't 
 matter, and I can't bother about scolding you. I'm 
 asked out to an evening at the office next week, and 
 heaps of people will be there, and I shall get to know 
 them, and perhaps I'll ask them to dinner, and then 
 there'll be no more solemn, silent evenings. And I 
 shall become so respectable that Mrs. Thingummy 
 downstairs will move away in desperation. Rosina, 
 you must mend my blue silk dress for me, and I'll go 
 to that reception and make the hit of my life." 
 
 "And will he be there?" asked Rosina, with a very 
 wide smile. 
 
 "Who?" sharply. 
 
 "The right man." 
 
 "Rosina, you're bad bad to the core," said Sallie, 
 severely. "All my lords and masters will be there, and 
 the entire staff, and a lot of swell outsiders, and actors, 
 and judges, and high-executioners. And Miss Syden- 
 ham will wait until they have all arrived, when she 
 will frou-frou in and be introduced coyly and reluc- 
 tantly. Everybody will say, 'Who is that sweet girl 
 in blue?' And the sweet girl will bestow her favors 
 on all alike. She doesn't get such a chance every day. 
 She has nothing but gloomy old theatres and news- 
 paper columns to contend with." 
 
 And Sallie sat down and gayly opened the rest of her
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 77 
 
 letters. There were tickets for a reading by a dec- 
 ollete authoress; two more anonymous notes, warm 
 and vituperative; a managerial request for a curtain- 
 raiser from her pen (in order that she might hence- 
 forth deal tenderly with that generous manager's pro- 
 ductions) ; a demand for an interview, and other sig- 
 nificant affairs. 
 
 Sallie tore them all up, and wrote her answer to 
 Lettie.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 | HE anniversary celebration in Owldom was 
 very large, multi-colored, obtrusive, and pro- 
 trusive. The owls blinked in a veritable ec- 
 stasy of electric light, and cast a most allur- 
 ing iridescence over City Hall Park. Poor old Ben 
 Franklin, immovable as ever, glared stonily upon the 
 external "goings-on," and Greeley looked as though 
 he could have said a thing or two on the subject of 
 "this auspicious occasion" not necessarily for publi- 
 cation, but as a guarantee of good faith. Not a soli- 
 tary light, human or other, was hidden beneath a 
 bushel. In fact, bushels were distinctly vetoed. Any- 
 body who could say anything, or do anything, or see 
 anything, or wear anything, or think anything, said it, 
 and did it, and saw it, and wore it, and thought it, in 
 the blinding light of Owldom publicity. 
 
 The reception was held in a huge and handsomely 
 carpeted room, where ponderous editorial writers hung 
 daily upon the editorial "we" as though it were a ver- 
 bal trapeze. Opening from this apartment was a sanc- 
 tum, in which the "cold collation" had been prepared 
 ' upon a most elaborate scale, and quite regardless of ex- 
 pense. To the reportorial mind this feature of the 
 entertainment represented emphatic festivity ; to the ed- 
 itorial mind, wholesome and pardonable relaxation ; to 
 the general, non- journalistic mind, happy oblivion and 
 a logical raison d'etre. Perhaps the reportorial mind 
 had the best of it. 
 
 Everybody who was anybody had been invited, but- 
 many who were nobodies appeared. Still, it could 
 safely be chronicled that there was a "representative
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 79 
 
 gathering" present, because that popular phrase is so 
 delightfully vague, so exquisitely elastic, and so amia- 
 bly misleading. There were a few lawyers, who 
 loved to see their names in print; a judge or two; a 
 highly jocular coroner, whose inquests were witty, rol- 
 licking things; two police justices, famed for their 
 trenchant, entertaining dealings with the "drunk and 
 disorderly" class; two gentlemen and three ladies on 
 the outside edge of society, who had "got there" by 
 astute journalism, and who were grateful for a sort of 
 first aid to the ambitious; a whole galaxy of unread 
 authors with unreadable wares on the market, and 
 prospects of more ; and a senator famous for his after- 
 dinner speeches and a picturesque re-marriage, and 
 eminently popular in Owldom, inasmuch as he was in- 
 variably willing to rise from his downy couch at the 
 dead of night to tell any reporter anything either true 
 or false; false preferred. 
 
 In addition to these celebrities there was a wonder- 
 fully secular minister, whose custom it was to "take" 
 a Biblical text, and then proceed to preach about rapid 
 transit, or the Horse Show ; another gentleman of the 
 so-called cloth, who had made a great hit with a novel 
 and not uncomfortable theory of Hell ; and a third who 
 criticized immoral plays, and seemed to spend his life 
 clamoring for a "clean stage," which he was duly 
 thankful not to get, for it would have thrown him out 
 of a lucrative "job." The stage itself was, of course, 
 largely represented ; in fact, it rushed to Owldom from 
 its dressing-rooms. 
 
 Popular actresses came without husbands, and favor- 
 ite actors appeared minus wives. They were, of 
 course, "wedded to their art." There was a sprinkling 
 of soubrettes, accompanied by chaste, alpaca "mom- 
 mers" who were guaranteed never to see anything but
 
 8o A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 treasury day, and there were one or two "head-line" 
 variety people whose names were household words, 
 thanks to severe advertisement. 
 
 The staff wore its best bib and tucker, and was quite 
 irresistible. Jack Childers, looking rather red and em- 
 barrassed as though this sort of thing had not been 
 stipulated in his contract stood in a corner with Mrs. 
 Hampton, his aunt, and his charming cousin, Miss Ivy 
 Hampton, pale, ingenuous, tall, with shining silver- 
 gold hair, and a quaint retrousse nose. Mrs. Hampton 
 surveyed the gathering through a pair of insolent 
 lorgnettes very much as though it were a cattle show. 
 She held herself supremely aloof, and clung to Ivy's 
 hand as though she feared the girl's contamination. 
 
 The night city editor, Mr. Green, appeared with his 
 wife, a massive person who wore black satin because 
 it had been fashionable many years ago. Mr. Green 
 had excavated his evening clothes from a household 
 sarcophagus flavored with camphor, and stood there, 
 hoping that no fire or murder would happen before he 
 had introduced Mrs. Green to the cold collation. 
 
 Little Robinson, the refractory reporter who balked 
 at an obituary notice, sat waiting for Sallie Sydenham, 
 in whom he was exceedingly interested. The reporter 
 known as "the man with the nerve" sat by the door lead- 
 ing to the cold collation shrine, gathering his forces 
 for an attack upon salad and champagne. Young 
 Jones, at the other end of the room, also kept his eyes 
 upon this door, for if a reporter isn't hungry he isn't 
 a reporter. Poor old Tomlinson, in his seedy clothes, 
 had arrived early to drink to the happiness of anybody, 
 living or dead. He was perfectly willing to drench 
 himself in champagne with but slight provocation, and 
 to him souls incarnate or discarnate were mere details. 
 
 Mrs. Amelia Amberg Hutchinson, in a rich gown of
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 81 
 
 velveteen (with the accent on the "teen"), talked 
 blithely to the affable senator, whom she had button- 
 holed and cornered, and who seemed to be looking 
 hopelessly and unsuccessfully for means of escape. She 
 kept her eye on a little pet mole on his nose that he 
 cherished, and cared for, and which she would have re- 
 moved for him neatly with one application of her fa- 
 mous salve, if he had only asked ! As it was, they dis- 
 cussed generalities or at least Mrs. Hutchinson dis- 
 cussed them. The senator "came in" with a haphaz- 
 ard "yes" or "no" when he thought it necessary for 
 purposes of color. The lady wore her "happy-wife- 
 and-mother" look, as though her only desire on this 
 earth were to be good. 
 
 Stalking about among the crowd was Lamp-Post 
 Lucy, in a "rainy day" skirt that was not quite as 
 "rainy" as usual, and a glossy set of patent leather 
 shoes opening upon buff stockings. She towered 
 above her surroundings, if not mentally, at least phys- 
 ically. Nobody talked to Lamp-Post Lucy, because 
 she seemed to suggest telephonic communication only 
 as though she were made to be rung up. So she 
 tramped up and down, making one futile attempt to 
 capture Happy Hippy, as a sort of last resort. 
 
 It was useless for a mere woman to think of Happy 
 Hippy. She was out on the forage, and looked upon 
 this "auspicious occasion" as a gleaming opportunity. 
 Little Robinson, who was inclined to be funny, de- 
 clared that her hips had been pumped up at a bicycle 
 repair shop, and were exceedingly resilient. She had 
 captured the secular minister, who was a widower, and 
 sat with him in a corner asking him rude questions. 
 
 Anastasia Atwood, hung in white, had already 
 fainted twice from the heat, and nothing but champagne 
 had succeeded in reviving her. She had brought her
 
 82 "A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 husband a tiny fat person along with her, and she 
 used him effectively. When she was alone she tugged 
 at his leader and pulled him in. When anybody prom- 
 ising approached her, she let him run away and play, 
 which he did with singular alacrity. 
 
 The other ladies of the staff chattered incessantly 
 and enjoyed themselves hugely. Miss Rita Eisenstein, 
 the society writer, affected to deplore the absence of 
 the Four Hundred, and said that she felt rather "out 
 of it," in such an exceedingly promiscuous gathering. 
 She wore a severely simple "shirt-waist" and a black 
 skirt, as though this ungraceful assemblage were 
 scarcely worth dressing for. Miss Munson trotted 
 about with mamma, pouting as prettily as she could, 
 and dragging her astonished parent about by sheer 
 physical force. Miss Higgins was also there, quite 
 willing to be recognized by the many whom she had in- 
 terviewed, but forced to acknowledge that she was not 
 in tumultuous quest. 
 
 Several of the ladies made ineffectual efforts to 
 pounce upon Charlie Covington; but Mr. Covington 
 was not to be had for the asking. Moreover, the bevy 
 of authors with wares in the market were up and at 
 him, leaving him very little leisure, and thanking him 
 for things that he had never written, but that they 
 hoped he would write. The struggling author and the 
 book reviewer rarely meet. Harsh fate does not cast 
 them together, as it does the luckless dramatic critic 
 and the thankless actor. So Mr. Covington found that 
 he was immensely popular, and was rather pleased. 
 His reviews were always so colorless and generally 
 facile, that even a Marie Corelli would have patted him 
 on the back and called him a dear little flunkey. 
 
 It was quite late when Sallie Sydenham fluttered in, 
 and if she had been anxious to make a sensation, she
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 83 
 
 must have been perfectly satisfied. The old blue dress 
 had been manipulated by the artistic yet sepia hand- 
 maiden, whose long, visible stitches had been rather 
 cruelly hidden by home-made ruching. And in con- 
 nection with woman's dress the phrase "home-made," 
 that, applied to pies, and cakes, and fancy work, is so 
 charming, becomes a curse. Sallie's war paint had not 
 been forgotten. Her eyes were very dark, her lips 
 very red, her cheeks very crimson, and her hair very 
 yellow. Moreover, her bodice was cut low it was the 
 only thing of its kind in the room and she wore a 
 pair of high-heeled shoes that clicked as she walked. 
 
 Charlie Covington bit his lip and colored as he saw 
 her. She was irrepressible wickedly irrepressible. 
 Either she was anxious to shock people, or was too 
 ignorant to adapt herself to circumstances. She looked 
 like a third-rate soubrette in a company addicted to 
 what are known as "one-night stands," and as she 
 flounced in, the attention of the entire room was rivet- 
 ed upon her. But if all the room saw Sallie, Sallie 
 saw all the room, and was very thorough about it. Her 
 keen little eyes had discovered men, frumps, and hang- 
 ers-on, even before the men, frumps, and hangers-on 
 had discovered her. 
 
 The newspaper ladies tittered and seemed highly 
 amused. A few frowns appeared later when Miss 
 Sydenham's identity was announced, and the frowns 
 grew positively ominous when Sallie was, in an instant, 
 the centre of a little circle that seemed to be playing 
 kiss-in-the-ring. 
 
 While Sallie talked, and laughed, and said outra- 
 geously flippant things her eyes rested upon Jack Child- 
 ers, his aunt, and his cousin. She could scarcely re- 
 press her admiration for Ivy as the young woman 
 stood, tall and impressive, like a Gibson girl, sur-
 
 84 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 prised in her stateliness. As she watched her standing 
 by Childers, she wondered how he could ever escape 
 her fascination. Perhaps he couldn't, and didn't. He 
 seemed to look upon her with a quiet glance of owner- 
 ship, and Sallie, intent upon the picture, found it diffi- 
 cult to keep up her flippancies. 
 
 "Curious looking girl, but very brilliant," remarked 
 the senator to Mrs. Amelia Amberg Hutchinson, refer- 
 ring to Sallie. "Of course you know her well ?" 
 
 The freckle-remover pursed up her lips. "In a news- 
 paper office," she said, "one has to draw the line some- 
 where. I draw it at Miss Sydenham. I do not ap- 
 prove of ribaldry. I am a wife and mother." 
 
 The senator looked rather bored, as though he didn't 
 care how many wives and mothers she was. He made 
 a movement as though to join Sallie's circle, but Mrs. 
 Amelia Amberg Hutchinson pounced upon him and 
 drew him back. A similar proceeding might have 
 been noticed on the part of the poetess. Her husband, 
 who had been pulled in some time ago to relieve An- 
 astasia's wall-flower-dom, evidently thought it was 
 about time to run away and play again. He was 
 reined in at once. 
 
 "Don't you dare to speak to that wretch of a girl," 
 Anastasia whispered in a staccato manner usually re- 
 served for her domesticity. "I won't tolerate it for a 
 moment." Then, as Mr. Covington passed her, she 
 remarked: "I was just telling Harry that I feel so 
 strange and perplexed here that I can't bear to let him 
 go out of my sight." 
 
 Presently Jack Childers left his aunt and cousin and 
 bore slowly down upon Sallie. She saw his departure 
 the instant it occurred, and she also noticed that Miss 
 Hampton was immediately approached by Arthur 
 Stuyvesant, the favorite matinee actor, who instantly
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 85 
 
 engaged her in conversation. Sallie was so surprised 
 at this Miss Hampton looked supremely the wrong 
 sort for a man like Stuyvesant to attempt that she was 
 unaware that Mr. Childers at last stood by her side. 
 
 She left her circle and walked slowly with him down 
 the room. 
 
 "Solomon in all his glory " began Mr. Childers, 
 looking with amusement at her attire. It was so like 
 what he could have imagined that Sallie would wear. 
 
 "Good old glory," retorted Sally. "Glory that has 
 seen better days. But" her eyes dancing "it doesn't 
 matter. I wanted to come so badly that I'm thankful 
 I own this old blue relic." 
 
 "Did you really want to come? Why?" 
 
 "Oh," she said, "it is a change. I never get any op- 
 portunity to see people or to laugh outside of the 
 theatre, which is only a metier. This is really charm- 
 ing to me. I'm afraid, Mr. Childers, that if I were rich 
 I should revel in parties, and dances, and all that sort 
 of thing. It would be so exciting." 
 
 He smiled at this ingenuousness, but he thought it 
 was an assumption. 
 
 "I didn't think this sort of thing would have appealed 
 to you," he said. 
 
 "Why not ?" asked Sallie, gayly. She looked at him 
 in his bland evening-dress and was intensely satisfied. 
 "It takes me out of myself, at any rate. It is new and 
 it is real. I've come to the conclusion, Mr. Childers, 
 that I like real things. I gorge myself with the coun- 
 terfeit all the time, and I think I must suffer from in- 
 digestion." 
 
 "Couldn't you write this up gorgeously?" he queried, 
 with a smile. 
 
 "I don't intend to talk shop to-night," she declared. 
 "You needn't try to lure me to the subject. I want to
 
 86 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 forget that I'm an owl for this occasion only. How 
 very lovely your cousin is, Mr. Childers." 
 
 Ivy had moved away from the place she had last oc- 
 cupied. So had Arthur Stuyvesant. Mrs. Hampton 
 was talking to the senator, who had at last broken 
 loose from Mrs. Amelia Amberg Hutchinson, and was 
 looking at him through the insolent lorgnette. 
 
 "Yes, Ivy's a pretty girl," Jack Childers replied, "and 
 a very nice, good girl." 
 
 Sallie waited for him to say "I want you to meet 
 her," but Mr. Childers did not say it. She wondered 
 when the introduction would take place, for she antici- 
 pated it eagerly, and the idea of knowing Jack Child- 
 ers' feminine attributes was very precious to her. 
 
 "I suppose she was delighted to come to-night ?" Sal- 
 lie said presently. 
 
 The managing editor laughed outright. "I had the 
 hardest work to persuade either of them to come," he 
 replied. "My cousin goes out so much that she didn't 
 think this quite the thing. And Mrs. Hampton failed 
 to see why she should have to visit my 'shop.' But I 
 insisted, as it would have looked bad if they had not 
 shown themselves. The chief would have been dis- 
 pleased.'' 
 
 Sallie was amazed. She could not understand how 
 any well-regulated young girl could fail to feel inter- 
 ested in the spectacle of Jack Childers among his asso- 
 ciates. 
 
 "Your cousin seems quite young," she ventured 
 again, harping insistently on the subject. 
 
 "Yes, she is young," he assented. "But she is er 
 she is very good form, and rather looks down upon 
 the newspaper world." 
 
 "How strange!" murmured Sallie. She was work- 
 ing herself up to a sort of frenzy of desire to know this 
 girl.
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 87 
 
 "Yes," he said, "Ivy's a nice, good girl and very ami- 
 able. But she isn't a good fellow like you are, and 
 she isn't amusing." 
 
 "I suppose she doesn't she doesn't read my arti- 
 cles?" 
 
 Mr. Childers could not restrain his merriment. "Oh, 
 horror!" he cried. "Never! My aunt takes good care 
 of that. Aunt would have a fit if she thought Ivy in- 
 dulged in that sort of literature." 
 
 "Then your aunt must think I'm horrid ?" Her voice 
 had sunk, and there was something rather pathetic in 
 the anxiety with which she waited for his reply. 
 
 "Well of course, she doesn't know you," he re- 
 plied evasively. "But we don't cater to old ladies, do 
 we? We endeavor to amuse serious people. There's 
 a good deal in it, Sallie. Only short-sighted people 
 condemn it as frivolity. This isn't a very comic world, 
 and the man or woman who can amuse, if even for a 
 moment, has earned gratitude somewhere." 
 
 He had called her "Sallie" for the first time. As the 
 name passed his lips, she looked up and flushed. Per- 
 haps the "cold collation," in private view, was responsi- 
 ble. But the familiarity gave her a delightfully com- 
 fortable sensation. She wondered if he would ever 
 call her Miss Sydenham again, and hoped not. 
 
 "I shall have to drink your health to-night," he said, 
 as the crowd began to move toward the refreshment 
 enclosure. "We must clink glasses." 
 
 "That will be jolly," she cried feverishly. "But I 
 hope you don't feel it your duty to clink with the entire 
 staff, otherwise you will be a martyr." 
 
 He smiled. "I think I see myself clinking with 
 Amelia and Anastasia," he said. "For goodness' sake, 
 look at that woman !" he added, as a vision of Lamp- 
 Post Lucy drinking a bumper of champagne came
 
 88 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 through the open door. "We had better hurry or we 
 shall get none." 
 
 They passed into the room, which had grown wild- 
 ly convivial. Sallie looked carefully among the crowd 
 to find Ivy Hampton, but her quest was unsuccessful. 
 Mrs. Hampton was there with the senator, to whom 
 she was talking in pompous deliberation, punctuated 
 by the inevitable lorgnette in its gold-rimmed imperti- 
 nence. Sallie almost brushed against her as Jack Child- 
 ers tried to burrow a path through the crowd to 
 the table, and the girl was conscious that she involun- 
 tarily paused while in Mrs. Hampton's vicinity, waiting 
 for a possible introduction. But Jack Childers pushed 
 her quietly along, and Mrs. Hampton was soon left in 
 the background. Frayed edges of her conversation 
 with the senator reached Sallie. The fragmentary 
 murmurings sounded like the incoherent mutterings of 
 a dream. It died away gradually, and Sallie found 
 herself by the table with Jack Childers at her side. A 
 feeling of disappointment and gloom oppressed her, 
 and the table, with its glittering glass, its huge vases 
 of flowers and its subdued lights Sallie saw a little 
 tunnel of leaves through which a glow of rosy electric- 
 ity was felicitously diffused gave her something of a 
 shock. Mrs. Hampton had not even glanced in her 
 direction, although the lorgnette focussed so very much 
 that was going on. And yet she had even felt the silk 
 of the lady's dress as she brushed by her, and the sub- 
 tle perfume of her hair had rested for a moment in her 
 nostrils. Sallie's sensation of disappointment was soon 
 replaced by a restless discomfort. But she looked at 
 Jack Childers as he stood smiling by her side, and she 
 took from his hand the glass of champagne that he had 
 poured out for her. 
 
 "Here's to you, Sallie," he said it was still "Sal-
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 89 
 
 lie," she noticed and they clinked. Sallie felt the 
 "clink" as it travelled to her elbow. She smiled and 
 sipped the wine, while Mr. Childers drank unstintingly, 
 and seemed vexed that the glass did not hold more. 
 
 "Don't be abstemious," he said, looking at Sallie's 
 almost untouched glass. "This is not a W. C. T. U* 
 meeting, and the cause of temperance is eschewed by 
 the paper on this occasion. We shall have a beautiful 
 editorial on temperance to-morrow one of the best 
 that McPherson has ever written but to-night we will 
 give the other side a chance to be heard. Please drink 
 to my health." 
 
 He filled his own glass again and drained it. Sallie, 
 with growing recklessness, looked at him, said "A 
 votre sante," and with an effort swallowed the cham- 
 pagne. Jack Childers patted her approvingly. The 
 room tinkled with uncorked eloquence, and journalistic 
 decorum evaporated slowly but surely. Happy Hippy 
 was talking loudly to her secular minister who held a 
 glass of pale lemonade to his lips but looked longing- 
 ly at the rakish gilding of an adjacent champagne bot- 
 tle. Mrs. Amelia Amberg Hutchinson had speared a 
 Christian Scientist, and Sallie heard him say, as he took 
 copious draughts: "There is no such thing as intoxi- 
 cation. People imagine that they are intoxicated, and 
 this fact working upon their nerves produces that con- 
 dition known as known as " 
 
 "I believe they call it a jag," Mrs. Amelia Amberg 
 Hutchinson whispered sweetly. Sometimes corre- 
 spondents wrote to her for effective means of combat- 
 ing "the day after." 
 
 Anastasia Atwood sat breathing heavily upon an im- 
 mature young author, whose ambition was to be called 
 the Zola of America, and who had just emitted a chub- 
 by book called "Theodore the Thug," which Charlie
 
 90 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 Covington had described as splendidly realistic. Anas- 
 tasia, whose use of champagne as anti-swoon medicine 
 was not permitted to "count," was now partaking of 
 it for mere pleasure. Her little fat husband had again 
 been sent away to play, and was playing furiously with 
 a lissome Gaiety dancer who had been divorced four 
 times. (Their game was apparently to see how many 
 champagne glasses they could knock over. He was 
 leading.) 
 
 Sallie heard the pale poetess who was not quite as 
 pale as usual say : "I have written many poems on 
 wine, Mr. Underbrush. It is a charming subject, and 
 he! he! I don't wonder that it is popular, because 
 so many words rhyme with it. Think of the list. It 
 is most inspiring. Vine twine nine pine thine 
 kine line shine fine mine " 
 
 "And feminine viperine asinine," added Mr. Un- 
 derbrush. 
 
 "He! he! yes," simpered Anastasia. "It is absurd 
 to suppose that mere sound has nothing to do with 
 poetry. It is everything. Sometimes, Mr. Under- 
 brush," with a vinous whisper, "sometimes I don't 
 mind what my poems mean, as long as they er tickle 
 the ear. He ! he !" 
 
 Sallie felt that the wine was going to her head. She 
 was flushed and dizzy. The room moved slightly, and 
 in the little tunnel of leaves the red electric lights 
 peered at her like eyes. She saw old Tomlinson trying 
 to clink with himself he stood in a corner and held 
 a glass in each hand and she felt that little Robinson 
 was looking at her. She liked this good-natured little 
 boy, and beckoned to him to come to her. When he 
 stood by her side, she asked Jack Childers to give him 
 some champagne, held up her own glass, and suggested 
 a toast. But little Robinson looked at her quietly
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 91 
 
 and began to talk to Mr. Childers. The toast was not 
 drunk, and Sajlie wondered why. Little Robinson 
 offered her his arm, and as Jack Childers showed no 
 desire to move away, he led her quietly into the adjoin- 
 ing room, now comparatively empty. 
 
 As soon as Sallie had left, Charlie Covington sud- 
 denly appeared, and, ploughing his way through the 
 crowd, joined Mr. Childers and shook hands with him. 
 
 "Everything is going along admirably, Jack," said 
 Mr. Covington. "This is festive, and no mistake. Say, 
 old man, have you introduced Miss Sydenham to Mrs. 
 and Miss Hampton? I think they would rather enjoy 
 knowing her. Don't you think so?" 
 
 His hand was rather unsteady as he placed it upon 
 Jack Childers' shoulder. The managing editor had 
 been somewhat aimlessly watching Sallie's exit with 
 little Robinson. 
 
 "Introduce Miss Sydenham to Mrs. and Miss Hamp- 
 ton ?" he repeated thickly. "What on earth for ? Sal- 
 lie would hate them, and well, Charlie, old man 
 you know how strait-laced they are." 
 
 Charlie Covington with the tip of his first finger 
 drew a round on the table-cloth, and then went over it 
 again and again and again. 
 
 Then he said slowly: "I think you're wrong, old 
 chap. Sallie wouldn't hate them at all. You don't 
 know her. She'd like to know them. I don't think 
 that she has spoken to a woman to-night. And I'm 
 sure Mrs. Hampton and your cousin would be glad to 
 meet anybody with whom you are friendly." 
 
 Jack Childers coughed. The expression on his face 
 was a strange combination of embarrassment and 
 champagne. 
 
 "See here," he said and he had the discretion to 
 sink his voice to a whisper "I I really couldn't intro-
 
 92 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 duce Sallie to-night. She is so atrociously over- 
 dressed, and and well, while you and I don't mind 
 frankly, Charlie, I prefer the unconventional still, 
 Aunt Sarah and Ivy would be furious. I should never 
 hear the last of it. You know, they both hated to come, 
 and it was with the greatest difficulty that I prevailed 
 upon them to do so. So, you see, if I took Miss Syden- 
 ham up to them just now decked out as she is I 
 should be er rather putting my foot in it, don't you 
 think?" 
 
 A brick-red flush colored Mr. Covington's face ; but 
 he made an effort to suppress the anger that was 
 rising. He knew that there was a good deal of truth 
 in his friend's words ; but it was selfish and rather hu- 
 miliating truth, the expression of which was not quite 
 necessary. 
 
 With a successful injection of calmness into his 
 voice, he said : "Your aunt, I am sure, is a kind and 
 a courteous woman, while your cousin, who is at pres- 
 ent talking to Arthur Stuyvesant on the balcony, can 
 have no excuse for refusing. Sallie may be a reckless 
 young person, but Mr. Stuyvesant well er you 
 know what he is." 
 
 Mr. Childers poured out another glass of champagne 
 and drank it. "What a serious fellow you are, Char- 
 lie," he said good-naturedly. "What pains you take 
 to embroider logic upon your themes. You're right, 
 and I know you're right, and I'm glad you're right. 
 I'm always glad when anybody's right. I didn't know 
 Ivy had ever met Stuyvesant; but she is one of those 
 inveterate matinee girls who plaster their mantel-pieces 
 with photographs of those strutting fools. I dare say 
 somebody has introduced her to this beauty to-night. 
 Why not? But I'm glad I was not the somebody. 
 Why, if I had suggested it, I believe she would have
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 93 
 
 withered me with a glance. But I'm glad to see that 
 she is human enough to want the introduction, for 
 sometimes, Charlie, her touch-me-not manner gets on 
 my nerves. But I can't go up to her, tear her away 
 from Stuyvesant, and say: 'I've seen you talking to 
 that reprobate, so you've got to know Miss Sydenham.' 
 Can I, Charlie?" 
 
 Mr. Covington flushed again. "It is not necessary 
 even to think of them as in the same category," he re- 
 marked, with another effort at repression. "Take a 
 tip from me, Jack. Go and find Sallie and introduce 
 her to your aunt and cousin. You like her, and it 
 would please her." 
 
 "It would not please her," Mr. Childers retorted. "I 
 know Sallie, and she dislikes staid, matter-of-fact, con- 
 ventional people. Besides, I can't do it. It isn't nec- 
 essary. I am not obliged to introduce the staff to my 
 own relatives. Please drop the subject. It is silly." 
 
 '"But you like Sallie Sydenham?" Mr. Covington 
 was conscious of a dull, dogged persistence that in- 
 fected his tones. 
 
 "I do. I like her immensely. She is a jolly good 
 fellow, and we have just clinked glasses. I'm not go- 
 ing to worry her to-night by inflicting my relatives 
 upon her. You seem determined to festoon Sallie with 
 women, and she doesn't want them." 
 
 Charlie Covington did not trust himself to discuss 
 the matter further. Jack Childers was perfectly hon- 
 est ; indeed, there was no breach of loyalty in his treat- 
 ment of Sallie. According to the managing editor's 
 inexorable logic, there was really no reason why the 
 girl should be foisted unwillingly upon a couple of 
 women who were not at all anxious for the honor. 
 Moreover, there was nothing to show that Jack Child- 
 ers had the slightest interest in Miss Sydenham apart
 
 94 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 from the exigencies of the office, and the fraternal in- 
 tercourse that this association rendered necessary, and 
 at the same time perhaps pleasant. It was useless 
 dwelling upon the subject further, as far as Mr. Child- 
 ers was concerned. 
 
 Mr. Covington glanced into the room where Sallie 
 had gone. He could see her laughing and talking with 
 little Robinson. Her face was flushed with a tint red- 
 der than the rouge that besmeared it, and there was an 
 unusual nervousness in her manner. Occasionally she 
 looked back into the refreshment enclosure that she 
 had left, and her eyes had rested upon him while he 
 talked with Mr. Childers. He had noticed that, even in 
 the midst of the discussion. An immense pity for this 
 girl swept into his heart, and a fervid desire to help 
 her, in spite of herself, took possession of him. He had 
 an ardent belief in the innate femininity* of her nature, 
 encrusted though it might be with the rude, unpretty 
 devices of rather rampant Bohemianism. He noted the 
 aloofness of the women as they passed her, and ana- 
 lyzed the various looks a compound of jealousy and 
 contempt that were cast upon her by the ladies pres- 
 ent. Her sister-workers, he particularly observed, made 
 a point of staring stonily at her, and of perking up their 
 heads as they went by. They made comments upon 
 her to their companions, and it irritated him to think 
 that Sallie had been impolitic enough to persistently 
 antagonize them. A woman, opposed by her own co- 
 workers, cuts a sorry figure in the eyes of those who do 
 not appreciate the niceties of the situation. It would 
 have been a satisfaction to see Sallie in conversation 
 with Mrs. Amelia Amberg Hutchinson or Lamp-Post 
 Lucy. Still, he could scarcely expect them to bob up 
 as chaperones when Miss Sydenham made merry at 
 their expense on all occasions. He saw her very soon
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 95 
 
 surrounded again by a circle of actors, authors, and 
 cheap politicians, all anxious to chat with her and sam- 
 ple for themselves the airy moods that read so well in 
 print. But he knew that Sallie's salvation was im- 
 perilled by just these careless, flippant attentions. He 
 realized that sensuality, selfishness, and curiosity were 
 the forces that drew these men into that encircling 
 fringe around the girl. 
 
 Mr. Covington knew Mrs. Hampton slightly. He 
 had met her once or twice, and he had admired her as 
 very "good form." They had talked books together, 
 and as Charlie was a perfectly colorless journalist, who 
 had never expressed an opinion in print, he was re- 
 ceived in any "set." Mr. Covington was swayed by 
 a sudden impulse, and he did not allow himself to rea- 
 son about it. He marched straight up to Mrs. Hamp- 
 ton, who had just dismissed her senator, saluted her 
 gracefully, and took the plunge. 
 
 "May I introduce Miss Sydenham to you ?" he asked, 
 rushing at his subject. "You know of her, of course. 
 She is an awfully bright girl, Mrs. Hampton, and I 
 think you would enjoy knowing her. May I go and 
 find her?" 
 
 The gold-rimmed lorgnettes that had been hanging 
 limply at the lady's side were at once called into service. 
 Mrs. Hampton's eyes, from which a kindly courteous- 
 ness had shone, were suddenly seen through the awe- 
 inspiring glasses gray and cold. 
 
 "Really, Mr. Covington," she said, "I I do not un- 
 derstand you." 
 
 "I want to introduce you to Miss Sydenham" very 
 staccato. 
 
 "To that vulgar girl who writes disreputable things 
 about plays ? To that woman in the make-up and the 
 horrible dress? Really, Mr. Covington ... do you 
 mean it?"
 
 96 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 "Assuredly I do," replied the young man. "Please, 
 Mrs. Hampton." 
 
 "Not for the world," said the lady, decidedly. "I 
 flatter myself I have done my duty. I very much dis- 
 like this kind of thing. I have already had enough of 
 it and Ivy and I must be going home. Where is Ivy ? 
 I could not be seen talking to this atrocious-looking 
 young woman, Mr. Covington. She may be a clever 
 journalist as clever journalism goes to-day. And 
 I may add that in my day she would have been too 
 outre for the Police Gazette. But I really have not 
 the force to cope with these modern innovations. 
 Where is Ivy, I wonder? I must find her. These 
 crowds are very trying. Don't you think so, Mr. Cov- 
 ington? Jack quite put himself out, when I tried to 
 cry off. So I made a martyr of myself. One can be 
 a martyr for a few hours, can't one? And I'm very 
 fond of Jack. He is a dear boy, and so kind to Ivy. 
 I wonder where Ivy is? Ah, Mr. Underbrush, how 
 do you do? I read the book you sent me. Thanks, 
 immensely. Good-night, Mr. Covington." 
 
 She moved away voluminously stately, the gold- 
 rimmed lorgnettes still framing her eyes. Charlie Cov- 
 ington bit his lip, and tasted blood. He had played 
 rather a bold game that might have succeeded, for 
 there are certain women to whom sheer audacity is not 
 displeasing. But the game had failed. He looked into 
 the next room. Sallie was still there. He saw her look 
 up as Mrs. Hampton entered, towed by the proud au- 
 thor of "Theodore the Thug." He watched her move 
 slowly forward, as though to compel Mrs. Hampton's 
 attention. Then he heard her prattling lightly to little 
 Robinson, the reporter.
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 UT on the balcony, her temples fanned by a 
 small, reluctant breeze that erred vagrantly 
 through City Hall Park, stood Ivy Hampton, 
 wisps of her silver-gold hair dancing lightly 
 from the release of a jewelled comb as she leaned upon 
 the granite supports of Owldom's majestic retreat. 
 The tinkle of a herd of street-cars reaching destination 
 and starting again on their long, thin journey to Man- 
 hattan end smote her ears, as did the grinding cer- 
 tainty of the adjacent elevated roads. 
 
 Her attitude no longer suggested the ingenuous, for 
 as she turned toward the dark-haired, thick-set, ag- 
 gressively virile young man by her side, the glints in 
 her gray eyes shone like the fires in an opal. The 
 conventions dozens of them, in assorted sizes and 
 grades lurked in the rooms behind her, from which 
 convivial sounds issued, and in which, as frequently 
 happened, when she turned her small and neatly-poised 
 head, she could see the forms of Owldom's visitors 
 flitting in all directions, in ghostly noiselessness. 
 
 The rather pensive maidenhood, in its cool, thin sug- 
 gestions, that had appealed to Sallie Sydenham when 
 she saw Miss Hampton standing in lissome indiffer- 
 ence by her mother's side, had vanished. A furtive 
 warmth had replaced it. The girl's bosom rose and 
 fell in quicker rhythm than that which is usually in- 
 spired by mere virginal apathy, and the concentration 
 of her eyes upon the street below was somewhat unduly 
 tense. For the street below was cold, and gray, and 
 empty, and listless, as it stretched before her, striped
 
 98 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 with its gleaming car-tracks into the shadows and noc- 
 turnal restlessness of the Bowery. 
 
 Miss Hampton's attitude might have been mistaken 
 for one of fatigue, by those who could not see the fitful, 
 opal lights in her still, pool-like drab eyes. She wore 
 a thin gray dress, and as her elbows rested on the para- 
 pet, her cloak fell from her figure in shadowy undula- 
 tions, and 'the perfection of that figure was revealed. 
 The waist was slight and charming, and the fullness of 
 the bust symmetrical. Earlier in the evening, when 
 Miss Hampton had stood erect and on guard by the 
 flank of the chaperone, that figure had seemed replete 
 with the vague immaturity of transparent girlhood. 
 But now it spoke of a certain womanhood, palpitant 
 and ripe, eager and unmistakable. 
 
 Arthur Stuyvesant, following the direction of her 
 eyes, saw the chill, dim park, with its feathery trees 
 and its dark, weird shapes, and following them still 
 saw also the cold, empty, gray, and listless street, 
 striped with tracks, on its quick iron way to the Bow- 
 ery. He preferred the quiet, nearly motionless figure 
 beside him. It was neither cold nor gray, nor listless 
 nor empty. 
 
 "Ivy," he murmured softly, and he touched her elbow 
 upon the cool granite balcony. 
 
 "You see I came," she said, not looking at him, but at 
 a red Bowery car that thumped toward the Post Office. 
 "I had to come. This was an occasion from which I 
 might and should have stayed away. I tried, but 
 couldn't. I came." 
 
 Mn Stuyvesant watched her face, averted from his 
 own, and noticed the young, admirable angles of her 
 features the slight facial angularity of immaturity, 
 of which, as a connoisseur, he never tired. 
 
 "It was good of you to come," he said quickly. "I
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 99 
 
 could not have seen you for days, as I go to 
 Washington to-morrow for one long, tiresome, unend- 
 ing week. So I wanted you here to-night. Why not ? 
 What risk can there be ? On these occasions one may 
 talk to anybody. A cat might talk to a king, if it had 
 the gift of language." 
 
 "I suppose I am the cat," retorted the girl. "Well, 
 I feel like one just a furtive, stealthy, velvety thing, 
 always purring until until it gets out to the balcony, 
 when it can display its claws and live." 
 
 He was silent not from the psychological fitness of 
 silence at that moment, but because he was not quite 
 sure what particular style of remark would be har- 
 monious. Then quickly, with a woman's craving to 
 hear a man say the banal thing she loves, she asked: 
 "Are you really glad I came?" 
 
 He tipped the banal answer from his lips, and it 
 cheered her. "You know I am, Ivy. How can you 
 even ask it? Don't you know " 
 
 She interrupted him, but raised her pool-like gray 
 eyes, now all disturbed and moving with the opal 
 glints, to his face. "Yes I know, I know," she said 
 impatiently. "But it is all so horribly difficult. You 
 are an actor, and you act during certain hours only; 
 and it is your work, for which you are paid. But I am 
 an actress acting all the time all the time except 
 when I am with you ; and it is not my work, and I am 
 not paid except in discomfort and distress. I must 
 play the pensive, guileless maiden through the dull 
 and dreary day. I am a dear little unsophisticated 
 thing to my easily deluded step-mother. I am a pretty 
 little bit of marble to my cousin Jack. It is acting all 
 acting. For when I am with you, I live, and I am 
 not" 
 
 "Not marble." Arthur Stuyvesant smiled, with a
 
 ioo A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 sense of his own irresistible powers, which he loved 
 to attribute to a hypnotic faculty. He was one of 
 those who prefer to call sensuality by that much-abused 
 and cleverly misinterpreted possibility. He moved 
 towards her and put his arm round the slim waist, from 
 which the cloak fell in its shadowy undulations. "Not 
 precisely, Ivy. Not precisely marble. I think I have 
 discovered the real Ivy, eh ? I think I detached it from 
 its clinging walls, eh? Do you regret it? Tell me, 
 dearest ?" 
 
 "Regret ?" she exclaimed contemptuously. "Never ! 
 I suppose I'm a thoroughbred with the wrong sort 
 of thoroughness. But I'm jealous, hatefully jealous, 
 of you. I hate to think of your wife. It makes me 
 sick to remember her. When I do so I feel that I am 
 not quite so thorough, for I see the spots on my own 
 soul. I suppose" with a laugh "that awful-looking 
 girl, Sallie Sydenham, who guyed you so fearfully 
 that, if I had dared, I would have requested Jack to dis- 
 charge her, and who writes as recklessly as any French 
 novelist I suppose that she is an angel compared 
 with me. She barks, and I bite. She is on the 
 surface, and I am deep-down. Nobody would care 
 to know her, yet they all swarm around me. Isn't 
 it odd? But I'm thankful it is so. I am getting 
 gradually used to it all, you know; but when I am 
 out of sorts I am unpleasant. I should like to sail 
 smoothly, not because it would be right, but merely 
 easier." 
 
 She paused, breathless. The breeze came gustily 
 across the dormant park, and the wisps of her silver- 
 gold hair fluttered. The noise of heavy wagons jolting 
 over the uneven pavements came to them in muf- 
 fled roar. They were alone, but the world was somno-
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 101 
 
 lently alive below them. It made her think of the 
 world in Owldom's rooms, which was nearer. 
 
 "You are morbid," he whispered, glancing in at the 
 windows, through which shapes still flitted. 
 
 "One of these days," she said, also in low tones, "the 
 worst will happen, and I shall have to marry Jack. I 
 know it. Mrs. Hampton is always hinting at such a 
 possibility; and sometimes I think that Mr. Childers 
 looks upon it as tacitly settled. The idea makes me 
 ill, though I am schooling myself admirably, and there 
 are times when I can contemplate anything. Of 
 course, I like Jack as a cousin, but in any other role " 
 She closed her eyes, and a perpendicular furrow trav- 
 elled quickly between her yellow eyebrows. "It would 
 be the last straw, wouldn't it, Arthur, you with a wife, 
 I with a husband." 
 
 Mr. Stuyvesant stifled a smile. The situation was 
 one in which he had frequently appeared on the stage. 
 It was a favorite situation in the "drawing-room" com- 
 edies that trickle into cesspools, and are sometimes 
 guided by the master-hand of a Pinero. 
 
 "We won't look so far into the future," he said. 
 "The present is not so awfully bad, and we may as well 
 make the most of it. My wife " 
 
 "Your wife," repeated Ivy, her eyes wide. 
 
 "My wife is a good soul, and and" (he was going 
 to say, "She has forgiven me fifty times before," but 
 checked himself in time, and said) "she thinks I am 
 perfection. There is no need to worry about any- 
 thing. Take life easily, Ivy. Don't let us cross 
 our bridges until we get to them." 
 
 "You'll always care for me?" she cried impulsively. 
 Again she felt the odd, feminine need of a banal ques- 
 tion that must give birth to a banal answer. And
 
 102 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 again she felt cheered when that answer immediately 
 came. Like a child to whom the best-known story is 
 the story best loved, she waited for an inevitable re- 
 sponse, and was comforted by it. 
 
 The shapes in the brilliantly lighted rooms, sil- 
 houetted on the amber blinds, seemed to flit closer to 
 them. She left his side, pushed aside the tawny shade, 
 and stepped into the clamorous apartment, wrapped 
 once again in the gray veil of her Puritanism. Silently 
 and with slowly measured steps she gained the crowd, 
 smiling colorlessly at an acquaintance or two. The 
 opal light had gone from her eyes, and they were the 
 mere gray pools in which were mirrored an ingenuous 
 soul. The wisps of her hair, unstirred now by any 
 breeze, arranged themselves in neat precision along the 
 nape of her neck, as though they too had a role to play. 
 So might Priscilla have stood, no more unruffled or ner- , 
 vously alert. 
 
 Sallie Sydenham, chatting aimlessly with the faithful 
 little Robinson, saw her enter, and waited waited for 
 the other. Into her keenly perceptive little soul had 
 crept the wraith of a doubt. She saw Miss Hampton's 
 two entities at once they were flashed upon her almost 
 simultaneously so that she had no more faith in the 
 one than in the other. She was watching them both 
 in their unconscious differentiation. So she waited 
 for Miss Hampton's companion. But there was ap- 
 parently no companion, and Sallie saw the tall, lithe, 
 indolent form of the girl passing down the room. 
 Miss Sydenham was perplexed, but not uncomfortably 
 so. In her solitude for her tete-a-tete with little Rob- 
 inson was scarcely more than solitude she had dis- 
 covered the duet on the balcony. And while she sat 
 anxiously expectant of the coveted introduction that 
 had not been given her, she had found herself wonder-
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 103 
 
 ing what this pensive, high-bred girl could have in 
 common with an actor whose repute was that usually 
 ascribed to Arthur Stuyvesant. 
 
 She rose, and leaving little Robinson in the midst of 
 a glowing panegyric on the magnificent after-dinner 
 eloquence of the popular senator who had once risen 
 from his bed at three in the morning to give Mr. Rob- 
 inson an impassioned description of a dinner-dress that 
 the senatorial wife had worn that evening Sallie pro- 
 ceeded to the window. She would have been almost 
 justified in imagining that she must have been mis- 
 taken. It would have been easy to have ascribed the 
 tcte-a-tete to a mere brain fantasy. Miss Hampton 
 might have been taking a little air on her own solitary 
 account. A strange impulse something, perhaps, 
 that leaked into the future told her to try and believe 
 this. But Sallie was too practically engrossed with 
 the present. She pushed the blind aside and stepped 
 out. Her dazzled eyes, greeted with the swift dark- 
 ness that hung, pall-like, around, could at first distin- 
 guish nothing. But they persevered, and Arthur 
 Stuyvesant was discovered just about to return to the 
 multitude by another window. 
 
 "Good-evening, Mr. Stuyvesant," said Sallie, as he 
 stopped, in the apparent belief that Miss Hampton had 
 returned. "I'm not here to criticize to-night; but 
 won't you take cold ? You have been out a long time, 
 and you've no hat." 
 
 Mr. Stuyvesant was not disconcerted for long. He 
 was not at all fond of Miss Sydenham, who had so fre- 
 quently held him up to ridicule. But his policy was 
 invariably to use his own personality for all that it was 
 worth, when in contact with either friend or foe ; and, 
 although Sallie scarcely belonged to either category, 
 she was probably as susceptible as the rest when she
 
 104 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 was off guard, and off duty. Moreover, even a flippant 
 little penny-a-liner (to the actor's mind all journalists 
 are penny-a-liners) must be impressed by Stuyvesant's 
 personal charms. 
 
 "It's a lovely evening, Miss Sydenham," he said, 
 "and I've been enjoying the air. I hate a crowd and 
 a stifling room, don't you ?" 
 
 "I wasn't aware that you knew Miss Hampton," she 
 remarked, ignoring side issues and lunging at her sub- 
 ject. 
 
 "One of my matinee girls," he declared, laughing. 
 "I know 'em all, Miss Sydenham, more or less, al- 
 though in print you always wonder what they see in 
 me. Sometimes I wonder, too, don't you know ? Par- 
 ticularly when I'm in a modest mood. Still, they are 
 my stock in trade, and if they fancy they like me, I 
 must humor them. I really must, you know. Let me 
 see, didn't you say last week that I had a face like a 
 pie or was it a pudding? I really can't quite remem- 
 ber which, but I know it was something that came after 
 meat. Well, you know, I feel it my duty to prove to 
 you that others don't think so, or that, if they do, they 
 like pie and pudding." 
 
 "But you do know Miss Hampton?" she asked qui- 
 etly. 
 
 "Know her ? Oh, I won't go so far as that. I have 
 met her once or twice. Very nice girl rather quiet 
 and sedate, and unsophisticated, and all that sort of 
 thing. But I rather like that style, as it is so unusual 
 nowadays. Where have you been all evening, Miss 
 Sydenham ? I haven't seen you before." 
 
 Sallie walked to the parapet, and leaned her elbows 
 upon it, just as Ivy Hampton had done. Arthur Stuy- 
 vesant saw the attitude and recognized it ; but he also 
 saw that Sallie's waist was not a symmetrical quality,
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 105 
 
 and that no cloak fell from her shoulders in shadowy 
 undulations. This, however, would not have disturbed 
 him in the least, for Sallie was a woman, and to Mr. 
 Stuyvesant, the sex any of it under forty was . . . 
 the sex. There was, however, something in her man- 
 ner that pushed such ideas away from him. 
 
 "See here, Mr. Stuyvesant," she said deliberately, 
 "you are a very bad actor. I tell you that to your face, 
 although I have merely hinted at it playfully in print, 
 for I thought you were too bad to take seriously. But, 
 if you don't play square, if you try and foist your pre- 
 cious theatrical personality upon a girl like Miss 
 Hampton she is the cousin of my managing editor, 
 Mr. Jack Childers, if you please I'll roast you until 
 you are the laughing-stock of the town. I'll ridicule 
 you, pull you to pieces, show you up, dissect you until 
 you will wish that you had never been born. I can 
 do it, you know. I'm not malicious in print but I 
 shall take particular delight in doing something in that 
 direction for your own especial benefit. Go it if you 
 like with your matinee girls, but leave Miss Hamp- 
 ton out of it." 
 
 "What do you know of Miss Hampton?" he asked 
 sullenly, a flush on his face, as he realized that he was 
 now dealing with a woman to whom his generally effi- 
 cacious personality made no appeal. 
 
 "Nothing," she replied ; and a tinge of sadness crept 
 into her voice as she realized how absolutely true that 
 statement was, and how events pointed to the proba- 
 bility that it would remain true. "I have never met 
 her ; but she is Jack Childers' cousin, and she is a lady 
 not a matinee girl," she added, with emphasis. 
 
 Mr. Stuyvesant bit his lip, for a grim smile, that it 
 was hard to check, suggested itself. 
 
 "You fancy that you are an excellent judge of wo-
 
 io6 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 men?" he asked, repressing an intonation that he felt 
 would sound sardonic. 
 
 Sallie smiled. "Not necessarily," she said. "I have 
 told you that I do not know Miss Hampton. I am, 
 therefore, considering general principles only. I trust, 
 Mr. Stuyvesant, that er your wife is well?" 
 
 The actor fought against a flush of chagrin, the dawn 
 of which he felt beneath his skin. This was a danger- 
 ous young woman, who meant business, and who ap- 
 parently was not quite so flippant as her surface-meas- 
 ure indicated. He had schooled himself carefully, 
 however, in the suppression of all sorts of emotion off 
 the stage. He was quite prepared for Miss Syden- 
 ham by the time he spoke again. 
 
 "She is well, I thank you," he said. "She would 
 have accompanied me here to-night, but well, Mrs. 
 Stuyvesant is a domesticated little woman, who loves 
 her home, and hates to leave it. She takes her pleasure 
 in sewing and cooking. Not your style, eh, Miss Syd- 
 enham ?" 
 
 "Not precisely," Sallie replied ; but she was conscious 
 at that moment that it was extremely irritating to be 
 irreparably "classed," at sight, by good men and by bad 
 men, by friends and by foes. She appealed to them 
 all in the same way. She tried to do so but it would 
 have been agreeable to slip from the eternal pose at 
 times. She began to wish, as this fat actor stood be- 
 fore her, that she could cook and sew. There were 
 worse occupations to be found, she supposed. Were 
 the foolish creatures in Owldom at that moment un- 
 sexed women, barren matrons, petticoats aping the 
 bifurcation of trousers any more essential to the gen- 
 eral scheme of things than little Mrs. Stuyvesant, sur- 
 rounded by her household gods, and living a deluded 
 wif ehood to the best of her ability ?
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 107 
 
 They left the balcony and entered Owldom together. 
 The large room was slowly emptying itself, and con- 
 viviality was slackening its pace. Mrs. Hampton had 
 just captured Ivy and was preparing to beat a retreat. 
 Jack Childers stood with his aunt and cousin, talking 
 rather nonchalantly. Sallie heard him say to Ivy: 
 "Fancy you thawing. I hear that you were positively 
 talking with Stuyvesant, the actor. How did you un- 
 bend sufficiently to submit to an introduction ?" 
 
 He turned, and at that moment Arthur Stuyvesant 
 and Sallie Sydenham passed them. A faint surprise 
 was reflected in Ivy Hampton's eyes as she, too, no- 
 ticed the promenade ; but the surprise vanished quickly. 
 
 In her cold, prim, unemotional tones, she said : "My 
 dear Jack, you made me come here, and I have been in- 
 troduced to various people. I'm sorry that Mr. Stuy- 
 vesant was among them, now that I see him with that 
 terrible-looking person in the old blue dress. It is 
 Miss Sydenham, is it not, Jack ? Don't you think that, 
 as managing editor, you could prevail upon her to 
 cover up her shoulders and to use a little less rouge? 
 Really, she looks positively rowdy and rakish, doesn't 
 she, mamma?" 
 
 "Yes," Mrs. Hampton answered, with the ready 
 lorgnette raised on duty. "By the bye, Jack, I must 
 tell you what happened. Your friend, Mr. Covington, 
 rather a nice young man quite a respectable person 
 for journalism wanted to insist upon introducing me 
 to that girl Miss Sydenham. I thought it most in- 
 opportune, and impertinent, and disrespectful." 
 
 "So you refused ?" asked Jack Childers, with a smile. 
 "I thought you would. Covington spoke to me about 
 it, and I knew your sentiments. I had no idea that 
 he was so determined as to tackle you himself. But 
 I'm quite sure that Miss Sydenham herself knew noth-
 
 io8 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 ing of this," with a laugh. "You wouldn't be her style 
 at all." 
 
 "Probably not," assented Ivy, with her Priscilla 
 mien. "Let us hope not. Are you coming, mamma? 
 Jack, just put us into a hansom and we won't bother 
 you any more. You will naturally wish to stay to the 
 bitter end." 
 
 Sallie left Arthur Stuyvesant to his own devices after 
 entering the room. She had no desire to parade 
 in his vicinity, for, as she did not belong to the class of 
 sensual women known as "matinee girls," he was 
 rather disgusting to her. Sallie understood the aver- 
 age "matinee girl," and mentally placed her side by 
 side with the vacuous youths to whom the playhouse 
 means anatomical display. Perhaps Ivy Hampton had 
 known the ignominy of matinee girl moments. But 
 she did not look the character at all. Was it possible 
 that beneath that gray pictorial innocence there were 
 "dark blue depths" ? 
 
 The girl felt inclined to wish that she had remained 
 away from this "celebration." Her head ached, and a 
 horrible sense of loneliness a painful feeling of soli- 
 tude in a crowd oppressed her. She saw the depar- 
 ture of Ivy and Mrs. Hampton, with Jack in tow, and 
 she knew that her cherished desire would not be real- 
 ized. Mr. Childers evidently did not want her to meet 
 his people, and she wondered why. Was it because 
 she was so badly dressed? Was this perpetual strug- 
 gle for the unusual in her writing, in her manner, in 
 her attire to be the undoing of all her plans for sim- 
 ple, genuine pleasure? 
 
 She looked at the feminine owls, bunched together 
 at the end of the room, apparently watching her intent- 
 ly, yet as soon as she looked in their direction, disre-
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 109 
 
 garding her glances quickly. Well, she was glad of 
 it. "Cats !" she said to herself. "I don't want them. 
 I couldn't stand them for five minutes, singly or col- 
 lectively. I must be a trifle upset even to think of such 
 a hateful possibility." 
 
 She looked up, and saw Charlie Covington coming 
 towards her. His face was pale and tired, and its care- 
 streaks appeared to her unusually gray and indented. 
 The man was young, but the man's mood was old, and 
 the mood dominated his appearance. Mr. Covington 
 smiled at her, and she was conscious of a strenuous 
 desire to be flippant and careless. This was her way 
 out of all difficulties. Her detestation of serious mo- 
 ments led her always to strange extremes. Sallie 
 looked upon "the emotional" as the acme of flagrant 
 enormity. 
 
 "Where have you been all evening, Charlie?" she 
 asked, the words that she tried to send forward so 
 quickly, rattling in her throat. "You have avoided me 
 most studiously, and as I haven't written anything to 
 offend your sense of propriety for at least three hours, 
 I can't understand it." 
 
 "It has been a dull evening," he said, rather vi- 
 ciously. 
 
 "Do you think so ?" with a little, light laugh. "I 
 have rather enjoyed it. It has not been wild dissipa- 
 tion. Certainly it has not been the pace that kills 
 and all that sort of thing. But we have seen and been 
 seen. We are dressed for the fray." 
 
 "You are," he retorted emphatically, with his eyes 
 on her low-cut bodice, and her dress faded, faked to- 
 gether, frippe. 
 
 Sallie looked at him anxiously. She felt certain, 
 from his tone, that he hated her attire ; but she did not
 
 no A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 believe that this was due to its inappropriate gaudiness 
 and its tousled inelegance. She thought that she was 
 too gay for this solemn young masculine. He would 
 have preferred to see her in black alpaca, high to the 
 throat, relieved as are the costumes of the penitent 
 Magdalens in modern romance by a ruching of 
 "priceless lace" round the neck. 
 
 "You don't like it?" she asked indifferently. 
 
 "No," he answered grimly, "I do not. Sallie, you 
 are an intelligent girl, but you do not seem to be able 
 to distinguish between the decorous and the indecor- 
 ous. You are eternally inappropriate a square peg in 
 a round situation. You come here to-night dressed 
 for a bal masque the masque only lacking while 
 every other woman wears sedate, unremarkable gowns. 
 I hate to see you perpetually spotted out in an unen- 
 viable way. Why do you do this, Sallie? Is it be- 
 cause you must, perforce, be unique ? Don't you know 
 that to be unique is to be fearfully and awfully 
 lonely?" 
 
 Charlie Covington spluttered in his earnestness. He 
 had seen her pitiful plight all evening, and to him it 
 was a tragedy. This girl, with a heart of gold, had at- 
 tracted the gaudy attention of the men ; but not a wo- 
 man had seen her without contempt and derision in her 
 eyes. Mr. Covington was too old-fashioned to re- 
 gard this as a tribute to Miss Sydenham's charms. 
 
 "I am not awfully lonely," she cried and the lie 
 made her lips tingle "and if I'm not popular with the 
 old frumps here to-night, I'm glad of it yes, I'm glad 
 of it. I suppose you think I ought to plaster down my 
 hair, part it in the middle, and hang a curl over each 
 ear. Then to be quite the lady you'd like to see me 
 in a neat serge gown, with a wide white collar round 
 my neck. And to be feminine I ought to feel chilly,
 
 A Girl Who Wrote in 
 
 and drape a white worsted shawl over my shoulders. 
 Oh, I know the sort of woman you like, Charlie. I 
 hate her. If I looked that sort of a fright, every petti- 
 coat present would be hovering around me. The 
 Amelias and the Anastasias would simply hang upon 
 my skirts, because I should look more hideous than 
 they do if possible (and could it be possible?) I am 
 here to-night in my best clothes my only clothes. I'm 
 not rich, but I'm satisfied with what I have. I may 
 be intelligent, as you so kindly suggest and thanks, 
 awfully but I can't see that I'm committing any crime 
 because I don't look like the others. I make more 
 money than they do, anyway and and that's all I 
 care about." 
 
 Sallie paused, her period of defiance over. She felt 
 that defiance was a weapon, effective enough in its way ; 
 but Charlie Covington was her friend, after all, and her 
 thrusts were aimed at mere loyalty. 
 
 "That is not quite all, Sallie," he said gently. "Not 
 quite all. I should have liked to see you sought out to- 
 night as such a clever girl should be sought out by 
 some of the ladies here. No, I do not refer to the 
 journalists. I dislike them quite as much as you do. 
 The attention of a few rowdy men means nothing. 
 They would give their attention to anything a little bit 
 outre. The women count. I should have wished you 
 to meet " 
 
 "Whom?" Sallie asked, quickly rebellious. 
 
 He did not like to tell her that Mrs. Hampton and 
 Ivy would have been useful for her to know. If he 
 did, he would be impelled to explain that he had at- 
 tempted to effect an introduction, and had failed. 
 
 "Whom would you have wished me to meet?" she 
 persisted daring him. 
 
 He was silent.
 
 H2 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 "Oh, I can guess," she said lightly. "You mean 
 Mrs. Hampton. Well, evidently Mr. Childers did not 
 second your wish. It was not at all necessary. Mrs. 
 Hampton can scarcely be expected to worry herself 
 with all her nephew's subordinates. Then, I am afraid" 
 with a smile "that Miss Hampton is not my style." 
 
 "Why not?" he asked, aggressive for her sake. "She 
 is a gentlewoman a quiet, exclusive, high-bred girl. 
 Why should she not be your style? She unbent to- 
 night. Why, I saw her talking to Arthur Stuyvesant ! 
 I confess that I was a little surprised." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 "Oh," replied Mr. Covington, embarrassed, for he 
 hated to speak ill even of those who invited an illness 
 of allusion. "His reputation is er rather shady." 
 
 "While mine merely er looks shady ?" she retorted, 
 with a tinge of bitterness. "Well, that makes all the 
 difference. I am intelligent enough you admitted 
 my intelligence, Charlie, thanks to know it. The per- 
 son who is shady, but who doesn't look it, is much 
 more popular than the person who looks it, but who 
 isn't it. Don't you think so? Perhaps I'm a failure. 
 Perhaps it would be better if I settled down to a pit- 
 tance and devoted my life to the 'household column' 
 receipts for pickling cabbage, making cranberry sauce, 
 and jams. And I could dress to suit the part." 
 
 "You did not enjoy yourself to-night," he said slow- 
 ly. "Own up, Sallie." 
 
 "I did I did," she exclaimed. "I enjoyed it hugely. 
 But you come and spoil my pleasure, and tell me things 
 that I don't want to hear and wet-blanket everything. 
 It is a nuisance. I won't have it. Good-night, Mr. 
 Covington. Good-night." 
 
 "I intend to see you home," he said doggedly, though 
 a trifle unnerved.
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 113 
 
 "Thank you, but I am not going home just at pres- 
 ent ; and when I go I shall not trouble you." 
 
 She left him, planted there, and went to the cloak- 
 room, where she slowly donned her coat, hat and 
 gloves. She was indignant, and was pleased to vent 
 her spleen upon poor loyal old Charlie. She had been 
 a dismal failure, and if the will to obtain what one most 
 wishes signified anything at all, hers had been noto- 
 riously unsuccessful. 
 
 Jack Childers had evidently decided that it was not 
 fitting she should be introduced to his aunt and cousin. 
 Why? She did not know. She was good enough to 
 be his comrade, his jester, his light- mooded friend. 
 And Sallie marvelled that a man of the world, who 
 made no pretense of disguising his interest in a girl, 
 should keep her for one side of his life only. She had 
 no right to feel vexed. Mr. Childers was her "boss," 
 and she was not justified in resenting anything he did 
 unless, perchance, he ... reduced her salary. 
 
 Still, she felt humiliated, annoyed, sore at heart 
 She could not afford to "pay him out ;" but she would 
 be less amiable to him, less ready to conform to his 
 moods, more unwilling to pose as the jester that light- 
 ened his hours of toil. If he did not need her when 
 he was at his pleasures well, she would make herself 
 scarce on all occasions. 
 
 And nothing no, nothing on earth positively, ab- 
 solutely nothing should ever induce her to ride up- 
 town with him again after office hours. She would 
 show him that she had a little pride. If he came to 
 her and said "Miss Sydenham" (he had called her Sal- 
 lie one hour ago. Perhaps it was too familiar), "I beg 
 you to ride uptown with me. Please, please do" she 
 would say, "Thank you, Mr. Childers, not to-night."
 
 H4 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 She buttoned her long coat slowly, speared a pin 
 through her hat, and drew on her gloves. 
 
 Mr. Childers appeared at the door and smiled at her. 
 He wore his overcoat, and held his hat in his hand. 
 
 "I am waiting for you," he said.- -"Thank goodness, 
 it's over. Let's ride uptown, talk it all over, and ham- 
 mer the whole horrid crowd." 
 
 And all she said was : "I am ready." 
 
 Eternal comedy of woman comedy that is tragedy.
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 ALLIE plunged again into Owldom's ceaseless, 
 goal-less whirl a whirl that slowly steals the 
 vitality from strong men, making of them 
 soulless, gripless automata. She threw her- 
 self into a struggle that saps the vigor and paralyzes 
 the energies. She consented to be squeezed in the 
 gigantic, resistless owl-machines ; for she did not know 
 that when the machines had dredged every drop of 
 originality from her intellect they would cast her aside 
 an orange-pulp, with its juices gone, an apple-skin 
 forgotten in a barrel of cider, a grape that has given its 
 life-principle to a promising vintage, a skeleton de- 
 nuded of all that differentiates it from other skeletons. 
 
 Into the safe, usurious grasp of the owls she gave all 
 her capital her brain and the owls paid her interest 
 at conventional rates, reserving all conditions unto 
 themselves with logic that was unanswerable, skilled 
 reasoning against which the proudest, most eloquent 
 lawyers in the land would be powerless. Like the other 
 owls, she rushed blindly onward, shedding her sub- 
 stance as she went, and tending nowhere. For Owl- 
 dom has no limits or boundaries. Its votaries are con- 
 demned, like the Wandering Jew, to perpetual peregri- 
 nation. The owls never "get there," for there is no 
 "there." Owldom, like a circle, is a symbol of eternity, 
 for the "finis" to its swirling chapter is never written. 
 
 She was satisfied with the elusive, will-o'-the-wisp 
 glories that surrounded her. She ate ravenously of 
 Dead Sea fruit, and never noticed the ashes that it left 
 in her mouth. Completely ostracized from the soci- 
 ety of her human fellows owls to the right of her,
 
 n6 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 owls to the left of her she viewed the world from one 
 point of view a view that makes of the noblest and the 
 best, as well as of the saddest and the worst, just so 
 much "copy." She knew that there were a few owls 
 that still reserved their reasoning powers, and were ex- 
 empt from the general verdict, and she flattered herself 
 that she was among them. Most owls delude them- 
 selves in this way. 
 
 "I could quit it all in a moment," she would say to 
 herself at times, when in the darkness of the night 
 haunting spectres of relentless things that she had writ- 
 ten base, taunting gnomes conjured up by the aban- 
 don of her pen would stand by her sleepless bed- 
 side and menace her with threatening fingers. "I could 
 quit it all in a moment. Perhaps I will some day. 
 I am young. When I am older, it will be time enough 
 to sew and cook. Besides, I am not a womanly wo- 
 man. There is a masculine streak in me, and I must 
 do a man's work for a man's remuneration." 
 
 She tried to realize that these spectres and gnomes, 
 that took shape after days of fatigue, were in no way 
 veridical or objective, but merely the result of an over- 
 taxed brain, which was perhaps true. The flippant 
 badinage of her style suggested an inspired facility, and 
 Sallie never sought to disturb the suggestion. In 
 reality it was due to unremitting discipline, to an un- 
 bending determination, to a grim resolution to escape 
 at all hazards from blue moods, physical prostration, 
 and the influences of the moment. It was the hardest 
 thing of all to do, and nobody knew it. But she was 
 well paid for it, and she did not repine. She earned 
 more money than ninety-nine out of a hundred wo- 
 men, even if she gave an exorbitant quid pro quo. 
 
 She played her game well, both on and off the stage 
 (or at least she thought so), for she had become a
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 117 
 
 distinct character in Owldom. She despised the aver- 
 age feminine owl usually sterile of all originality, or 
 preaching unnecessary lessons to unnecessary people 
 with the whine of repentant Magdalens. She sought 
 to be something quite different, and she had succeeded 
 beyond her rosiest hopes. The enmity of her sister 
 owls afforded her keen satisfaction (sometimes), as 
 it was the loftiest tribute that could have been paid to 
 her efforts to originate a difference. The careless cor- 
 diality of the male birds was generally sweet to her 
 for the same reason. Whatever her reputation might 
 be, she still remained a woman, even though it were a 
 woman of the wrong sort. Her idea was not to pass 
 unnoticed in the general swirl, but to live up to her 
 work, which was unique. 
 
 The first "little rift within the lute" had made itself 
 felt at the owls' reception. The man for whose friend- 
 ship she would have cast herself still further adrift, 
 for whose cherished and healing comradeship she 
 would have braved any dangers, had not seen fit to pre- 
 sent her to the women who presided over his home. It 
 was the unkindest cut of all, and yet and yet 
 it was eminently logical. What had she to do with the 
 inner life of the owls? Why should she believe that 
 the qualities that endeared her to Newspaper Row were 
 of the faintest avail outside of it? She could not eat 
 a pie and have a pie a species of jugglery that had 
 never yet been known to succeed. 
 
 Still, it was bitter to know that she was just a jour- 
 nalistic comrade and nothing more that she began 
 and ended in Owldom's territory that where she made 
 her exit, Ivy Hampton perhaps achieved an entrance 
 that was of more durable account and of finer in- 
 trinsic value. When the horrid spectres and taunting 
 gnomes that materialized in the shadowy solitude of
 
 n8 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 her room bent over her, they seemed to tell her that she 
 stood on shifting quicksands, and that whatever 
 she did mattered little in the long run. 
 
 The spectres and gnomes, with grins of malice, 
 would raise to her eyes a shining vision. She would 
 see Jack Childers, shaking off the thraldom of Owl- 
 dom in his own discreet and elegantly appointed home. 
 And as he entered perhaps he had just left her after 
 the coveted ride uptown Ivy, her luminous golden 
 hair shimmering round her pale and delicately outlined 
 face, would meet him and bid him welcome. And they 
 would talk far into the early hours of the morning, on 
 topics of human concern and beauty. There would be 
 none of the jargon of Owldom in their converse, no ill- 
 natured comments, crude jests, and epigrammatic stu- 
 pidity. She could see him wrenching himself free from 
 the souvenirs of the day. And she, herself, was one 
 of those souvenirs, the last to cling to him before he 
 entered those placid domestic portals. 
 
 It was a soul-disturbing vision, and the spectres and 
 gnomes capered gleefully around her as they held up 
 the curtain, and allowed her to look. They grouped 
 themselves around her and watched her face as she 
 gazed into the gauzy depths of the picture. And then 
 she would feel how hopelessly she was shut out of this 
 real life, and what a base imitation of the unalloyed 
 thing was her Owldom's intercourse. Foolishly, as she 
 lay there in the thick shadows, she would strain her 
 ears, in the belief that the vision was set to words and 
 that she would hear what Jack and Ivy were saying. 
 
 Before she slept, the utter selfishness of her mood 
 would be realized. Why should she rebel, like a dog 
 in the manger, at her cherished comrade's happiness? 
 Merely because she could not see it. How gladly 
 would she have welcomed an introduction to his home
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 119 
 
 women, and what a joy it would have been to her to 
 watch these domestic pictures from a privileged view- 
 point. But he had willed it otherwise, and she was 
 shut out. And then she would fall asleep, to awake 
 and laugh at herself. The labors of Owldom were cer- 
 tainly prostrating. 
 
 After one of these distressing nights, Sallie was blithe 
 to the point of desperation. She would go to the office, 
 and convulse the entire establishment with her reck- 
 lessness and irreverence. She would stay there until 
 her theatre began, dreading the solitude of her apart- 
 ment, and the sympathy of her colored maid. She 
 would insist upon afternoon tea in the owls' pet base- 
 ment, known as "Hitchcock's," and would drink from 
 an inch-thick cup as daintily as though it were finest 
 Dresden. She would partake of heavy, stodgy cakes, 
 aptly called "sinkers" by the owls, and saturate them 
 with a yellow oil masquerading as butter. 
 
 She would peep into the sanctum occupied by the 
 freckle-remover, the poetess, the society butterfly, and 
 the other perfect ladies of the nest, and withdraw 
 quickly, as infuriated glances were cast at her. Once 
 she sent them an invitation to tea in sheer deviltry, and 
 received a crushing note of regret signed by each of 
 the votaries. 
 
 On these occasions Mr. Childers would take her to 
 Mouquin's to dinner, and she would sit in an at- 
 mosphere of cookshop, and talk to him as though her 
 very soul were in her lips. She was happy if by any 
 chance Anastasia, or Amelia Amberg Hutchinson, or 
 Rita Eisenstein, detained by stress of work, sat near 
 her. It amused her to watch their by-play. It was 
 as good as a farce better than a good many that a 
 cruel fate compelled her to see to notice their smil- 
 ing, servile salutation of Mr. Childers while they glar-
 
 120 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 ingly ignored her, his companion. This appealed to 
 Sallie's notions of the ridiculous, for there was no mal- 
 ice in her nature. 
 
 Once, at one of these dinners, Sallie saw Anastasia 
 Atwood, tired after working all afternoon on a poem 
 called "Ah! If I Could Fly!" (that was the refrain), 
 sitting alone at an adjoining table. The poetess looked 
 ineffably weary, and Sallie forgot her dislike of the 
 woman, in her sympathy for the fagged owl. 
 
 "Do you mind if I ask her to join us?" she queried of 
 Jack Childers. 
 
 Mr. Childers minded very much indeed, and said so, 
 suggesting at the same time that, as Anastasia seemed 
 so fervidly anxious to fly, it would be as well for her 
 to realize that now was her cue. Let her fly. 
 
 "I'm not sorry for her," he said. "She has a hus- 
 band. Why doesn't she stay at home and mend his 
 socks?" 
 
 Sallie laughed. "The husbands of ladies who write," 
 she said, "wear socks that are warranted never to de- 
 velop holes. But that is not the point. The poor 
 thing looks fagged out, and I know I feel it in my 
 bones that she will treat herself to a glass of water. 
 In the interest of the office she needs Burgundy." 
 
 Jack Childers shrugged his shoulders. "Would you 
 be sitting at a table in a masculine restaurant, all by 
 yourself, if you had a husband, Sallie?" (He had 
 never returned to the formal "Miss Sydenham.") 
 
 "Not I," she answered quickly. "If I only owned 
 somebody who would bring me in my rent every month, 
 you would never see me in this region of the city again. 
 The woman who invented earning her own living 
 ought to be compelled to do that, and nothing else, all 
 through eternity."
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 121 
 
 "You really don't mean what you say ?" He seemed 
 quite vexed. 
 
 "Honor bright," laughed Sallie. "Of course I do. 
 Women were never meant to pay rent. It is the only 
 outlay that worries me. I hate it. I keep my rent in an 
 old vase, which I use for nothing else, and as soon as 
 the time comes if it ever comes when Miss Syden- 
 ham can say ta-ta to pen and ink, she will break that 
 vase into a thousand pieces not one less than a thou- 
 sand. It is a very handsome old vase, but I detest the 
 sight of it. It always seems to say to me, 'Fifty dollars 
 a month, please, in advance.' " 
 
 "Still, you like to be independent?" 
 
 "I don't. I am obliged to be independent, but I 
 don't like it. The girl who earns her own living is an 
 anomaly. Every Jack should labor for a Jill" (she 
 blushed as she remembered that his name was Jack, and 
 hurried on), "and if there are too many Jills in the 
 world they should go to Salt Lake City. I've no pa- 
 tience with girls who pretend that they like working 
 and are quite satisfied with their lot. They may have 
 to do it, but they can't like it. There is nothing to like 
 in it. Besides, we were meant to do nothing of the 
 sort. I'm sure of that. Everything points to it. 
 But," rapidly changing the subject, "I'm going to ask 
 Mrs. Atwood to join us, whether you like it or not. 
 Now, don't rebel. We'll have the poetess, and perhaps 
 she'll regale us with a poem au gratin, or a juicy dog- 
 gerel a la maitre d' hotel. Poor thing !" 
 
 She flew off, and approached the table where the 
 pallid lady of the rhymes sat gazing into the future, 
 and also into the kitchen. Anastasia looked as though 
 she were awaiting either inspiration, or soup, or both. 
 
 "Good-evening," said Sallie, nodding familiarly, in
 
 122 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 order to make the overture easy. "Won't you come 
 and sit at our table and be sociable? We are fellow 
 sufferers, and on this occasion we might acknowledge 
 our kinship, don't you think?" 
 
 Anastasia's eyes fixed themselves glassily upon the 
 intruder. Sallie thought that they looked exactly like 
 cat's eyes, but not as nice. 
 
 "I prefer to be alone," declared the poetess, rigidly. 
 "If I did not, I have my husband." 
 
 "Yes, I know," Sallie assented. "But he is not here. 
 Come and sit with us, and time will pass more quickly. 
 Mr. Childers er begged me to invite you." 
 
 "Nay," quoth the poetess, lugubriously. "Nay. If 
 Mr. Childers had needed me, he could have asked me 
 himself. I should be in the way. Moreover, I have or- 
 dered my dinner, and while I eat I am always compos- 
 ing." 
 
 "Or decomposing," thought Sallie. The cold, in- 
 sulting demeanor of the lady of the rhymes did not dis- 
 turb her. Still, she was not prepared for these glances 
 of irreparable hostility. She thought she was doing 
 a graceful thing, for, at any rate, she was doing it out 
 of the goodness of her heart ; but Anastasia was inex- 
 orably hostile. 
 
 "Come," cried Sallie, pleadingly, for through it all 
 Anastasia's haggard face touched her, and she would 
 gladly have overthrown the barriers that separated her 
 from the misguided lady. "Come. It will do us all 
 good, and to-morrow we needn't remember it." 
 
 "I have said," returned the poetess, imperiously, "and 
 that is enough. I do not favor revelry in any shape or 
 form. I am an ascetic. Besides" and here she sank her 
 voice so that it was almost inaudible "I do not coun- 
 tenance this so-called Bohemianism. I do not like to 
 see a young woman dining at a table with a man who
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 123 
 
 is not, and who has no intention of becoming her hus- 
 band." 
 
 The malice in the poetess's sunken voice was unmis- 
 takable, and Sallie recoiled. Anastasia had shown her 
 claws, which were never very aptly sheathed, and the 
 exhibition was somewhat discouraging. 
 
 "But in your case," added Anastasia, as a parting 
 shot (and she treasured up her words to repeat to Mrs. 
 Amelia Amberg Hutchinson, Lamp-Post Lucy, Happy 
 Hippy, Rita Eisenstein, and the others), "in your case 
 it does not matter much, for you are living up to the 
 theories that you set forth, I am told, in your criti- 
 cisms. I do not approve of them." 
 
 Sallie had a glowing retort one that would have 
 pulverized Mrs. Atwood on the outside edge of her 
 lips, but she refrained from uttering it. After all, 
 what did it matter ? She had been willing to set aside 
 her own antipathy to the poetess ; but it did not follow 
 that the poetess was bound to adopt the same course. 
 They had never exchanged a friendly word. Why 
 should Sallie believe that, at her mere bidding, Anas- 
 tasia would accept this unsought invitation ? And her 
 anger gave way to the alarming suggestions of sym- 
 pathy that had instigated her action. She pitied the 
 poor thing who threw aside the claims of home and 
 husband to sit there, sallow, solitary, and spent, for the 
 sake of the silly concave myth called "reputation." 
 
 She returned to Jack Childers, who was endeavoring 
 to bisect a Chateaubriand steak. He gave a sigh of re- 
 lief when he saw that she was unaccompanied. 
 
 ''She is aweary, weary, and she cometh not, she appar- 
 ently said," he murmured as the bisection was success- 
 fully achieved. "I was afraid she would come and eat 
 this all up, and perhaps ask for more. Poets are always 
 hungry, I've heard. Metre needs meat, they tell me."
 
 124 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 Sallie ate her food in silence. Certainly women 
 hated her women of any class had no use whatsoever 
 for her, and it was of no avail trying to coax them. 
 
 "Why are you so silent ?" he asked. 
 
 "I was thinking," she said, "how unpopular I am 
 with my sex. If you had been alone, Anastasia would 
 have gladly joined you. I am the bone of contention. 
 Women despise me. Sometimes I don't care (and I'm 
 glad the women in the office hate me yes, glad) ; but 
 other women. . . ." 
 
 "What other women?" 
 
 "Oh, I don't know," she replied wearily, for a sud- 
 den fatigue had fallen upon her and the pleasure of 
 her tete-a-tete meal was marred. "There might be wo- 
 men whom I should like to know, but who wouldn't 
 like to know me." 
 
 Mr. Childers smiled. The moods of this girl enter- 
 tained him, for they followed each other so swiftly, and 
 they were so adorably unreasonable. Sallie was not 
 the sort of girl to captivate her own sex, and he felt 
 that in her heart of hearts she had no desire to do so. 
 The thought of her in companionship with Ivy Hamp- 
 ton was too ridiculous even to enjoy, and he wondered 
 how ten minutes of his aunt would agree with her. Be- 
 ing a man, he naturally believed in the all-sufficiency 
 of masculine friendship if he bothered about believ- 
 ing anything at all. And as he did not view Miss Syd- 
 enham altruistically, as did Charlie Covington, he could 
 not pretend a sympathy with a mock-heroic situation. 
 
 So Sallie finished her dinner and went to the theatre, 
 and saw a farce, "adapted from the French," full of un- 
 faithful husbands and henpecking wives, and situa- 
 tions with double, triple, and quadruple meanings. And 
 she "did it up" in her best style, sparkling with quaint 
 epigram and unconventional ideas. The spades in the
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 125 
 
 play had called themselves spades ; but Sallie reiterated 
 it, flung it at them again, tossed it in lively repetition 
 all over her article. She was at her best when she was 
 at her worst, and it was her garish quality only that 
 attracted. 
 
 And after the theatre she went home, and the spec- 
 tres and the gnomes came out and danced a veritable 
 can-can round her bed. The visions they showed her ! 
 She saw Jack again, in dual solitude with Ivy Hamp- 
 ton ; but later they were joined by Anastasia Atwood, 
 who stood beside them and seemed to be expounding 
 important theories. But Sallie could never hear any- 
 thing. The spectres and the gnomes gave her clair- 
 voyance, but not clairaudience. From the expressions 
 on the faces of Jack and Ivy, however, Anastasia must 
 have had remarkable views to set forth, for Ivy shrank 
 back in dismay, her long blonde hair touching Jack's 
 shoulder, while he seemed to listen with a rapt air of 
 sublime conviction. The spirit of the article she had 
 written a nudely ribald phantom appeared above the 
 three, and as they saw it, Anastasia pointed in triumph, 
 while upon the face of Ivy yes, and later of Jack was 
 a frozen horror that was irresistible. 
 
 Sallie awoke with a start. It was a nightmare. She 
 switched on the electric light and sat pale and shiv- 
 ering. 
 
 Bathos : Next day, when she told Mr. Childers, in 
 reply to his questions anent her ghastly face and heavy- 
 lidded eyes, that she had slept distressingly, he as- 
 cribed it to the Chateaubriand. 
 
 "I thought at the time," he said, "that it was rather 
 overdone."
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 SEEDY-LOOKING individual, blear-eyed, 
 dishevelled, and unkempt, crept into the owls' 
 nest one night, about a month after the 
 epoch-making "reception." His gait was 
 not too steady, but he entered the room presided over 
 by Mr. Green, with a certain bibulous self-assurance 
 that was sufficient to overcome the scruples of the office 
 boys. His business was with Mr. Green, he said, and 
 he had come to sell an "exclusive story." Years ago 
 this feeble, palsied wreck had been a promising owl, 
 and had made some sort of a reputation in metropolitan 
 journalism. He had now reached the not unfamiliar 
 stage when, unable to turn to any other employment, 
 he clung to the ragged edges of Owldom and earned 
 a precarious livelihood by selling occasional "beats." 
 He might have been blazoned forth in Owldom as the 
 sorry goal to which so many of its votaries tended ; but 
 he pointed no moral and declined to adorn a tale. To 
 the young owls he was, of course, a sinister exception, 
 and in their youth and strength, and fine, bubbling ener- 
 gies they could not understand this pitiful finish. 
 
 They laughed at poor old Witherby, he was so in- 
 corrigible ; but the older men were not amused. They 
 saw in this tattered human pulp, a sickly reminder of 
 odious possibilities, for in Owldom there is little pro- 
 vision for the inevitable "rainy day;" yet few die in 
 harness. When "beats" were rare and people went 
 through the world declining to do "exclusive" things, 
 the old man would appear at the office on salary day 
 and make incoherent demands in the name of journal- 
 ism. All the owls listened, and gave; for the hearts
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 127 
 
 of these birds of Newspaper Row are warm, and hu- 
 man, and recklessly generous. He appealed to any of 
 them, or to all of them, from the office boy to Sallie 
 Sydenham. They were used to what they called a 
 "touch;" and though a few might have marvelled at 
 this picture of degradation, discarded self-esteem, and 
 vanished respect, they gave. Poor old Witherby! 
 He was so usual, and there were so many of him ! 
 
 Mr. Green was not in his happiest mood as the old 
 man slouched in on this particular night, exhaling stale 
 odors of the rumshop. The "staff" labored in the 
 usual furtive and noiseless way ; Sallie, sitting close to 
 Mr. Green's desk, was generously casting adjectives 
 at the reputation of Clyde Fitch. The hum, and click, 
 and drone, and tinkle all soaked in a bourdonnement 
 that occurs nowhere else were noticeable to the un- 
 initiated; to the initiated they were as involuntary as 
 the processes of inhalation and exhalation. Mr. Green, 
 however, was cross. A magnificent scandal, glowing 
 with a wealth of incandescent possibility, had failed to 
 materialize, and had, in fact, obliterated itself com- 
 pletely. This had "riled" the night city editor, and 
 he was inclined to view life rather "hopelessly and to 
 snarl at the tame, conventional episodes that were to 
 fill the morrow's paper. 
 
 He greeted old Witherby with nothing more than a 
 frown ; but he had presence of mind enough to set aside 
 the perpetual ham-sandwich that he had been preparing 
 to explore until the atmosphere, which had grown 
 dense and nauseating with the advent of the vinous vis- 
 itor, should be clear and bracing again. 
 
 "Sa-ay, Mr. Green," began Witherby, with an in- 
 troductory hiccough, "I've got a tip for you just a 
 tip ; but if the story pans out, don't you forget With- 
 erby's envelope on Tuesday morning. It appears"
 
 128 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 and here he grew confidential and proximate "that 
 there's trouble brewing for our famous American actor, 
 pet of the matinee girls, Arthur Stuyvesant." 
 
 He paused, and drew a red handkerchief across his 
 lips. Then, steadying himself against Mr. Green's 
 desk, he continued : "It seems that Stuyvesant has an 
 entanglement oh, the usual thing, you know, although 
 Stuyvesant has generally managed to keep his af- 
 fairs from the public, and has had the 'repu- 
 tation' only until now. An actor in Stuyvesant's com- 
 pany told me that the other night Arthur was a little 
 bit under the weather" (this was the poor old wreck's 
 invariable way of characterizing his own chronic con- 
 dition), "and that while in that state he had confessed 
 that he was having a hard time with his wife. Mrs. 
 Stuyvesant had 'tumbled' to the liaison" (he pro- 
 nounced it "leah-zong"), "and had threatened divorce. 
 Now, you know, Stuyvesant doesn't mind notoriety, 
 and I don't fancy that a divorce case would bother him 
 at all. But he said that the lady in the case was quite 
 unusual, and that not for the world would he bring 
 her name before the public. I asked the actor her 
 name. He did not know, for Stuyvesant was sober 
 enough to refuse to tell him. Stuyvesant, I believe, 
 has been seen with her, and it is quite mysterious, 
 Mr. Green she wears a heavy gauze veil. And there 
 are rumors that they have a furnished apartment, 
 where they meet quite in the general French novel 
 style." 
 
 "Well, Miss Sydenham, what is it?" 
 
 Sallie had risen from her seat, and stood staring stu- 
 pidly at the night city editor with eyes that were wide, 
 blank, and meaningless. Her lips were white, except 
 where a tiny spot of blood seemed to indicate lacera- 
 tion. The eternal rouge on her skin surmounted, like
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 129 
 
 the carmine clots on the chalky make-up of a clown, a 
 face that was utterly blanched. Mr. Green's words 
 reached her as though spoken by a voice from another 
 world. 
 
 "What is it, Miss Sydenham?" he repeated, "Can't 
 you see that I'm busy just now?" 
 
 She sat down and tried to resume her task; but the 
 reputation of Clyde Fitch and the criticism of his pup- 
 pets, seemed too ridiculously trivial in comparison with 
 the live, palpitating horror to which she had listened 
 and must continue to listen. Her hand shook, and she 
 wrote zigzags over her "copy" paper. The reporters 
 never even paused in their work. These little recita- 
 tions made no appeal to their interests. As a general 
 thing, moreover, they led to a "wild goose chase" as- 
 signment that was distinctly irritating. 
 
 "Go on," commanded Mr. Green. "Continue, Mr. 
 Witherby." 
 
 "There is little more," the poor old ex-owl remarked, 
 quite sorrowfully. "Of course, it is possible that noth- 
 ing more may happen. Everything may be amicably 
 settled. You must move cautiously, very cautiously, 
 Mr. Green. This is a tip, and it is worth watching. 
 You see, we have no inkling as to the identity of the 
 woman. She might be " 
 
 "Oh, she might be one of the Four Hundred," in- 
 terrupted the night city editor, excitedly, rising and 
 pacing about in febrile agitation. "She might be any- 
 body. She might be one of the most prominent names 
 in the elite directory. It might pan out to be the great- 
 est story of the season. These fools of women all go 
 crazy over this insane mummer this leathery, mutton- 
 faced actor, with as much talent as a tobacconist's red 
 Indian. It is incredible." Then, realizing that his busi- 
 ness instinct was being submerged by his artistic
 
 130 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 perception of "news," and that old Witherby's effort 
 must be appropriately belittled, he calmed himself. "It 
 may amount to nothing at all, Mr. Witherby," he said. 
 "I'll investigate it, and see what it's worth. Thank 
 you. Of course, you understand that this is exclusive. 
 If it goes to any other paper not a cent." 
 
 "You know me, Mr. Green," replied the loose old 
 lips. "You know me. My word is my bond." And 
 he shuffled out, a ray of hope in his blotted eyes, a fond 
 and almost radiant expectation that Mrs. Stuyvesant, 
 with due respect for Owldom, would make things prof- 
 itably warm for her recalcitrant husband. Mr. Green 
 rubbed his hands gleefully, opened the window for the 
 benefit of his olfactory senses, unwrapped the paper 
 containing the ham sandwich, and sat down to think 
 the matter over. 
 
 Sallie's unfinished criticism lay on the desk before 
 her. She had added nothing to it since old Witherby 
 had interrupted her comments upon this mimic life, and 
 she knew that it must go into the records forever in- 
 complete. She scrawled a last halting line, bringing 
 the article to an unexpected close, signed her name to 
 it, and handed it to an office boy to take to the com- 
 posing room. Her mind was made up. She wrenched 
 the lugubrious thoughts from her brain, and with 
 a fair simulation of her usually unsimulated aplomb, 
 she went to Mr. Green's desk, and, drawing up a chair, 
 sat down beside him. He was eating his sandwich 
 restfully, and she saw him push a little bit of pendulous 
 white fat into his mouth, carefully noting this trifle, 
 which proved to her that she was sedate, serene, and 
 able to play the game to the bitter end, if need be. 
 
 "Mr. Green," she said, and she tried a blithe little 
 laugh that went very well indeed, and sounded quite
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 131 
 
 like the real thing, "I heard old Witherby's story. Wo- 
 men are dreadfully inquisitive things, aren't they? 
 They are not precisely curious, but they like to know. 
 Are you going to do anything about it ?" 
 
 "Do anything about it?" he repeated, spluttering, 
 and gulping down the last crust. "Do anything about 
 it? Why, Miss Sydenham, aren't you newspaper wo- 
 man enough to see what this story means, or might 
 mean?" 
 
 Sallie laughed again, for her merriment was the 
 office's perquisite. "Indeed I am," she said brightly. 
 "I just wanted to see you look surprised, Mr. Green, 
 and of course you fell into the trap. Yes, I realize 
 that this might be a great thing three columns and 
 a scare head. In fact, I was so awfully interested that 
 I really couldn't finish my work, and have just turned 
 in a criticism to which I was almost ashamed to sign 
 my name. It quite excited me it appealed to me ; 
 and for that reason, Mr. Green, I'm going to be first in 
 the field, and ask you to let me work it up. I think I 
 could do it, and make a big hit with it. I've met Ar- 
 thur Stuyvesant, you know, and I could manage him 
 much better than an ordinary reporter could do. Oh, 
 do give me the chance, Mr. Green, please. I've never 
 had an assignment before, but this one oh, this is 
 within my scope. I could ferret it out, I know I 
 could. May I? May I, Mr. Green?" 
 
 He looked at her rather seriously, and it seemed to 
 him that she was flushed but of course it was diffi- 
 cult to know for sure, as Sallie's flushes came in the 
 shape of powder and could be worn at any time. Then 
 it occurred to him that her idea was not absolutely im- 
 pious, although unusual, for dramatic critics are not, 
 as a rule, adept at news stories. Still, Sallie was a
 
 132 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 very bright girl, and she had never failed in anything. 
 In this case a woman's wit might accomplish what a 
 man's more durate perception would balk at. ... 
 
 "Why are you so anxious to work up this story?" 
 he asked sharply. 
 
 "Why?" Sallie was startled, and it seemed to her 
 that he was reading her. "Why?" She glanced at 
 those fishy eyes, and knew that their mind-reading 
 powers were tightly circumscribed. "Why? Be- 
 cause it's interesting. It will be a change. I'm sick 
 of grinding out criticisms. I'm tired of writing : 'Ar- 
 thur Stuyvesant was unreal.' I want to show that he 
 is real, and as horrid in reality as he is on the stage. 
 I've said fifty times that he is a bad actor. Now, I be- 
 lieve, we can prove that he is a bad man. Oh, Mr. 
 Green, I have the most gorgeous idea for writing up 
 this story. I can weave his stage life into his real 
 life . . . and I can compare him with various roles 
 that I've seen him interpret. Last season he played a 
 man leading a double life, and the matinee girls were 
 wild with delight over it. This is my chance, and the 
 more I think about it the more I see what I can do with 
 it." 
 
 She was all aglow with excitement. Her lips were 
 so dry, that she was compelled to moisten them as she 
 spoke. In her hands she held a small lace handker- 
 chief, and she tore it slowly into tatters. Nothing had 
 meant more to her than this assignment, and she 
 wanted to show him that it signified much arid then, 
 again, that it didn't. 
 
 "Nothing has ever occurred during your wanderings 
 around the theatres to give you any inkling as to the 
 identity of the woman ?" He fixed his eyes upon her, 
 penetratingly. 
 
 "Oh, no," she replied lightly. "After a performance
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 133 
 
 I hurry downtown. But I feel sure that I can find out. 
 Oh, I have many channels of information, Mr. Green. 
 It must be somebody in high society, because he goes 
 out a good deal. I shouldn't wonder if the wing of 
 the Four Hundred sheltered her. Oh, it will be such 
 fun. I shall work at this assignment as though my 
 whole reputation depended upon it. For you will give 
 it to me, won't you, Mr. Green?" 
 
 "Not so fast not so fast, Miss Sydenham." But in 
 reality he was delighted at this outburst of enthusiasm, 
 which contrasted so favorably with the apathy of the 
 male owls, who "went out on a story" for the purpose 
 of demonstrating, not what was in it, but what wasn't. 
 "I wonder if Rita Eisenstein is in the office. Perhaps 
 she could give us a point or two. Her society col- 
 umns are pretty good, and perhaps she has heard 
 rumors, on dits, or whispers. Perhaps " 
 
 "You don't intend to give her the story?" Sallie 
 could scarcely frame the question, which, if she had 
 only known it, was quite absurd, as Miss Eisenstein's 
 literary and detective abilities were about on a par with 
 those of Mrs. Amelia Amberg Hutchinson. 
 
 Miss Eisenstein was sent for, and responded prompt- 
 ly to Mr. Green's call. She appeared in the city 
 room wearing her latest Division Street confection 
 rather rakishly, upon the side of her head. She paid 
 no attention whatsoever to Miss Sydenham, and took 
 elaborate pains to conspicuously ignore her presence 
 beside Mr. Green. Miss Eisenstein assumed an air of 
 great importance when the night city editor had fully 
 explained himself to her. At first, she laughed in 
 spectacular disdain when he evolved his question and 
 asked her if, during her society jaunts, she had heard 
 any woman's name coupled with that of Arthur Stuy- 
 vesant. She was anxious to pose as walking only in the
 
 134 A Gir l Who Wrote 
 
 most exclusive paths, and she larded all her remarks 
 with Astor and Vanderbilt, until Sallie almost began 
 to believe that Miss Eisenstein lived with them. Mr. 
 Green was not at all impressed by her airs and manner- 
 isms, and nipped her eloquence in its bud, pinning her 
 down to precise answers. Like other well-regulated 
 owls, the night city editor held the feminine adjuncts 
 in but slight esteem. They irritated him, as lacking 
 the cool, matter-of-fact logic of men, as well as the 
 adorable non-logic of amusing women. He was wont 
 to allude to them as excrescences when in the sanctity 
 of his domestic circle ; and Mrs. Green, who had never 
 been an owl, was pleased to see that in Newspaper- 
 dom, at any rate, there would be no temptations for 
 him to wander from his own fireside. 
 
 Miss Eisenstein, brought down to immediate neces- 
 sities, -insolently debited Mr. Green with a list of can- 
 didates for the honor of sensational scandal. With 
 nonchalant impudence, combined with a nauseating 
 jocularity, she cast abominable slurs upon conspicuous 
 reputations, and submerged honored names beneath 
 the slime and ooze of inconceivable stigma. She did 
 it all with a fine sense of pride-in-calling. The proud 
 wives and daughters of the Four Hundred were trotted 
 out in procession, and Miss Eisenstein reviewed them 
 through lenses of suspicion, insinuation, and loath- 
 some innuendo. She tore them to tatters, wrecked 
 fair fame, and ravaged pretentious chastity ; and all the 
 time there was conscious self-approval in her eyes, and 
 a great sense of her own journalistic importance in her 
 uttered words. 
 
 Sallie felt sick at heart as she listened to all this 
 brazen palaver. A wave of disgust swept her while 
 Miss Eisenstein vigorously trampled down smiling, 
 reputable edifices, and devastated a veritable horde of
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 135 
 
 characters. This was the stock in trade of the femi- 
 nine owl. At the beck and call of this smug, audacious 
 woman were latent fires, ready at a moment's no- 
 tice to burst forth, and lick into blackness all that had 
 kept itself in untarnished security. The hatefulness 
 of it! Yet this man this instigator could sit and 
 listen to it ! He did not spring at her throat and stran- 
 gle the noisome words as they struggled for exit. Sal- 
 lie looked at him, in dismay, as he sat munching the 
 cud of this odious debit account. 
 
 No, Miss Eisenstein could not positively say that she 
 had heard any name absolutely coupled with that of Ar- 
 thur Stuyvesant. But she knew for a fact that in so- 
 ciety, just at present, there were a number of suspects, 
 any of whom could fit into any disreputable story. 
 There was Miss Snooks, who "came out" this season, 
 for instance. At Newport she had been very much dis- 
 cussed, and there was a report that she might have to 
 retire before the New York season began. Very smart 
 girl, very classy, but dreadfully fast ! Every one knew 
 the cat-and-dog life that young Van Orden and his 
 wife led. He had accused her of awful things, before 
 everybody, at Mrs. Popinjay's reception. He had men- 
 tioned no name, but . . . well, you could suit your- 
 self. It was just an amusing sort of puzzle : find the 
 man. And there was little Julia de Brest, who had 
 done horrible things, and made no bones about it. She 
 had been seen at Archie Forrest's chambers at an tin- 
 godly hour of the night. Archie knew all sorts of 
 Bohemians, actors, bon viveurs, and folks with pimply 
 reputations. . . . There were the Williamson girls, 
 four of them, who had been packed off to Europe at 
 the close of last season, on account of a scandal at a 
 country house. It had been kept as dark as possible, 
 but the facts had leaked out. Of course, they were
 
 136 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 not pretty ; but they had lots of money, and to an actor, 
 you know, a girl with ready cash meant everything. 
 . . . Old Dowager Dumpkins, who must be sixty if 
 a day, was notoriously addicted to the society of young 
 men very young men. They said that she absolutely 
 "supported" Riggioso, the tenor of the Metropolitan 
 Opera House Company. Most actors knew her, for 
 she sought them out, and dangled them before the pub- 
 lic, tied to her apron-strings. . . . And Lady Pompton 
 old Appleville's daughter, who had been sold to Lord 
 Algernon three seasons ago she was very much "on 
 the razzle" oh, everybody knew it, and it had ceased 
 to be a wonder. It was tacitly admitted, and Lady 
 Pompton had been threatened with "proceedings" by 
 a cable from Lord Algernon, now at Nice. . . . There 
 was Violet Dore, whose husband hadn't a cent to his 
 name, but who, at the last Assembly, wore a magnifi- 
 cent diamond necklace worth at least fifty thousand. 
 She was utterly Bohemian, and carelessly undiscrimi- 
 nating. In fact, the Four Hundred had almost deter- 
 mined to give her the cold shoulder. You see, the 
 Four Hundred had no objection at all to a few little 
 amiable peccadilloes, when they were not found out. 
 But once discovered, then an example must be made, 
 in all fairness, in all decency. . . . 
 
 Miss Eisenstein was delighted with herself, as she 
 reeled off her exhaustive list. It caused her to realize 
 her own value to the paper. She was an encyclope- 
 dia of useless knowledge, and she flattered herself that 
 no mere man could get beneath the very "cuticle" of 
 "society" as she had contrived to do. She could have 
 talked for an hour and a half, now that she had been 
 so promisingly started. She tilted her Division Street 
 hat over her beetle brows, and gazed with conscious 
 self-esteem at Mr. Green.
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 137 
 
 The night city editor, who had flaired possibilities 
 when she began, looked perplexed when she paused 
 in the interminable debit account. It was an embarras 
 de richesses, and he did not like this "pick and choose" 
 from a veritable magician's scrap-bag. He would have 
 preferred two or three promising cases of misdemeanor 
 and adultery. Miss Eisenstein's list was too inclusive. 
 Apparently, it contained no righteous women. The 
 "thousand liveried angels" waiting to "lackey" the 
 saintly chastity "so dear to Heaven" must have found 
 their occupation gone with a vengeance. It was quite 
 exasperating. Still, his journalistic soul was moved 
 to admiration, as he realized the extent of her knowl- 
 edge. 
 
 "It is a long list," he said, "very long. You are the 
 right one to call upon in these emergencies, Miss Eisen- 
 stein." 
 
 "Oh, I've not nearly finished," she simpered, primp- 
 ing. "I could babble on like the brook, forever. I 
 love my work, Mr. Green. I am an enthusiast ; other- 
 wise I simply couldn't keep abreast of the times. It is 
 a great deal of a fag, but the cause is worth it. I do 
 not complain." 
 
 Sallie sat very silent, ashamed, for the first time, of 
 the sex to which she belonged. These men, these 
 hard-working beings in trousers, were surely infinitely 
 superior. They earned the inevitable livelihood by the 
 sweat of their brows, because they had to do it. She 
 recoiled in revolt from the spectacle of this owl-girl 
 in the hat, her face wreathed in smiles. . . . Yet she 
 herself was equally to be censured. She did not glory 
 in her ribald writings, or experience a soulful satis- 
 faction in the daily knowledge that she wrote with the 
 license of a man. Still, she wrote, and money was 
 offered to her and accepted. She needed it, of course ;
 
 138 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 she needed it badly. ... It was an irritating prob- 
 lem. . . . She wished that she had not been there to 
 listen to Rita Eisenstein's monologue. It had made 
 her feel uncomfortable, and self-reproachful. She 
 thought of the bar-room plays with scavenger dia- 
 logue, that she openly discussed in the office with Mr. 
 Green. . . . No. she was not justified for a single in- 
 stant in condemning Miss Eisenstein. They were in 
 the same class, although, perhaps, if the dishonors had 
 been distributed, Rita would have been allotted the 
 lion's share. 
 
 "Shall I continue, Mr. Green?" queried Miss Eisen- 
 stein, sweetly willing. She glanced at her reflection 
 in the dark window, and straightened her hat. It was 
 a dream of a hat, and such a bargain ! 
 
 "No," he said wearily. "That will do. I am very 
 much obliged to you. I had no idea that there were 
 so many subjects, Miss Eisenstein. It makes my work 
 very much harder." 
 
 "You must dislike this atmosphere of contamination, 
 Miss Eisenstein," Sallie said, with voluntary malice. 
 "It must be very trying to a girl of your sensitive na- 
 ture." 
 
 "It is," retorted the other, with a bland smile. "But 
 I do not have to write iniquities. I merely store them 
 up for future reference. It must be worse for you, 
 writing them every day." 
 
 Miss Eisenstein made a note of this cutting rejoinder 
 for the benefit of Amelia Amberg Hutchinson, Happy 
 Hippy, Lamp-Post Lucy, Anastasia Atwood, and other 
 associate vestals and sirens of Owldom. She had 
 scored one at the expense of the disreputable Miss Syd- 
 enham, who, with a reputation hanging in shreds, had 
 launched her sarcasms at a conscientious worker, full 
 of legitimate enthusiasm and pride.
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 139 
 
 "Don't mind her, Miss Sydenham," said Mr. Green, 
 soothingly, as Miss Eisenstein withdrew. "She is jeal- 
 ous of you, naturally. Poor thing! I think she gets 
 thirty-five a week. And she works hard. There is 
 no doubt at all about that. She is a mine of informa- 
 tion." 
 
 "A sewer," retorted Sallie. 
 
 He laughed. "But she has not thrown any light 
 upon the situation," he declared. "She has, in fact, 
 rendered it more difficult to cope with. She has con- 
 fronted us with a task, compared with which searching 
 for a needle in a bundle of hay is mere pastime. I am 
 afraid that I hardly like to entrust you with such a job, 
 Miss Sydenham. It is detective work, and you are not 
 used to that kind of thing. It seems ridiculous to ask 
 a writer to attend to such a matter as this. Don't you 
 think" 
 
 "Oh, please, Mr. Green" Sallie felt desperate, for 
 the ground seemed to be slipping beneath her feet "I 
 shall not fail you. I can't tell you how excited I am 
 about this story. I feel as much enthusiasm as Miss 
 Eisenstein does for her for her work." 
 
 Mr. Green's interest in the matter was slightly on the 
 wane. Journalistic promises, that look rosy and 
 luminous when first mooted, fade quickly into unim- 
 portance. Their value diminishes as they are coldly 
 discussed with accessory obstacles in sight. More- 
 over, the ever-errant Spirit of Libel seemed to hover 
 menacingly around this particular case. Every owl 
 rushes in affright from this dangerous, threatening 
 Spirit. Mr. Green's fervor was slightly dampened, 
 and Sallie, noting it, began to feel that things might 
 go her way. 
 
 "Tell you what I'll do," said Mr. Green, in reaction.
 
 140 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 "I can't assign you to this on my own responsibility. 
 I'll discuss the matter with Mr. Childers " 
 
 "No," cried Sallie, in alarm. 
 
 "Yes," retorted the night city editor, with a smile. 
 "You are not afraid of Childers. He likes you, and 
 thinks the world of your work. I can't depart from the 
 rules of the office to the extent of giving an important 
 reportorial assignment to the dramatic critic without 
 consulting the managing editor " 
 
 "I would sooner not," she murmured. The com- 
 plications seemed to be piling up, and a great and name- 
 less dread oppressed her. 
 
 "See here, young woman," he said indulgently, "you 
 cannot rule the roost. You want this work, and you 
 shall have it, if possible. But I must cover myself, 
 you know, so that if you get the paper left not that 
 I believe for a moment you will do so the re- 
 sponsibility is removed from my shoulders. If you 
 want to back out, there is still time. I do not ask you 
 to worry about this case. It is the very last request 
 I should make of you. It is you who suggest it. To 
 please you I will lay the matter before Mr. Childers, 
 and if he says yes " 
 
 "Very well," muttered Sallie, doggedly. "Ask him. 
 Why not ? I am willing."
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 ALLIE sat, steeped in thought, waiting until 
 the time came when she could plausibly re- 
 pair to Jack Childers' office. Yet the pros- 
 pect of the ride uptown in the Elevated was 
 not as seductive as usual. The birth of a malevolent 
 secret had taken place, and she knew that it would 
 grow . . . and grow . . . and grow. She experi- 
 enced an absurdly unreasonable sense of disloyalty in 
 harboring thoughts that she would not dare to share 
 with Jack Childers. 
 
 She sat there,, drenched in a fast rain of emotional 
 imaginings. Intuition, which is a sort of psychic per- 
 ception, was far more responsible for her discomfort- 
 ing thoughts than was the cool, deliberate, pendulum- 
 like swing of logic. For, after all, Arthur Stuyvesant 
 was a notorious metropolitan character, and in this 
 latest dimly sketched escapade there wa.s a whole range 
 of distant possibilities. . . . Sallie discarded them all. 
 They were irrelevant ; she was quite sure of that. Im- 
 possible to rid her mind of what seemed like absolute 
 certainty. Before her mental eye rose that picture of the 
 tete-a-tete at the owls' nest on the evening of the fate- 
 ful "reception." She could not obliterate the unblurred 
 vision. Why had she felt impelled on that occasion 
 to tell him . . . what she had told him ? Some occult 
 influence, some subconscious suggestion, had led her 
 to this. Sallie was a very matter-of-fact young wo- 
 man, to whom mysticism was very much like trigonom- 
 etry; but the conviction that Arthur Stuyvesant was 
 henceforth to play a leading role in the drama of her 
 life was irresistible. As fast as reason stepped forth
 
 142 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 and said : "The chance is but one in a hundred in favor 
 of your far-fetched fears," intuition glided in and 
 chirped : "You are right." The theory of probabili- 
 ties, in its struggle with intuition, is like the surgeon's 
 scalpel attempting to dissect the soul. 
 
 She sat and read the proof of her criticism that she 
 had nipped in the bud. She was conscious of its stu- 
 pidity, its banality. She saw the exact period in it 
 when old Witherby had interrupted her train of 
 thought. She had just made a point that she was 
 about to decorate, and elaborate, when he had ap- 
 peared. The point stood there, naked and unashamed, 
 yearning for mental clothing and adjectival warmth. 
 She smiled as she realized the utter valuelessness of 
 her contribution, but she could not have embellished it 
 if her life had been at stake. Critics are occasionally 
 assailed by this stress of strenuous reality, and the ma- 
 chine slips . . . and the train is derailed. 
 
 It was nearly one o'clock when she entered Jack 
 Childers' sanctum. He was chatting rather apathet- 
 ically with Charlie Covington, who had, apparently, 
 "dropped in." She could not keep an expression of 
 extreme chagrin from her face as she beheld Mr. Cov- 
 ington the friend to whom she owed so much. Mr. 
 Childers was in an amiable and eloquent mood, and was 
 drawlingly expounding his impressions of the lat- 
 est novel. Charlie wore evening-dress, of course 
 (nothing but a contagious disease could have kept him 
 from a dinner coat after six o'clock), and there .was no 
 suggestion of Owldom in his rigid immaculacy of at- 
 tire. 
 
 Mr. Childers, however, was now quite ready to leave 
 Owldom for the night. His typewriter girl, who 
 adored him, had reluctantly departed. Sallie saw that 
 her hat and coat were absent from their accustomed
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 143 
 
 peg, and she knew that the girl never left, until there 
 was no excuse for staying longer. The office chaffed 
 this maiden about her hopeless passion for Mr. Child- 
 ers. She even dressed to suit him, and had once been 
 known to order a buff gown that matched a particularly 
 swagger suit imported by Mr. Childers from his Lon- 
 don tailors. Sallie never smiled at these evidences of 
 girlish adoration. Perhaps they were funny every- 
 body seemed to think that they were but humor de- 
 pended largely upon the point of view. 
 
 "Ready to go uptown, Sallie?" Mr. Childers asked, 
 fixing a somewhat quizzical look upon her. "If so, we 
 may as well start. You're coming, aren't you, Char- 
 lie?" 
 
 Mr. Covington looked very serious, Sallie thought. 
 She hated a serious mood, and she noticed that Charlie 
 Covington had been wearing one very conspicuously of 
 late, especially when she happened to be in his vicinity. 
 This annoyed her, for she was so accustomed to diffuse 
 gayety, rather than solemnity, that she began to regard 
 Mr. Covington as beyond her. But she chatted care- 
 lessly with him while Jack Childers divested himself 
 of his office coat, and made himself look dapper enough 
 for Fifth Avenue at three in the afternoon. Park Place 
 at one in the morning was vastly different, although 
 Mr. Childers professed to ignore the difference. 
 
 They were silent as they crossed City Hall Park, 
 with its ghostly shadows and spectral trees. Sallie felt 
 the weight of the evening's oppression, and her mind 
 seethed with plans, and schemes, and hopes, that she 
 knew would not be realized. It seemed to her that 
 there was treachery in her very silence, and as they 
 hurried towards the station she wondered how she 
 could let Jack Childers go placidly home ... to Ivy. 
 Ivy would be there, of course .... Whatever Miss
 
 144 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 Hampton might be, she was coldly and deliberately dis- 
 creet. . . . Sallie felt quite sure of that; but it made 
 the situation more dismally complicated, and crueler. 
 Every word that old Witherby had spoken echoed 
 through her mind, particularly this insinuation on the 
 subject of the "furnished apartment." It sounded like 
 the situations in Paul Bourget's novels. The pied-a- 
 terre ! It was infamous ! 
 
 "So," said Jack Childers, as they seated themselves 
 in the Elevated with Charlie Covington, who was per- 
 sistently silent, "Green tells me that you are going to 
 take an assignment, and are clamoring to unravel a 
 fetching episode in the life of Mr. Arthur Stuyvesant, 
 actor. He asked me if I were willing. Of course, I 
 said I was. But I never should have imagined that 
 you would be anxious for that kind of job." 
 
 He smiled in evident non-editorial amusement, and 
 Sallie again experienced the sensation of treachery as 
 she forced herself to smile back at him. "I want a 
 pastime," she said. "I write too much, and I'm get- 
 ting rusty. Besides, I think I can do this, and . . . 
 and . . . well, somebody has to do it, and I might as 
 well be that somebody." 
 
 "Why ?" Charlie Covington spoke for the first time. 
 His voice was tinged with harshness, and both Sallie 
 and Childers glanced at him in surprise. They knew 
 him, however, for a somewhat Quixotic young man 
 . . . but Sallie was undaunted. 
 
 "Why?" she asked, laughing. "Oh, because neither 
 of them can climb a tree ... or to get to the other 
 side ... or because of the sand which is there, and 
 the Pyramid of Cheops. Those are the only answers 
 I can think of. Can't a girl want without having to 
 explain by a diagram why she wants? Don't glower 
 at me, Charlie. You make me feel quite creepy, and
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 145 
 
 as though I were contemplating some evil thing. I 
 suppose you think that, one of these days, I shall beg 
 to be allowed to investigate you? Do not fear; I shall 
 do nothing of the sort. Seriously, I asked Mr. Green 
 to give me this assignment because a stage favorite is 
 involved in it, and I thought the work would be ... 
 er . . . rather fascinating." 
 
 Rather fascinating! Her sense of humor even at 
 her own expense could not be quite suppressed, and 
 she smiled as she uttered the words. 
 
 "It is not nice work for you, Sallie," said Mr. Cov- 
 ington, quietly. "It is, in fact, a most repulsive and 
 unnecessary undertaking." Then, turning to Mr. 
 Childers : "I wonder you allow it, Jack. Sallie has 
 not been used to this kind of thing. She has enemies 
 enough as it is, without trying to make more." 
 
 "My dear fellow," replied Jack Childers, with a 
 laugh, "I have always discovered that the best way to 
 please women is to let 'em have their own way. You 
 and I may know that this kind of work is distasteful 
 and displeasing; but Sallie doesn't know it, and she 
 wouldn't believe it until she has tried it. Eh, Sallie? 
 She can come to no harm, and it will be a new experi- 
 ence for her. So, as she is set upon it, and Green is 
 equally desirous for her to try her hand at 'detectiving,' 
 as he calls it, there is nothing to be gained by wet- 
 blanketing the proceeding." 
 
 "Thank you," said Sallie, with such an emphasis of 
 earnestness that Mr. Childers wondered at the reckless 
 waste of gratitude. "Thank you. I mean it. And 
 perhaps . . ." 
 
 She checked herself, for absurd words struggled to 
 be spoken ; an insane desire to reassure a man to whom 
 reassurance would mean nothing at all, possessed her. 
 This fair, amiable, light-hearted Jack Childers, sitting
 
 146 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 by her side, seemed an object for pity and sympathy. 
 But she must not express them, for they would not be 
 understood. 
 
 "Perhaps," he said and he laughed at his idea 
 "perhaps you will discover that the lady in the case is 
 . . . Anastasia Atwood. I saw her corner him for a 
 second or two at the reception." 
 
 Sallie held her breath, and she felt that she was pal- 
 ing. The reception ! Fate had taken her to that gath- 
 ering of the owls, which she could never forget. But 
 there was no need for him to recall that function. 
 Memory plays strange pranks ... it has links and 
 invisible wires ... it connects the most dissociated 
 ideas. . . . 
 
 "Or Amelia," she cried quickly and feverishly. "Yes, 
 Amelia. Oh, I know what I shall find. He has grown 
 freckles ; he is threatened with pimples ; his complex- 
 ion has been lured to its ruin, and he has been con- 
 sulting the Amberg Hutchinson. And during the 
 process of eradication or amelioration I might say 
 Amelia-ration, but punning is so low, and so obsolete 
 she has fallen in love with him. Think how dra- 
 matic it would be to find her at his feet, swearing that 
 unless he would be hers he should go, with all his freck- 
 les, to perdition. Wouldn't it be lovely ? Yet it might 
 be so, mightn't it ?" 
 
 She rattled on, and they both laughed, as they always 
 did when she let herself loose no matter how idiotic 
 were her sallies. She felt thankful to see that Charlie 
 Covington was amused. She was frightened of Char- 
 lie Covington; he was so serious and so sinister. 
 She could always cope with Jack Childers, whose 
 first want whose only want perhaps was enter- 
 tainment. 
 
 "Perhaps he has 'liaisoned' with Lamp-Post Lucy,"
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 147 
 
 she continued recklessly, almost vaulting over her 
 words. "He has become aware that she might look 
 well in tights, as leader of the Amazon march at the 
 Folies, and he has been trying to persuade her. Think 
 of him kneeling to Lamp-Post Lucy! He would just 
 reach up to the top of her Wellington boots. Such a 
 womanly woman ! I'd give a week's salary though I 
 need it for my rent if it were Lamp-Post Lucy. 
 Wouldn't you, Mr. Childers ? Wouldn't you, Charlie ? 
 Charlie, you are so proper, so pitifully, so abjectly 
 proper, that if Lucy wore tights and I had to criticize 
 her you would say : 'Sallie, you are a woman. Dismiss 
 the ribald subject in a few words.' " 
 
 It was hard work to go the pace, but Sallie felt that 
 she was achieving her usual success. Jack Childers was 
 convulsed with laughter; and though it was a blow to 
 her amour propre, she realized that the stuff she talked 
 was quite silly, and wondered how any man could ap- 
 preciate it. Still, Charlie Covington was also laughing. 
 . . . As a rule, Sallie enjoyed her own witticisms, and 
 honestly thought that she was, at times, quite brilliant. 
 To-night, however, her own humor palled upon her as 
 veriest twaddle. She was not in the mood . . . 
 
 She must give them some more. "Stay!" she went 
 on, in mock tragedy. "We are forgetting Happy Hip- 
 py, and when I come to think of it the probability 
 that she is the heavily veiled lady is very strong. Hap- 
 py Hippy couldn't be veiled too heavily to suit me. I 
 could stand her with a face draped in cachemire. It 
 would be an impYovement. Happy Hippy is very fond 
 of actors also of journalists, and lawyers, and doctors, 
 and ministers, and business men, and commercial trav- 
 ellers. She has a loving heart. She could put up with 
 anything, and she has a very persuasive and fascinating 
 way with her. She knows how to flatter men, and
 
 148 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 actors love to be flattered. (N. B. That is why I don't 
 flatter 'em.) It might be Happy Hippy. Stranger 
 things have happened . . ." 
 
 She stopped suddenly. She might be frivolling in a 
 good cause, but she was doing a detestable thing in her 
 effort to be funny. She had felt nausea and disgust, 
 just a few hours earlier, when she heard Miss Eisen- 
 stein debiting Mr. Green with a list of candidates for 
 the position of delinquent. Yet she herself even 
 though she were not doing it seriously came within an 
 ace of emulating Miss Eisenstein's despised example. 
 Decency uttered a quick protest. 
 
 "Go on," cried Jack Childers, like a spoiled child 
 asking for a story to be finished. 
 
 "There is no more," she said. After all, he had 
 started it by suggesting Anastasia Atwood ; but it was 
 an ugly game, a frolic with mud, and it had gone quite 
 far enough for all purposes. The train was pulling 
 up into the Twenty-third Street station, and she said 
 good-night to Jack Childers. Charlie Covington joined 
 her, and they left the train together. She saw Mr. 
 Childers, left alone, take the inevitable newspaper from 
 his pocket and immerse himself in its contents, even 
 before the train had started again. She wondered at 
 the singular lack of premonition and presentiment in 
 this world. Why were ninety-nine out of a hundred 
 lacking in the psychic sense ? What a very sad lack it 
 was ! How strange it was that those who were en- 
 dowed with the possibility of seeing what was happen- 
 ing beneath their own noses, should be regarded as un- 
 canny and supernormal. Could it be normal to know 
 nothing, to be quite ignorant until something came 
 along and fell upon you, to crush the life out of you? 
 Sallie wondered, though there was nothing of the mys- 
 tic about her, and she was not accustomed to dwell upon
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 149 
 
 thoughts of presentiments. She followed Charlie Cov- 
 ington down the stairs of the Elevated station. 
 
 "Let's have a Welsh rabbit, Sallie," he said, "and 
 hang our ancestors !" 
 
 She was still so occupied with her thoughts, that a 
 rabbit of any nationality whatsoever would have been 
 equally convincing. He took her arm, and they en- 
 tered one of the ever-open restaurants that lie in the 
 vicinity of Sixth Avenue and Twenty-third Street. It 
 was not a particularly appetizing resort, and certainly 
 Charlie would not be likely to meet there any of the 
 swagger acquaintances who were wont to regard him 
 as the immaculate young clubman. Apparently, on 
 this occasion, his fastidious sentiments were shelved. 
 To Sallie one restaurant was quite as good as another, 
 and when she was hungry better. Just now, noth- 
 ing mattered very much. 
 
 "I wish you were not in for that very unpleasant 
 piece of work, Sallie," said Charlie, when the meal was 
 served. 
 
 "Have you brought me here to lecture me?" she 
 asked, with a rather dangerous gleam in her eye, for 
 she had not appointed this tete-a-tete and was not anx- 
 ious for its duration. 
 
 "No," he said slowly ; "but I can't help thinking that 
 you must have some reason for wishing to undertake 
 this work. It isn't like you to grovel in vulgar re- 
 porting. You've told me so often how you loathed 
 the idea of it, and how sorry you felt for the men who 
 were forced to it." 
 
 Sallie was desperate. She felt as the hunted ante- 
 lope must feel on the verge of being brought to bay. 
 "Well, suppose I have a reason?" she asked. "What 
 of it? Let us admit that I have a reason. And then?" 
 
 "And then?" he repeated gently. The sympathy in
 
 150 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 his soul had so often gone forth to meet that which 
 lurked in hers, even though she had scarcely realized 
 it. "And then? There is no 'and then.' Merely if 
 you have a reason may I not, as an old friend, 
 know it?" 
 
 Sallie was furious. The delicacy of his appeal was 
 lost upon her. She was tangled up in the intricacies 
 of a problem that was going to prove odiously ungrate- 
 ful, and there was no rest for her in the usual haven of 
 "an old friend." 
 
 "No," she retorted sharply. "I did not say that I 
 had any reason. You said it, and I will admit it, if 
 only to let the matter drop. Do stop being an old 
 friend, Charlie. The only excuse for old friends is, 
 it seems to me, their inquisitiveness. They feel that 
 they must know everything; that they have a perfect 
 right to know everything. It is a nuisance. I hate 
 being catechized and cross-examined for no other rea- 
 son than because an old friend wants to know. It is 
 most exasperating. Be anything but not an old 
 friend." 
 
 Sallie was sorry the instant her graceless words were 
 spoken ; she was sorry because she disliked the idea 
 of personally inflicting pain upon anybody. If to be 
 "an old friend" a man must be disinterested, unselfish, 
 consistently devoted, perpetually watchful, Charlie 
 Covington had earned the right to be called one. But 
 Sallie did not stop to realize this. The treasures at 
 hand are not always the treasures that appeal. The 
 halo looks best at a distance. 
 
 "Forgive me, Charlie," she said, as she saw his hand 
 tremble. "But you do worry a fellow so! Don't 
 you, now? I didn't mean what I said about 'an old 
 friend.' At least, it doesn't apply to you. I'm frac- 
 tious to-night, and out of sorts. And I don't want
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 151 
 
 to be questioned. Let us talk of something more 
 cheerful." 
 
 He was anxious to humor her . . . she could not 
 guess just then how anxious. In some things, as she 
 knew, he was almost clairvoyant; in others he was la- 
 mentably obtuse. This annoyed her, as the combina- 
 tion was unusual, and often unpleasant. 
 
 "Before you came into Jack's office to-night," he 
 said lightly, "he had just been confiding in me. Good 
 old Jack! I don't know any man with so many lov- 
 able characteristics. He told me that everything at 
 last had been definitely settled." 
 
 Sallie looked at him in odd bewilderment. As she 
 had asked him to change the conversation to some 
 cheerful topic, this was probably a cheerful topic. But 
 what was it? And just for one moment she remem- 
 bered this afterward she did not want to know. 
 
 "Yes," Charlie went on amiably at the adjoining 
 table they were drinking champagne, and Sallie heard 
 shrieks of laughter "you know it has been a sort of 
 tacitly understood thing for a long time. The aunt 
 has always desired it, but it seemed to hang fire, you 
 know. Jack is such an indolent boy, and so dreadfully 
 matter of fact. But the other night, as he tells me, 
 things came to a head, and it is now an event that may 
 be discussed." 
 
 "What is ?" Sallie could hardly hear her own voice 
 in the babel of noise that proceeded from the rowdy 
 table near her. There were two "ladies" in the party. 
 One wore a very bright red blouse. Sallie observed all 
 this, and seemed to be absorbing it all, as though her 
 question "What is?" did not genuinely concern her. 
 
 "Why, the engagement," replied Mr. Covington. 
 "Ivy and Jack. Kind friends have given them to each 
 other for years, but, positively, I think that Jack was
 
 152 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 absolutely too lazy to pop the question, and settle mat- 
 ters. As for Ivy . . . well, I've always considered 
 her a pretty little icicle. But now we have changed 
 all that. I suppose that he will tell you later. Jack is 
 abominably diffident, and I think he has a kind of hor- 
 ror of the news getting out in the office. He told me 
 that the one thing in the world he has always dreaded 
 was a silver tea-set from the staff, or a loving-cup with 
 a sentiment on it . . ." 
 
 The woman in the red blouse was growing so ob- 
 streperous that the proprietor of the restaurant, who 
 was, as a rule, warranted not to see anything until it 
 knocked against him, came up and made a few pungent 
 remarks. Sallie's eyes were riveted upon the table . . . 
 Charlie's words sounded like the murmur of a phono- 
 graph. She felt she must wait until he ran down, and 
 then she would wind him up again. . . . 
 
 "Aren't you listening, Sallie?" he asked. "Did you 
 know this?" 
 
 There was a draught blowing in from an open win- 
 dow. Sallie shivered. She looked pinched with cold. 
 Her hand shook as she lifted a glass to her lips. She 
 sent him away to have the window closed, but he came 
 back. . . . Windows were closed so quickly nowadays. 
 There was no use sending anyone off to close a win- 
 dow, in the hope that the process would be laborious, 
 and would keep him employed for hours . . . for days. 
 Sallie drew herself together with an effort. 
 
 "How quick you were," she said, and she smiled. 
 "Thank you. Let me see, you were saying . . . oh, yes, 
 about Mr. Childers. No, he did not tell me ; but per- 
 haps, as you say, he felt diffident. He thought of the 
 silver tea-set to which I might contribute, or the lov- 
 ing-cup with 'God Bless Our Home' on it." 
 
 She laughed noisily, and the sound reminded her of
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 '53 
 
 the cachinnation she had heard from the woman with 
 the red blouse. "But one must give something, you 
 know. I think I'll collect my criticisms and have them 
 bound in ivory, chased with orange-blossoms. Is is 
 is Ivy a very nice girl, Charlie? But she must be. 
 Do you know her ?" 
 
 Charlie Covington looked surprised at Sallie's quick 
 change from shiver to fever, for he could see that she 
 was burning. Perhaps she was ill, but . . . 
 
 "I have met her," he replied. "I imagine that she 
 is a very charming girl very guileless and ingenuous 
 the sort of girl before whom one would be afraid to 
 say 'Boo!' Mrs. Hampton has brought her up very 
 carefully, and she is most exclusive. She knows no- 
 body except a few girl friends. I was quite surprised 
 at the reception downtown last month to see her talk- 
 ing with Stuyvesant. By the bye, I shall always think 
 of him now as your great reportorial subject " 
 
 "Don't," she said recklessly ; and he thought, for the 
 first time, that she looked old and care-streaked. Per- 
 haps she was on the verge of a fever or of something 
 dangerous. She looked changed. 
 
 "I was joking, Sallie," he declared tenderly. "I 
 should hate to think of Stuyvesant as anybody's sub- 
 ject. Why was I alluding to him ? Oh, I was saying 
 that Ivy Hampton is so exclusive that I was surprised 
 to see her talking with Stuyvesant. . . ." 
 
 "The matinee girl knows no barriers," she said, with 
 a dim smile. "The most exclusive maiden thaws for 
 a moment in the sun of a favorite actor. Is Ivy ... is 
 Miss Hampton good?" 
 
 He laughed. "Good as they are made," he as- 
 serted. "A perfect little Puritan. Jack himself has 
 often told me that he was positively afraid of her. 
 Why forgive me, Sallie, but it's the 'old friend' again
 
 154 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 he wouldn't even dare to let her read your criticisms. 
 Isn't it funny ? And Jack's so different." 
 
 Sallie sat there wondering. What a relief it would 
 be if she should discover later on that everything she 
 had heard to-day was . . . something else! If she 
 could but be drugged into some such certainty ! What 
 an escape it would be from a tortuously horrible night- 
 mare! And again her intuition came from its lair, 
 luminous as a shaft of light. It was useless to buoy 
 herself up with false hopes. She knew . . . 
 
 Charlie Covington was half-way through the speech 
 that followed this before she heard him. 
 
 "Sallie," he said, "I've been thinking it over for a 
 long time, but I never spoke to you before, because 
 well, because it seems to me that you have some sort 
 of a career ahead of you, and I thought it would be 
 rather brutal for me to interfere with it. But but 
 all this talk about Jack and Ivy is contagious. It makes 
 its own appeal. And, as you are launching forth into 
 a kind of work that will lead to nothing but chagrin, 
 disgust, and disappointment ah, I know it so well, 
 Sallie I can't help thinking that I need be silent no 
 longer. We have known each other a long time, 
 haven't we? You have liked me . . . don't you think 
 you have, Sallie? You do like me? Would you 
 would you follow in the footsteps of Jack Childers 
 and Ivy Hampton ? I love you, and I can't flatter my- 
 self that I have concealed it. I've tried to put the feel- 
 ing aside and to believe that you, Sallie, had other aims 
 in life than marriage. But you haven't, have you? 
 Won't you come and redeem my lonely bachelor life 
 for I'm getting on, my dear, and am growing horribly 
 bachelory. Won't you help me out, and leave this 
 work, and this newspaper turmoil, and this association
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 155 
 
 with horrors, and all this fag of night work, forever? 
 Will you, Sallie? Do say yes." 
 
 For a moment she felt inclined to say : "Won't you 
 please let me hear it all over again?" She had really 
 absorbed so little of it; but of course she had heard 
 quite enough. Besides, it would be quite heartless to 
 make him repeat a speech that was deliciously impro- 
 vised, and . . . well . . . she was probably quite heart-, 
 less ; still, she would not descend to such cruelty. 
 
 She was surprised to find that she was perfectly un- 
 ruffled, and quite as composed as she had been while 
 watching the woman with the red blouse. That per- 
 fect lady was quite quiet now. 
 
 "It is good of you, Charlie," she said affably, "to 
 throw yourself at me, poor spinster. I wish I could 
 say yes. It would really be so nice. But I can't, old 
 chap. I'm not the marrying sort. You know that. I 
 suppose I'm incorrigible, and that I really like though 
 I pretend I don't all the excitement and worry of 
 Newspaper Row. I should be a hideous thing in 
 wives, and quite mercenary. I told Mr. Childers the 
 other day that if I ever captured anybody willing to 
 pay my rent, I would never show myself again in the 
 vicinity of Newspaper Row. I also said that the wo- 
 man who invented earning her own living ought to be 
 compelled to do it through eternity. I said some very 
 weary, discontented things, I remember. Perhaps I 
 thought them at that moment. I think I did, for we 
 were talking about Anastasia Atwood, who was sit- 
 ting alone at Mouquin's, while she owned a real hus- 
 band. At this moment, Charlie, those are not my sen- 
 timents. Thank you, old man. Did you really mean 
 it?" 
 
 He did not answer her, but called the waiter for the 
 bill, added it with elaborate and conscientious care,
 
 156 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 and lighted a cigarette. Then he helped her on with 
 her jacket, waited while she buttoned it, and walked 
 with her to the street. 
 
 Her temporary jauntiness had left her, and she felt 
 as if to scream would be the acme of joy. But she did 
 not scream. His silence jarred her, and they walked 
 through the deserted streets until they reached her 
 house, without uttering a word. Then he asked her if 
 she had the key, and she waved it in front of him. She 
 wished that he would say something, and would gladly 
 have done so herself. But she could think of nothing 
 that would fit the situation, which was embarrassing. 
 His voice was suave as usual as he said good-night, and 
 she ran up the steps and left him.
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 N my young days," said Mrs. Hampton, hark- 
 ing amiably back to former times, with the 
 archaeological diffidence so popular with ma- 
 ture ladies possessing moral minds "in my 
 young days girls were less apathetic than they seem to 
 be to-day. It was never considered bad form to show 
 a little enthusiasm, some slight symptom of excite- 
 ment, a certain degree of pardonable pride, when an 
 eminently satisfactory engagement was made public. 
 But you, my dear Ivy -well, it seems scarcely possible 
 to realize that anything has occurred. And yet it 
 was what we all wanted, what we all expected. It is 
 extremely gratifying, even though it may not be start- 
 ling or wonderful." 
 
 Ivy Hampton stood looking out of the window of 
 the apartment in Central Park West, and beating a 
 monotonous tattoo on the window-pane. Her pose 
 was careless and unstudied, and the girlish outline of 
 her figure appealed picturesquely to Mrs. Hampton. 
 The last of a bevy of "girl friends" to whom she had 
 been serving afternoon tea had just disappeared, and 
 Miss Hampton felt slightly fatigued. Every detail of 
 her engagement to Jack Childers had been thoroughly 
 threshed out, and she was rather tired of the subject. 
 How they had all gossiped, and chattered, and frivolled, 
 and what a wealth of congratulation they had show- 
 ered upon her ! They were easy, innocent, amiable lit- 
 tle girls, and the idea that this little gray Puritan, with 
 the shining silver-gold hair, was really about to settle 
 into austere matronhood, interested them. It was an
 
 158 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 event that has never yet failed to say things and to 
 whisper others to the youthful feminine heart. Ivy 
 was such a delightfully prim and quaint young person. 
 They were afraid to say too much to her, for she wore 
 her maidenhood so persistently and with so much pic- 
 torial display. Her "reluctant feet" seemed to be un- 
 budging. They could not imagine those feet trotting 
 nimbly into the eternal circle of marriage. Ivy was so 
 absolutely unemotional, such an unyielding little ice- 
 berg, that they hesitated at lavishing upon her their 
 sly, girl-simple, winking innuendos. 
 
 She had poured out tea for them, and sat, idly diffi- 
 dent, listening to their coy suggestions. Mrs. Hamp- 
 ton rose to the occasion, and frankly admitted her 
 pleasure. It was a relief to her to know that Ivy's 
 future was arranged with such admirable precision and 
 certainty, and although the girl's apathy surprised her, 
 she was not entirely displeased at it ; for was it not the 
 result of perfect education, distinct good breeding, and 
 an excellent bringing up? Everything that Ivy did 
 had the unmistakable cachet of the gentlewoman. 
 This lack of enthusiasm was not poetic, or romantic, or 
 inspiring, but it was quite irreproachable. Fireworks 
 were for Sarah Jane, and untrammelled joy on the sub- 
 ject of marriage was, if not positively indecent, at least 
 an indication of a Family Herald mind. 
 
 So Mrs. Hampton was not at all dissatisfied with the 
 afternoon tea and its horde of guileless, congratulatory 
 girls. It was only after their departure that she felt 
 moved to comment upon Ivy's somewhat lack-lustre 
 deportment. Miss Hampton continued to drum upon 
 the window-pane and to watch the loiterers in Central 
 Park directly opposite. 
 
 "I don't know if you hear me, Ivy," Mrs. Hampton 
 went on somewhat impatiently. "I was saying that in
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 159 
 
 my young days, even a gentlewoman was quite justi- 
 fied in betraying a note or two of legitimate satisfac- 
 tion when her engagement was made public." 
 
 Ivy turned from the window, and walked with her 
 slow, listless grace into the room. 
 
 "There is nothing to be wildly excited about," she 
 said drawlingly. "Jack is not a gay cavalier who has 
 ridden into the field to win me at the sword's point. 
 We've known each other all our lives. Our inter- 
 course has been flavored by the certain knowledge that 
 one of these days we should surely marry. You've 
 known it; I've known it; he has known it. It is very 
 pleasant, of course, because I know him so well. 
 There is little to learn. Even frequent uncertainties, 
 such as whether he likes his meat cooked rare or 
 brown, his eggs soft or hard, his potatoes fried or 
 boiled, are out of the question. It is all very happy, 
 but not at all stirring, is it? You see, I know him so 
 well." 
 
 Perhaps Mrs. Hampton felt that the apathy of the 
 gentlewoman went a few inches too far, but she did not 
 say so. She continued : 
 
 "But the cap, my dear Ivy, fits both ways. You 
 know Jack so well and so completely that you cannot 
 possibly go wrong. And he can lay claim to the same 
 legitimately acquired knowledge. He also knows 
 you." 
 
 Ivy looked far across the Park, where some children 
 were scampering away their juvenile energies. She 
 could not, however, repress a smile as she heard Mrs. 
 Hampton's words. 
 
 "Do you think I am complex?" she asked. Like 
 most .people with mental or physical warp, she loved 
 discussing herself, and listening to the best or to the 
 worst it did not much matter which. Miss Hamp-
 
 160 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 ton belonged to the enormous class of self-epicures 
 who haunt the rooms of palmists and mind-readers 
 and card-manipulators, direly anxious to hear what 
 they may of themselves, from the lips of others. 
 
 "No, my dear,'' replied Mrs. Hampton, with fat 
 unction. " You are as legible as a book more legible 
 than a good many, I think. I fancy I know every 
 thought that passes through your mind. I believe 
 although I am not sure that while you do not love 
 Jack as fervently as cook seems to love that annoying 
 policeman (by the bye, Ivy, the joint of beef we had 
 for dinner last night has dwindled down to a mere 
 bone), yet yet you are sincerely attached to him in 
 your own little Puritan way." 
 
 "Jack is a good fellow," said Ivy, with a sigh. She 
 would have said the same thing of the annoying police- 
 man. Good fellows were enviable institutions in a 
 world that occasionally wagged laboriously. But they 
 did not stir the pulses, or quicken the emotions, or cast 
 rosy lights upon the monotony of the landscape. They 
 were comfortable pieces of furniture, with no rough 
 edges, and as a general thing they could be folded up 
 and put aside. 
 
 "He will be an ideal husband," resumed Mrs. 
 Hampton complacently. "He is so easy-going, so 
 courteous, so good-natured. I can't think of any man 
 with so many really lovable characteristics. Every- 
 body says that. There is a marvellous unanimity of 
 opinion. You are a lucky girl, Ivy, and I foresee a 
 wedded life without a ripple or murmur of discontent. 
 After all, a calm and equable man is a great boon. It 
 is something to know that, in the matter of pursuits, 
 you can go your way and he can go his." 
 
 There was a quick gleam in Ivy's eyes which Mrs. 
 Hampton did not see. "You can go your way and
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 161 
 
 he can go his." It sounded very facile and pleasing. 
 If it could only be ! 
 
 Mrs. Hampton was perplexed, in spite of the brav- 
 ery of her words. Inherited sentiment still had a 
 vague place in her heart, although she tried so hard 
 and sometimes, alas ! so unsuccessfully to ape the 
 conditions of the "modern" neurasthenic "society" 
 that she so ardently admired. She knew that many 
 things came after marriage generally children, for 
 progeny was still a post-matrimonial affair, even in 
 the most exclusive circles but she could not quite 
 place love in the same category. She had been 
 brought up to look upon love as the cause, and not 
 the effect, and it was hard to rearrange these little de- 
 tails. Yet Ivy was extremely good form. . . . There 
 was no doubt about that. . . . There was no need 
 to worry about the fossilized notions of mere tra- 
 dition. . . . 
 
 "I may not be back to dinner, Ivy," she said pres- 
 ently, after a fatiguing bout of silence that had tried 
 her nerves very severely. Nobody that she had ever 
 met could remain so provokingly silent as Ivy. "I 
 promised to see Mrs. Ogden who is ill. If she asks me 
 to stay, I shall do so. You will not be unduly deso- 
 late, for I imagine that you do not care to talk." 
 
 Ivy yawned. "No," she said, stretching herself. 
 "I really exhausted the engagement topic this after- 
 noon. And I know, dear, that you could discuss noth- 
 ing else. Go and see Mrs. Ogden. I may take a 
 stroll, just to remove the cobwebs. An afternoon tea 
 is so dreadfully exhausting, isn't it ? One says so much 
 and so little." 
 
 She watched Mrs. Hampton's departure with a non- 
 chalance that seemed a trifle exaggerated. She could 
 have rampaged around the immaculate apartment in a
 
 1 62 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 fever of impatience. Outwardly, however, she was 
 indifferent, apathetic, tired. She even took up a book 
 labelled "Golden Thoughts" and pretended to read 
 it. She held it upside down which was quite 
 thoughtless but Mrs. Hampton, fussily preparing for 
 her outing, did not notice the proceeding. How slow 
 she was ! First the bonnet . . . then the jacket . . . 
 then its hooks . . . then her handkerchief . . . and 
 the keys, had she forgotten them? . . . Oh, and 
 be sure and tell the dressmaker when she called that 
 Monday would do ... and keep the chain on the 
 door . . . and Susan could go out after she had pre- 
 pared Ivy's dinner. . . . Would it never end? Ivy 
 fumed, and fretted, and bit her lip, and felt that she 
 would like to eat "Golden Thoughts," to chew it vi- 
 ciously. 
 
 The front door closed, and Ivy waited for the in- 
 evitable return to say unimportant things that had been 
 forgotten. Mrs. Hampton generally discovered five 
 minutes after departure that she had forgotten some- 
 thing usually the keys that she never by any chance 
 needed. Ivy went to the window and watched the re- 
 spectable black velvet bonnet fading into the distance. 
 She was free at last. 
 
 Her hands trembled so, that she could scarcely don 
 her hat and coat. The "reluctancy" of her demeanor 
 vanished quickly, for there was nobody there to admire 
 it. Her face sharpened ; even the discretion of her 
 respiration seemed to be discarded for something more 
 febrile. 
 
 "I sha'n't be long, Susan," she called out nervously. 
 "You can go out. I shall not need dinner; if I do, I 
 can find what I want." 
 
 In the pocket of her jacket was a black gauze veil. 
 She felt eagerly to see if it were there. Then she
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 163 
 
 sauntered forth quite leisurely. She seemed to be 
 out for the purpose of "getting the air," and she even 
 stood for a few moments, as though to decide upon the 
 direction that her aimless promenade should take. After 
 which, she apparently made up her mind. She cut 
 across Central Park, quickening her footsteps, as the 
 West Side was speedily left in the background. 
 
 Once she met one of Mrs. Hampton's annoyingly 
 loquacious friends, and was obliged to stop and talk to 
 her. As she did so, she noticed a girl on the other side 
 of the street, who stopped at the same time. The girl 
 was heavily muffled up, and plainly dressed; in fact, 
 there was nothing in her appearance that would attract 
 a moment's attention. Ivy looked at her simply be- 
 cause she needed something to look at while she was 
 waiting for the ultra-eloquent old crony to finish her 
 apparently interminable cackle. She had forgotten the 
 girl when she was able to move on again. At Third 
 Avenue, she entered a small shop and bought some 
 hairpins, using them to fasten on the gauze veil. 
 When she emerged from the shop, she saw the same 
 girl staring stupidly in at the window, evidently 
 lost in admiration of a "marked down" display of cor- 
 sets. 
 
 Ivy felt that such vulgar details were rather beyond 
 the situation just at present. She was nearing her 
 destination, and, crossing Third Avenue, reached a 
 placid little bourgeois apartment house, marked "Five 
 rooms and bath. Elegantly appointed." She opened 
 the door with a key and entered, just as the sombre 
 girl whom she had previously noticed came up and 
 eagerly scanned the names on the door-bells Mc- 
 Nally, Silverman, Compton, Rivington, Lambwell. 
 
 Ivy went upstairs, and with another key opened the 
 door of the apartment. It was one of the small, piti-
 
 164 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 ful make-shifts in which New Yorkers immure them- 
 selves, and occasionally call "home." There was a 
 "parlor," a dining-room, two bed-rooms (so-called), 
 a kitchen, and a bath-room. All were dark but 
 the parlor and the kitchen. But as Ivy entered 
 and surveyed it, an expression of keen exultation 
 spread over her face. It was hers. This was her 
 temple, and what did its material accessories matter? 
 The parlor was sparsely furnished, but it was pretty, 
 and it was highly decorated. It was a resting-place 
 for the sole of her foot. She removed her hat and 
 coat, and threw them aside. 
 
 She rocked herself in the one armchair, and sat there 
 thinking and smiling, her Puritanism cast aside, the 
 "reluctant maiden" ousted, and in their place the wom- 
 an who doesn't care, and who defies the conventions. 
 The "afternoon tea" girls who had chirped to her of 
 her engagement a couple of hours ago would scarcely 
 have recognized her now, so completely was the ex- 
 pression of her features changed by the tide of different 
 ideas that swept across them. In this apartment house 
 lived people who were "really good," as Mrs. Hampton 
 would say, and Ivy smiled as she pondered over the 
 situation. "Goodness" came to them naturally, and 
 was quite easy. As she sat there rocking, she hoped 
 that when her time came to be "good" the surround- 
 ings would be more alluring. Suppose that Jack Child- 
 ers should bring her to a place like this ! The sup- 
 position led her very much farther east, to where the 
 river was deep and tranquil. 
 
 A key clicked in the lock, the door was thrown 
 open, and Arthur Stuyvesant, his collar turned up, and 
 his hat turned down, entered. 
 
 "At last!" she cried. "I thought you would never 
 come. I imagined that I, too, should never get here.
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 165 
 
 I had a tiresome tea a hen-fight, as you would call it 
 and they stayed eternally. Arthur!" 
 
 He held her in his arms, and kissed the silver-gold 
 hair that was knotted at the back of her head. She 
 helped him to remove his overcoat, and hung it up in 
 the hall. 
 
 "Ivy," he said presently, "I am afraid that this 
 game is up. My wife has discovered something. 
 Somebody saw us together, or, at any rate, saw me, for 
 you were saved by your veil. We had a most exas- 
 perating scene, and what the upshot will be, goodness 
 knows." 
 
 He walked up and down the room in genuinely seri- 
 ous dismay. The tongue of gossip that had wagged 
 vaguely for so long now had definite food. He saw 
 his Waterloo. 
 
 Ivy turned a shade paler, not at thoughts of possible 
 publicity, but at the grim suggestion that this drama 
 of her life was in danger. 
 
 "Are you afraid?" she asked defiantly. 
 
 "Yes," he said. "This kind of thing would ruin 
 me. I have never yet figured in any tangible sort of 
 scandal, and you know the public. It likes to believe 
 indefinitely that an actor is a gay Lothario, but any- 
 thing definite . . . and good-bye. My wife, who 
 has very fixed ideas, would not hesitate to drag me into 
 the divorce court. In fact, she spoke of it. My only 
 hope lies in the fact that she really does did love 
 me. And there is the boy. . . . Poor thing! . . . 
 I can't help feeling sorry." 
 
 "Your wife your wife always, always, always!" 
 cried Ivy, ferociously. "You din her into my ears. 
 You talk of her as though she were the inevitable. 
 You cannot forget her you will not forget her. I 
 have told you that I hate to hear her mentioned, but
 
 1 66 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 you cannot refrain. Perhaps you are remorseful, or 
 penitent, or ashamed. Why? Can't a man have the 
 courage of his convictions? Do I care? Would I 
 balk even at a scandal? Am I frightened or dis- 
 turbed? I have no patience with you, Arthur. You 
 do not love me." 
 
 She flung herself into his arms, and burst into petu- 
 lant tears. The tie that bound him was always 
 flaunted before her, and she could not respect it, nor 
 could she understand why it played such a leading 
 role in his life. Her morality was as light as her hair, 
 but not as picturesque. 
 
 "Do I worry you with trivialities?" she asked at 
 last, as she saw that her tears had not been quite in- 
 effective. "If I did, I could tell you that my engage- 
 ment to Jack Childers has just been sanctioned in the 
 most respectable and legitimate way. I do not like it, 
 but I do not come here and tease you about such mat- 
 ters. I submit to it all, and I submit to it more for 
 your sake than for my own." 
 
 He looked at her, and for a moment was bewildered. 
 He knew that women would do anything, brave any- 
 thing for love, in its variations and aberrations. But 
 this tigerish attachment surely went beyond limits pre- 
 scribed or non-prescribed. It amazed him. Though 
 what she told him was not unexpected, still as she 
 told it it was astonishing. Even to his corrupted 
 mind, it seemed rather horrible. But he could not 
 tell her so. A man cannot tell a woman who does 
 outre things for his sake, that it is horrible. Nor can 
 he read her a lesson. He had a detestation of illicit 
 love that ended in preachiness, as it so often did. 
 
 "Ivy," he said, "you are a" (he was going to say 
 "noble," but the idea was too paradoxical) "brave 
 girl. What would you advise me to do?"
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 167 
 
 She looked at him, and he knew that there was con- 
 tempt in her eyes. "I cannot advise you," she de- 
 clared. "I do not know your your wife. Ah, you 
 force me to say it you force me to say it! Those 
 words, 'your wife,' burn me, scorch my lips. You 
 force me to utter them. You are so weak, so coward- 
 ly ! What do I advise you to do I, I, I ? Would you 
 like me to see her, and beg her to be lenient? Shall I 
 tell her how I love you? Ah, you wouldn't mind. If 
 you thought that it would settle things, you would let 
 me go to her. I advise you what to do? I I can't. 
 I love you. I don't know. why. I can't think up all 
 these things. They have not occurred to me. You 
 have had to deal with other kinds of women who knew 
 these situations by heart. I don't." 
 
 He was shocked. This was a tigress, unreasoning, 
 illogical and not a girl. There was something prim- 
 itive, and savage, in such untrammelled emotion. It 
 was also quite new, but ... it appealed to him. 
 She was right. The women he had met were the fur- 
 tive, clandestine things without the courage of con- 
 viction, and, probably, without conviction. He had 
 come to the pied-a-terre to-day with the determina- 
 tion to relinquish it and flout the gossipers. He had 
 no ideas for the future and though it annoyed him to 
 end everything, he was quite prepared to do it. He 
 knew that her devotion to him was something quite out 
 of the ordinary, but ah, how little he, with his vast 
 knowledge of women, knew her ! he had believed that 
 the mere idea of discovery would affright her. It 
 meant so much to her, or, at least, he supposed so. 
 Arthur Stuyvesant was puzzled. His nature was a vac- 
 illating one ; but, just the same, he had no intention of 
 allowing this entanglement to foreshadow his ruin. 
 Something must be done. Vague thoughts flitted
 
 1 68 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 through his mind. His wife must be appeased. At 
 any rate, any further appeal to Miss Hampton was out 
 of the question. 
 
 "Come here, Ivy," he said gently; and as she came 
 to him, he took her hand. "I won't discuss this mat- 
 ter with you any more. I'll think, if I can, what we 
 had better do. You see, I am considering you just 
 as much as myself." 
 
 "You need not," she said; but she was mollified, 
 "because I really don't care. What you call the worst 
 does not frighten me. It would not kill me to say 
 good-bye to Mrs. Hampton a step-mother is not an 
 irreparable loss and as to breaking with Jack, I 
 should get over it nicely. Say that you will come here 
 just the same, if only occasionally. We can be care- 
 ful; I always am. It is you you who are care- 
 less. . . . Say you will come here. Say it, Arthur 
 say it." 
 
 She rose, and stood before him, looking down into 
 his eyes. In the very shadow of clouds that might 
 fatally obscure his brightest prospects, he gave her the 
 requisite promise. He would be careful. . . . He 
 had a dim recollection of having "talked" the other 
 night when he was not quite himself. He had given 
 the situation away; but she need not know that. He 
 would come out of this tangle as he had come out of 
 others. He would avoid that mysterious process 
 known as "borrowing trouble." ... In spite of 
 which promised restraint, trouble loomed up before 
 him. 
 
 In the meantime, the girl downstairs, confronted 
 with the puzzle of the names in the door, had carefully 
 examined them all. She had seen both Ivy Hampton 
 and Arthur Stuyvesant enter, but they had let them- 
 selves in with a key, and she could not tell whether
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 169 
 
 they were McNally, Silverman, Compton, Rivington, 
 or Lamb well. She rather inclined to McNally, as 
 there seemed to be safety in the multitude of Mc- 
 Nallys. She felt feverish and oppressed, for she was 
 muffled to the ears. She had never been in this neigh- 
 borhood before, and was therefore not afraid of recog- 
 nition; so she gave herself the necessary ventilation, 
 and emerged, not as Sallie Sydenham, critic, but as 
 Sallie Sydenham, detective. 
 
 That day, and other days, she had devoted to the 
 almost hopeless task of tracking Ivy Hampton to her 
 reported lair. She wondered what Mr. Green would 
 think of her reportorial acumen, for she had worked 
 without the ghost of a clue waiting till she was blue 
 in the face ; till her feet were cramped and numb ; till 
 she ached for movement and activity waiting for a 
 girl to emerge from a house, to go anywhere or no- 
 where. 
 
 It had been a galling, and a most humiliating job. 
 She wondered if this were the kind of thing that re- 
 porters did for money, and what they would consider 
 adequate payment for this atrophy of self-respect, for 
 this odious, grovelling, loathsome work. 
 
 She could scarcely imagine mere pecuniary recom- 
 pense in such a case. It seemed to her to be outside 
 the pale of human possibility. No wonder that Mr. 
 Green had tried to wet-blanket her aspirations. But, 
 of course, he thought it was a consideration allied unto 
 "treasury day." She paused for a moment before 
 taking the next step, and uttered a sigh of relief. She 
 had discovered, beyond the peradventure of a doubt, 
 that old Witherby's story was true. She had un- 
 earthed the rendezvous, and the mysterious lady who 
 had been no mystery to her, was identified in a legiti- 
 mately evidential manner. There was no doubt any
 
 170 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 longer, and her evidence would be satisfactory any- 
 where. She felt like a ghoul as she thought of these 
 things. Horrible as they were, they were preferable 
 to the picture of Jack Childers her amiable, chival- 
 rous, charming associate (she was entitled to call him 
 "associate"), chained downtown by his duties, while 
 this girl, whom he loved, and who looked so young and 
 pretty and ingenuous, was . . . No, she could not 
 dwell upon it. It was too harrowing. 
 
 She descended a flight of clammy, grimy steps into 
 the janitorial department, and a thin, fair-haired 
 woman came to her, with a baby in her arms, another 
 at her skirts, and three four five behind her, in 
 the squalor of a room that reeked with the smell of 
 onions. She talked in an evil German dialect that was 
 ugly enough to hear, and too unprofitable to reproduce. 
 
 "The house is full," she said. "The last apart- 
 ment was rented last week." 
 
 Sallie tried to look vexed, and was not quite sure 
 how to proceed. Janitors and janitresses are gener- 
 ally suspicious, as it is the sole relaxation of their 
 pulseless lives. She did not want to seem unduly in- 
 quisitive. 
 
 "I'm sorry," Sallie remarked. "I like the look of 
 the place. I've been hunting for an apartment in 
 which I can be quiet. Children make so much noise, 
 don't they?" 
 
 It was scarcely a diplomatic remark. The janitress, 
 surrounded on all sides by her poor little cubs, could 
 hardly be expected to agree with "the lady." 
 
 "Oh, I don't know," she said. "We can't kill 'em 
 off. In some flats, I know, they won't have children. 
 Those landlords ought to be flogged. What are peo- 
 ple to do?" 
 
 "Are there many children in in in this apart- 
 ment?"
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 171 
 
 The janitress looked triumphant. "Yes, there are," 
 she said loudly. "So, if you are looking for a place 
 without 'em, it's just as well we are all rilled up. They 
 all have children here the McNallys seven, and one 
 on the way ; the Silvermans four ; the Rivingtons six, 
 and the Lamb wells five. Oh, I'm forgetting the Comp- 
 tons. But they don't count. They're a queer couple. 
 They hardly live here. He's a drummer, I believe, and 
 she's a dressmaker, and lives at her store. Kind of 
 people who haven't time to have children. Don't de- 
 serve 'em, I dare say." 
 
 "The Comptons!" laughed Sallie. "Ah, yes, the 
 Comptons !" 
 
 "Ah, yes, the Comptons!" mimicked the janitress, 
 who felt that she had been stung in the maternal af- 
 fections. The blue-white child in her arms set up a 
 puny howl; the baby at her skirts tugged and pulled. 
 She could hear the others, in the room at her back, im- 
 proving the shining hour. Yet she was wasting time 
 on a woman who wanted to live where there were no 
 children . . . the hussy ! 
 
 Sallie had heard enough, and to "ease" things gener- 
 ally, gave a quarter to the little boy at the janitress's 
 skirts. If she could have brought herself to kiss the 
 pathetic little blue-white face on the mother's breast she 
 would have done it. Still, that would have been over- 
 elaboration, and neither mother nor child would have 
 been grateful. The Comptons ! That was it, and she 
 wondered why she had picked out McNally. 
 
 The Comptons ! The girl with the silver-gold hair, 
 the Puritan face, the unsophisticated manner, and the 
 high-bred, gentlewomanly attributes was Mrs. Comp- 
 ton. Sallie ground her teeth furiously. She could 
 have strangled Miss Hampton.
 
 D 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 HE feminine owls were deeply impressed and 
 graphically interested when the news of Jack 
 Childers' engagement reached them. Exactly 
 how it "leaked out," as the saying is, Mr. 
 Childers would probably never know. But the recep- 
 tive owls heard of it in exceedingly due course, and 
 proceeded to make the urbane life of their amiable 
 managing editor distinctly uncomfortable. They felt 
 it their duty, for they had once been women, and they 
 still wore skirts, to make the most of the situation, 
 which, for various reasons, was singularly grateful to 
 them. Most women believe that man, unmarried, is 
 a rake at heart, and even in Owldom a vestige of that 
 ancient sentiment may yet lurk. 
 
 At another time, the humor of the situation might 
 have appealed to Mr. Childers, who was not lacking in 
 that sixth perception, known as the sense of the ridicu- 
 lous. But on this occasion he was rubbed into irrita- 
 bility, and he could see nothing funny in the proces- 
 sion of feminine owls, each with a pretext, that came 
 to his office and withered him with congratulations. 
 
 It was Mrs. Amelia Amberg Hutchinson who first 
 appeared. Her avowed object was to consult him as to 
 some editorial "space" that she needed for her con- 
 gested correspondence. For Mrs. Hutchinson, as well 
 as Anastasia Atwood, received many daily letters, 
 which, it was rumored, they wrote to themselves. The 
 enthusiastic communicants, who glowed with a 
 warmth of eulogy, were generally presumed by the 
 office cynics to be fictitious. 
 
 Mr. Childers saw through Mrs. Amelia Amberg
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 173 
 
 Hutchinson's subterfuge, for it was transparent 
 enough; he uneasily scented the inevitable. 
 
 "And while I am here," she said, "permit me to tell 
 you how glad I am. Marriage is such an excellent 
 thing, Mr. Childers" (Amelia had owned two or three 
 husbands; so she spoke from multi-colored conjugal 
 experience), "and you will find that with a well-regu- 
 lated household your life will be happier. I saw her 
 at the reception. What a charming gyurl ! A picture 
 of old-time innocence and lack of sophistication. With 
 her influence, Mr. Childers, we shall have a charming 
 paper, I am sure. I long to talk with her of my de- 
 partment, which is so essentially a woman's. Is she 
 interested in it? Does it not appeal to her dear little 
 girl-heart?" 
 
 Mr. Childers lost his veneer of affability and 
 wriggled uncomfortably in his chair. He longed to 
 say "Rats !" a pungent interjection that is occasionally 
 emitted in Owldom. He restrained himself and mere- 
 ly remarked "Thank you." Then, turning to the type- 
 writer, he began "And now, Miss Poplets, if you 
 are ready, we will continue." 
 
 Miss Poplets glanced at him in mute sympathy, as 
 Amelia Amberg Hutchinson withdrew. She could 
 read him like a book, and she knew how these owl- 
 esses grated upon his nerves and how he would have 
 run miles to escape them at any time. This, how- 
 ever, was merely the beginning of the day's store of 
 tribulation. 
 
 The next visitor was Anastasia Atwood, wearing a 
 mystic expression, and a complexion that clamored for 
 an application of cold water. She had just completed 
 a poem the best thing she had ever done dealing sa- 
 tirically with the question of wine at the White House 
 banquets. She "saw" the evil example accruing from
 
 174 A Girl who Wrote 
 
 the Presidential endorsement of alcohol, to a nation 
 that was perpetually squirming around its excise 
 laws. It was a thoughtful little thing, of exquisite me- 
 tre, etc., etc., etc. 
 
 "You sly man!" she said artlessly, as though she 
 were playing a game of "peek-a-boo" with him. "So 
 you are going to be married ! It is good news to all of 
 us in the office. A managing editor without a wife is 
 like a dinner without a hostess. Ah, Mr. Childers, I 
 love my sex, for I believe I make a distinct appeal to 
 it. I shall forsake you utterly I really shall and I 
 shall argue out all my propositions with your wife. 
 Oh, I shall, I assure you. You will have to be on your 
 best behavior most circumspect and discreet . . ." 
 
 "Miss Poplets!" cried Mr. Childers, "what about 
 that letter? Not finished yet? Excuse me, Mrs. At- 
 wood, I am so busy to-day. . . ." 
 
 And then, as the door closed upon the pensive poet- 
 ess, with her mysticism and her drab face, he ex- 
 claimed: "Great Heaven! What have I done? If 
 any more of those cats come here to-day I shall tender 
 my resignation. This is not a gossip factory, or a tea- 
 fight. Miss Poplets, why do you allow it? Why don't 
 you rescue me ? Why don't you tell them that we are 
 dreadfully busy, and have no time to cackle." 
 
 Poor little Miss Poplets did not smile. She was 
 desperately vexed at these interruptions, for she knew 
 how offensive they were to her master. Many a time 
 had she steered him away from the outgrowing senti- 
 ments of the feminine owls. She had lied for him 
 until her tongue would have blistered, if falsehood 
 could have achieved that condition. She had rushed 
 him behind doors and had sworn that he was in Bos- 
 ton, in Philadelphia, in Chicago. Once he had dodged 
 behind a desk and she had dispatched him instantly
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 175 
 
 to San Francisco! She would have sent him further 
 to please him. Vague ideas, in case of continued dis- 
 turbance, flitted through her mind. Perhaps she 
 could establish him comfortably in Honolulu. . . . 
 
 Rita Eisenstein, however, took her by surprise, and 
 Mr. Childers never went to Honolulu. He was caught, 
 like a rat in a trap, in his own chair, and he frowned, 
 and cursed, and made a most unsatisfactory impression 
 upon the feminine owl. 
 
 "Is the future Mrs. Childers fond of society chat- 
 ter?" asked Miss Eisenstein in an affectation of joy- 
 ousness. Her Division Street confection was all white 
 and unspotted from the world. ''I do hope she is! It 
 will be such a charming thing to cater to the wife of 
 one's managing editor, won't it? I can do a good 
 deal, Mr. Childers. I don't say it to boast . . . but a 
 word from me goes. If at any time your wife that is 
 to be, would like a card for any particular entertain- 
 ment, a function at the Waldorf-Astoria, or an affair 
 at Sherry's, I can do it, and shall be only too delighted. 
 I am assuming that Miss Hampton likes society. . . ." 
 
 "Miss Poplets!" exclaimed the managing editor 
 "Miss Poplets! . . ." 
 
 "But Miss Eisenstein was not so easily squelched. 
 "One moment,'' she said. "I thought I'd just tell you 
 that if there is anything I can do for the wedding, com- 
 mand my services. There are one or two people with 
 good names, and excellent addresses, who are under ob- 
 ligations to me. If you think they can help you, or if 
 their presence would please Miss Hampton, I do hope, 
 Mr. Childers, that you will let me know. I have gone 
 into the thing so thoroughly. Sometimes I think that 
 I devote my life too exclusively to this work. But I 
 love it. My heart and soul are in it. I am never quite . 
 happy unless "
 
 176 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 Little Miss Poplets felt that unless she did some- 
 thing Mr. Childers would either throw himself, or Miss 
 Eisenstein, from the window into the courtyard. The 
 latter alternative would not have disturbed her equa- 
 namity in the least. Jack Childers' dislike of the femi- 
 nine owls was contagious, and little Miss Poplets had 
 caught it in a malignant form. 
 
 "If you will finish this letter, Mr. Childers," she 
 said "Excuse me, Miss Eisenstein, but we have so 
 much to do. Let me see. You had just dictated : 
 'The article on Sunday entertainment, from a pen as 
 widely popular as yours ' I've got that. . . ." 
 
 "Bless you, Miss Poplets; bless you," he exclaimed 
 fervently as the door closed upon Miss Eisenstein. 
 
 Happy Hippy wore a somewhat sorrowful mien 
 when she came into Mr. Childers' sanctum. Her pro- 
 fessed object was to confer with him about that per- 
 petually unwritten story of hers. Nobody had ever 
 seen a contribution from her pen in cold print. In 
 fact, it was hinted around the office that she was liter- 
 ally unable to write, and that her spelling was not only 
 sinful but disgusting. Still, she held her position, 
 which was mainly decorative, and she was very pleas- 
 ant to the olfactory sense. 
 
 It pained her to hear of Jack Childers' engagement. 
 Although she had never nourished any hope for her- 
 self in that direction, she was nevertheless grieved, as a 
 matter of principle, to see that an able-bodied man was 
 successfully disposed of placed beyond reach, so to 
 speak. A man unmarried was, at any rate, a man. 
 Married, he merely wore the outward semblance of 
 masculinity, and was as good as done for. She felt 
 that her position was slightly jeopardized and that in a 
 "married" office her occupation would be singularly 
 insipid.
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 177 
 
 "And so they were married!" she said skittishly as 
 she sat down beside him, exhaling a fervid odor of 
 stewed violets. "We are all very delighted to hear of 
 the happy event, Mr. Childers," she continued, rather 
 wistfully, "and to know that your life will be so pleas- 
 ant. I am a great upholder of marriage, for I main- 
 tain that it is a commendable institution. Others do 
 not agree with me. Even in this office there are 
 women who affect to sneer at it. I am not one of 
 them. Of course, a clever woman can do much for 
 herself, but I hold that marriage is the most fitting 
 goal. Woman was meant to marry, don't you think 
 so?" 
 
 Poor Jack Childers looked out of the window, and 
 up at the ceiling, and down at the carpet. The strong, 
 sickening odor of the stewed violets nauseated him, 
 and he felt that he was indeed bearded in his own den. 
 If only these owl-esses were married and had a set of 
 triplets apiece! Little Miss Poplets paled, and saw 
 tragedy in the atmosphere. She wondered if Mr. 
 Childers could possibly survive, and she grew restless 
 and feverish. 
 
 "You do not answer," she continued, purring. 
 "Oh, selfish man! You like to see us around you. 
 You think that if we were married, the office would 
 be very dull and uninteresting. Perhaps it would 
 perhaps it would ! But love is selfish, Mr. Childers. 
 It is a law unto itself, and the time may come when 
 your little birds will open the door of their cages, and 
 fly. You cannot imprison us forever; you dare not. 
 We are women. Even Amelia, I think, is open to 
 inducement, and she is no novice. It is the way of 
 the world." 
 
 "I will not take up any more of your valuable time, 
 madame," he said severely. ''It is very good of you
 
 178 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 all, and if you ever get a chance to open your cage 
 don't mind me. Take .it and fly." 
 
 He could not resist that little rub. It was possibly 
 the first really ill-natured remark he had made to his 
 myrmidons . . . but they riled him . . . how they 
 riled him! Perhaps Happy Hippy, pachydermatously 
 inclined as she was, saw that his temper was not in its 
 most golden frame. But she did not resent the acidity 
 in his last remark. She could not afford to resent any- 
 thing, for she knew that she was a luxury rather than 
 a necessity, and there had been times when she was 
 convinced that Mr. Childers looked upon her as a 
 doubtful luxury. She wobbled out, her hips rhyth- 
 mically a-swing, and eddies of perfume swirling into 
 the four corners of the room. 
 
 Mr. Childers felt completely unsettled, and he sat 
 frowning, and making no attempt to struggle with a 
 mass of editorial correspondence that lay threaten- 
 ingly before him. He was on edge. He had hitherto 
 successfully battled against these women, and rigor- 
 ously denied himself to them on all occasions. And 
 now they besieged him, and he was powerless. He 
 could have coped with a delegation of irate Trade 
 Unionists far more effectively than with these feminine 
 parodies. His hatred of them was quite unreasonable, 
 and he knew it; but on that precise account it was 
 all the more irresistible, for when cold applications of 
 logic become useless, then a case is generally hopeless. 
 
 Happy Hippy went back to her sister-owls slightly 
 disconcerted, and opined in a loud voice that Mr. Child- 
 ers seemed to be neither blushing nor happy. She 
 had her own opinions, she said, but preferred to keep 
 them to herself. In spite of which, Lamp-Post Lucy 
 felt that her duty lay before her, and marched off in 
 her seven-leagued Wellington boots to give a little
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 179 
 
 twist, on her own account, to Mr. Childers' dolorous 
 situation. 
 
 This time he was on his way to Honolulu, and had 
 just informed Miss Poplets that the further appearance 
 of any petticoat in his office would be attended with 
 the direst results, when Lamp-Post Lucy, following a 
 district messenger boy, entered. The Fates were 
 against him, and he resigned himself hopelessly to the 
 inevitable. 
 
 "Never mind," he said to little Poplets, as he noticed 
 that she seemed about to burst into tears. "It can't 
 last much longer, and I won't go to Honolulu to-day." 
 
 Lamp-Post Lucy sat down and crossed her huge 
 limbs. As mistress of the department associated with 
 love-letters, and advice to Lubin and Dulcinea, she be- 
 lieved that Mr. Childers would be glad to see her. 
 Perhaps he would want to know things, for to a busy 
 man, a young "girl's heart was often a golden mystery. 
 She could advise him, for she lived in the atmos- 
 phere . . . 
 
 "You won't mindme," she said, flapping one of her 
 Wellingtons to and fro, " for you know how I look 
 upon these affairs. I do congratulate you so heartily, 
 Mr. Childers. And I would do anything to help you. 
 Of course, I have to deal with a lot of very foolish 
 people in my correspondence girls who talk of 
 'steady company,' and of 'going with' their 'young 
 gents;' men who write of 'lady friends' at East Side 
 entertainments but I understand. Sometimes, Mr. 
 Childers, I wish that Fifth Avenue would consult me, 
 because I really know, and I feel that I could avert 
 many misunderstandings and tragedies. Do tell me 
 about Miss Hampton. Of course, I have no right to 
 ask, as our relations are only business relations. But 
 my heart throbs at these times. I cannot forget that
 
 i8o A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 I am a girl, and I do enjoy these matters so thor- 
 oughly." 
 
 She flapped the other Wellington boot, and looked 
 so appallingly amiable that Jack Childers, in spite of 
 himself, smiled. And he knew that the smile had 
 saved him, as tears carried balm to the heart of the 
 agonized Tennysonian lady in the case of "Home they 
 brought her warrior dead." The atmosphere looked 
 less sombre. That tiny ray, flashed upon him by the 
 ever-healing sense of the ridiculous, gave Tiim courage. 
 
 "There is nothing to tell," he said ; and a deep feel- 
 ing of gratitude surged in the breast of little Poplets 
 as she realized that, at last, thanks to Lamp-Post 
 Lucy's flapping Wellingtons, he was safe. "We have 
 known each other for years. It is all very pleasant 
 and comfortable." 
 
 "Ah !" she exclaimed complacently, for she felt that 
 she could really venture something rather pretty and 
 decidedly apropos. "That is charming ; but if you will 
 permit me, Mr. Childers, I'll show you a letter that I 
 have just received and have already answered. It will 
 not apply to you, but it will interest you. May I ?" 
 
 He nodded dejectedly. It could not last much 
 longer, and he might as well make up his mind to bear 
 it stoically. Moreover, those Wellingtons were so 
 gorgeous. . . . 
 
 Lamp-Post Lucy took a crumpled letter from her 
 pocket, smoothed it out, and read : " 'Madame, won't 
 you please advise me? I'm a broken-hearted young 
 man, earning a good living, and rather nice-looking. 
 At least they tell me so.' (Isn't that sweet, that little 
 burst of modesty? she asked gushingly). 'I am en- 
 gaged to my cousin, who grew up with me. We like 
 each other, but she takes everything for granted. She
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 181 
 
 knows me so well, she says. The other night she went 
 to Walhalla Hall with a young fellow who lives on 
 the same block, and she told me she did it because she 
 wanted a new experience. She was anxious to know 
 if a real strange young fellow would appeal to her, as 
 of course I was her cousin. She acts very oddly. 
 What shall I do?' Do you know what I answered, 
 Mr. Childers?" 
 
 He neither knew nor cared, but she went on : "I just 
 told him," she said, " that this wasn't love ; that it was 
 just cousinly affection, not at all serviceable for matri- 
 monial purposes. I informed him that any engaged 
 girl, who would go to Walhalla Hall with a stranger, 
 wasn't worth considering for a moment." 
 
 "I suppose you said 'Chuck her !' " remarked Mr. 
 Childers, with a smile. 
 
 "Oh, Mr. Childers," she cried. " Never slang any- 
 thing but that. I abominate it. I thought I'd read 
 you this letter, because it is really instructive. Don't 
 you think so ?" 
 
 The ordeal ended soon after this. Eva Higgins and 
 Mamie Munson appeared later ; but little Poplets, who 
 had resented the reading of Lamp-Post Lucy's letter 
 as an unwarranted piece of gratuitous impertinence, 
 absolutely refused them admittance. She did not even 
 trouble to send Mr. Childers to Honolulu, but openly 
 admitted that he was there, and frankly confessed that, 
 at her own risk, she declined to receive them. The 
 feminine owls were exceedingly wroth, and their 
 voices, pitched high, squeaked ominously through the 
 corridors. But little Poplets won the day, and re- 
 turned, rosy and on the verge of tears, to her desk. 
 And Jack Childers thanked her fervently, and told her 
 that she was a treasure, a jewel, so that she felt amply
 
 1 82 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 repaid for her arduous labor in the cause of her mas- 
 ter's mental repose. 
 
 It was late that evening when Sallie Sydenham ap- 
 peared. She had shirked her theatre, and had devoted 
 her time to mapping out a plan of action. What it 
 was she hardly knew as yet ; but she had been thinking 
 things out, and was prepared to work unwaveringly. 
 Her night had been sleepless. And her cup of unhappi- 
 ness had been filled to overflowing by the recollection of 
 Charlie Covington's last words. She had hoped that if 
 the case became desperate she could have called upon 
 him in the splendid devotion of his platonic friendship. 
 That was all over. Charlie could never be the same 
 again, under any circumstances. The memory of what 
 he had said made her feel petulant and irritable, for it 
 was so manifestly absurd. She had regarded him 
 safely, almost as a woman-friend, and he had turned. 
 He was a man . . . the man she didn't want. Every- 
 thing seemed to be against her. 
 
 She had come to the office to hear Jack Childers talk, 
 to learn from his own lips that he loved this girl, who 
 was known under an alias in the squalor and dankness 
 of an East Side apartment house . . . this pale girl, 
 with the silver-gold hair, who had one relationship 
 with him as cousin, and proposed to undertake an- 
 other. . . . 
 
 It was late in the evening, but too early for the up- 
 town ride after the day's labor. She had not the heart 
 to consider that uptown ride. Bohemian though she 
 was in all her impulses, her Bohemianism balked at this 
 guileless contact with Ivy Hampton's cousin and fiance. 
 She felt, moreover, like an executioner as she came into 
 the office, and saw him sitting there, in his easy non- 
 chalance and good temper. Whatever happened, she 
 would have to deal him a crushing blow, for half meas-
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 183 
 
 ures were impossible, and she would feel bound to 
 prevent his marriage with Ivy, whether he loved her 
 or whether he didn't, whether the scandal burst, or 
 whether it evaporated. She would take very good 
 care that it evaporated, and then. . . . She did not 
 dare to think of her future course. She had never 
 dwelt very fixedly upon marital problems. But she 
 knew one thing, and it was that she could never permit 
 the man she loved . . . yes, she loved him with all her 
 heart, 'and had always loved him ... to enter into a 
 life contract, his eyes closed, with a girl whom she had 
 proved to be hopelessly tainted. She could not think 
 it out. The immediate question was how to avert a 
 horrible newspaper scandal. 
 
 "I've had such a terrible day of it, Sallie," he said, 
 smiling, as she came up to his desk. "They have all 
 been congratulating me. Miss Poplets will tell you all 
 about it, if you want to know. But perhaps" rue- 
 fully "you've also come to congratulate me." 
 
 "No," she said shortly. "You didn't think it worth 
 while to tell me the news, Mr. Covington was my 
 informant. It is true, of course." 
 
 He put up his hands with a comic gesture, as though 
 to ward off a blow. "Yes," he said. "It is quite true, 
 but don't congratulate me. I hate it. Honestly, if 
 somebody came in and pitied me, and cried over me, it 
 would be a most welcome event such a change." 
 
 She smiled, but not very exuberantly. He did not 
 seem to be violently delighted, but of course he had 
 known it for so long. It was new to her, but not to 
 him. He had grown quite used to contemplating the 
 situation. 
 
 "I won't congratulate you," she said, with an affec- 
 tation of indulgence, "as you don't wish it. It is not 
 always necessary to speak congratulations, is it?
 
 1 84 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 When when shall you be be when shall you be 
 married ?" 
 
 "Not for a long time," he cried. "Not for ages. 
 Miss Hampton is in no hurry. She is a very sensible 
 girl, quite practical and logical. . . ." 
 
 "Oh!" Sallie could not repress the exclamation. 
 This information gave her a vast feeling of relief. She 
 could breathe again. He was not a fervid Lothario, 
 at any rate. He was quite cool and unruffled, it 
 seemed to her. A certain mental tension was removed ; 
 clouds that had almost touched her, floated upwards 
 into the haze ; she began to feel more like her usual self. 
 
 "You are not impassioned," she said in her frivolous 
 tones, "not a bit like the heroes in my plays. I thought 
 I should find you kissing locks of hair and pressing 
 violets." 
 
 "Oh, Sallie, Sallie," he exclaimed deprecatingly. 
 "You are like all girls, after all except Miss Hamp- 
 ton. Marriage is, after all, the supreme event in the 
 world, in your opinion, eh ? I am not, as you say, im- 
 passioned. Why should I be? There are no risks, no 
 dangers. We are fond of each other, and it is a case 
 of the course of true love running quite smoothly." 
 
 "And if there were dangers and risks ?" she asked. 
 
 "I think I should like them," he answered, with a 
 laugh. "They would be so exciting. As it is, nothing 
 is likely to happen. It is all so placid and certain." 
 
 She looked at him, anxious and distressed. Per- 
 haps he didn't know how much he loved Ivy Hampton, 
 and the only thing necessary was the spice of danger, 
 the leaven of risk. In that case, it would be very sad 
 indeed, and the denouement would prove ghastly. 
 
 "Suppose," she said, with an assumption of light- 
 ness, "that at the very last moment Miss Hampton told 
 you that she 'could never be yours,' and said 'Stand
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 185 
 
 aside,' and 'Let me pass,' as they do in melodrama. 
 What then?" 
 
 He grew rather thoughtful. Her question was a 
 somewhat leading one, but . . . well, she was Sallie 
 Sydenham, and Sallie had the privileges of a court- 
 jester. He had once said that she wore a cap and bells 
 for the benefit of the office. 
 
 "What then?" he repeated. "Well, Sallie, I'm 
 afraid I'm prosaic. I'm awfully sorry, but I don't 
 think that it would kill me. I wish I could tell you 
 that I should pine away, in a beautiful green and yellow 
 melancholy. Alas ! I fear I shouldn't. The twentieth 
 century doesn't lend itself to that sort of thing, does it? 
 Of course, I should be horribly put out, and I think I 
 should make it very warm for Miss Hampton." 
 
 Sallie blessed those words, as he spoke them. They 
 set her at comparative ease, and seemed to soothe her. 
 No, it was not a selfish satisfaction in the belief that 
 he was not violently enamored, that she experienced. 
 There was absolutely no selfishness in any nook or 
 cranny of the situation. If he had loved Ivy passion- 
 ately, and the position had been clear and desirable, she 
 would have been light-hearted and joyous or she 
 thought she would for his sake. She loved him, and 
 there was no taint in her love. She would always love 
 him; but she could have watched his happy marriage 
 to the one sublime woman of his choice, with exquisite 
 altruism. This she firmly believed. She would have 
 envied that sublime woman. . . . That was all. 
 
 "Don't you sometimes tire of the dreadful rubbish I 
 talk?" she asked, with a laugh, for she felt that she 
 could enjoy repose for a moment or two, at any 
 rate. 
 
 "Not a bit," he responded promptly. "You're a 
 tonic, Sallie. I've often told- you so. I might object
 
 1 86 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 to the analytic suggestion in your recent question, if I 
 thought you were serious. But you never are, you lit- 
 tle lady-wag." 
 
 "I never am," she declared, with an inaudible sigh, 
 "and I hope I shall always be able to live up to my 
 reputation or down to it, or around it, or in some car- 
 dinal association with it." 
 
 "By the bye," he asked, "how's the case getting on 
 poor old Stuyvesant and his siren ?" 
 
 It was too ghastly, and for one instant one quick, 
 horrid instant she thought of telling him the whole 
 hateful truth, and closing the situation with a snap 
 there and then. It was such a fearful impulse that it 
 made her feel unsafe and irresponsible. 
 
 She summoned up all her powers of repression, and 
 conquered. "Nicely," she said carelessly. "I'm hard 
 at work." 
 
 "Have you any inkling, inkling, inkling?" he asked, 
 and he stopped to whistle the song from "Florodora." 
 
 "Perhaps; but don't be inquisitive. Sherlock 
 Holmes never gave himself away, and I'm Sherlock 
 just at present. I'm off now, as I've loads of things 
 to do. Good-night." 
 
 "Won't you wait and ride uptown?" 
 
 "I can't, to-night." 
 
 "Oh," he said, with a quizzical smile. "You are go- 
 ing to look upon me as engaged now, and to leave me 
 alone. Sallie, if you do that I shall be furious. The 
 way in which men who are engaged, or married, are 
 abandoned by everything feminine that they like, is dis- 
 tressing and cruel. It always reminds me of rats leav- 
 ing a sinking ship. Don't be a rat, Sallie, and please 
 don't regard me as a sinking ship. Go on being a good 
 fellow, Sallie. You are a good fellow, and you can't 
 help it."
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 187 
 
 A flush spread over her face, and she felt rather 
 shaky. This appeal to her . . . well, it was unneces- 
 sary ; it was heartless. 
 
 "I shall never be a rat," she said unsteadily, "and 
 you will never be a sinking ship. But I must abandon 
 you to-night, whatever you are. Duty, Mr. Childers, 
 calls me, and I reply, 'I come I come.' "
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 ALLIE possessed very few of those quiet, 
 serene, reasoning faculties that mow down the 
 crop of mushroom impulses as they sprout. 
 Nor could she follow the inevitable progress 
 of events from their source, to the turbulent everyday 
 sea into which they finally empty themselves. With 
 her it was always intuition. She decided that the next 
 thing to do was to see Arthur Stuyvesant's wife, for 
 upon Mrs. Stuyvesant the burden of results rested. If 
 the wife had no intention of seeking redress, if she be- 
 lieved in a plaintive acquiescence, a Spartan endurance 
 . . . then there was considerably less to fear. The case 
 would be easier to handle, for her duty would be nar- 
 rowed down to some unimagined "business" with Jack 
 Childers. If she could but discover that Stuyvesant's 
 wife suffered inertly, unvindictively, then she could 
 take her own time . . . there would be no need to 
 hurry. . . . She could placidly await her cue, and 
 pave the way for a denouement that should not prove 
 disastrous. 
 
 Unconsciously, her mind grew less perturbed . . . 
 the danger signal was somewhat blurred . . . she was, 
 in spite of herself, lulled by the fact that nothing hap- 
 pened. To Mr. Green she had made one report, with 
 a great affectation of sensational mystery . . . the sort 
 of mystery that appealed to his not aggressively fan- 
 tastic mind. She told him that she had made some 
 discoveries, and that in a few days she would know for 
 certain if there really were a "story," or if the whole 
 thing could be dismissed as mere gossip. This, she 
 imagined poor little Sallie, pitted against the huge,
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 189 
 
 relentless, multi-cogged wheel of Newspaperdom 
 was a very diplomatic move on her part. She knew 
 little of the wheels within wheels of journalism, and 
 she was rather proud of a course that she thought 
 would pave the way for that final moment, when she 
 saw herself approach Mr. Green, with the words "Noth- 
 ing in it ... absolutely untrue . . . case dismissed." 
 And she would say this, she told herself, with a fine sim- 
 ulation of annoyance, as though she were deeply cha- 
 grined at finding that her labors had led her to a dead 
 wall. In fact, she would give an artistic imitation of 
 the disappointed and hungry reporter. She had watched 
 many reporters robbed of their prey. She had seen 
 their despondent faces when "stories" upon which they 
 had expended their most highly sharpened energies 
 had resulted in ... in a clean bill of nothing whatso- 
 ever. She had often wondered to herself if, in their 
 heart of hearts, they had not felt some instinctive sense 
 of relief, at the knowledge that they had speared inno- 
 cence instead of guilt, and had found the world fair, 
 when they had gone forth to paint it dark. But they 
 had always seemed to be grievously depressed. 
 
 She looked upon her quest of Mrs. Stuyvesant as 
 distressing, but necessary. But when, with the ad- 
 dress of the presumably aggrieved wife on a scrap of 
 paper in her pocket, she set out upon her self-imposed 
 mission, her heart sank and her spirit quailed. It was 
 a nauseating piece of work ; but it was the sort of work 
 at which nine out of ten reporters would smile as 
 "easy," and they had far slighter inducements than 
 she possessed. They did this sort of thing for a dollar 
 or two for fifty cents an hour, or eight dollars a 
 column. Her work meant . . . oh, it meant every- 
 thing. In it were involved Jack Childers, Ivy Hamp- 
 ton, Arthur Stuyvesant . . . herself.
 
 190 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 She slipped through a quiet thoroughfare in the 
 West Side Nineties and found the house of the one 
 woman who was legitimately entitled to the corporeal 
 beauties of Mr. Stuyvesant. She saw his name in 
 large red letters upon several bill-posters. He was to 
 appear in a new problem play, and the event had been 
 largely advertised. Of the real problem that she her- 
 self must solve, the advertisements were silent. If 
 only she could gag the situation. . . . 
 
 She rang an electric bell, and walked up three flights 
 of stairs. There was an elevator^ but she had no de- 
 sire to be rushed up. She would arrive soon enough ; 
 she would have been quite satisfied to walk up ten 
 flights of stairs. As she reached Mrs. Stuyvesant's 
 apartment, the door was opened, and a man issued 
 forth. She saw him stand by the elevator shaft, ring 
 the bell, and wait until the boy answered his summons. 
 He was a well-dressed yet unobtrusive man, but she 
 could see the dim outlines of his face only. He did not 
 look at her, and she shrank back, in case he should at- 
 tempt to do so. She waited until he had disappeared, 
 and then rang Mrs. Stuyvesant's bell. 
 
 It was Mrs. Stuyvesant herself who opened the door, 
 Sallie felt sure. She held a lighted lamp in her hand, 
 and started as she saw Miss Sydenham. 
 
 "Oh!" she said, "excuse me. I had just closed the 
 door to a gentleman. ... I thought he had returned. 
 How stupid of me! Well" with a smile "I can't 
 say I'm out now, can I ? Did you wish to see me?" 
 
 "Please." 
 
 She led the way into a little drawing-room, and 
 Sallie followed. It was a tiny, closely furnished apart- 
 ment, with pictures of Arthur Stuyvesant everywhere 
 on easels, on desks, on what-nots, on the mantel- 
 piece, on the bookcase. The actor, in all styles, met her
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 191 
 
 eye in poses of declamatory aspect and Roman toga, 
 and in photographs of the smug, smiling drawing-room 
 demeanor of to-day. It was a sort of indigestion of 
 Arthur Stuyvesant. Mrs. Stuyvesant was a faded lit- 
 tle woman who must once have been exceedingly 
 pretty. Sallie could picture her with rosy cheeks and 
 a well-rounded figure. Suggestions of this remained, 
 but the cheeks were hollowing, and the figure, in a 
 tawdry silken peignoir, with ribbons awry and laces 
 gone wrong, looked limp and uncared for. In spite of 
 the lightness of her first words, Sallie could see that 
 she was uneasy and feverish. She placed the lamp 
 upon a small table. It was the only light in the room, 
 but it was luminous enough to give salience to the de- 
 testable smiling pictures of Arthur Stuyvesant. 
 
 "You wish to see me?" asked Mrs. Stuyvesant. 
 "You are an actress, of course ?" 
 
 She glanced significantly at the rouge on Miss Syd- 
 enham's cheeks tints that she put on as regularly as 
 she donned her clothes. She often said to Rosina 
 that she felt cold without it. ... 
 
 "No," Sallie replied, "I will introduce myself. You 
 may have heard of me. I am Sallie Sydenham, the 
 dramatic critic." 
 
 Mrs. Stuyvesant stared at her visitor in surprise. 
 There was a time when she would have arisen, in all 
 her might and main, to flout this daring young critic 
 who had made merry so frequently at the expense of 
 her aspiring husband . . . who had penned caustic 
 witticisms and assailed the immorality of plays, with a 
 pen that was abnormally trenchant and vindictive. 
 That time had passed. Still, through force of habit, 
 she looked for a moment at the various pictures of the 
 actor that filled the room. 
 
 "Yes, I know you," she said. "We have often hated
 
 192 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 you together . . . when you attacked him; and 
 laughed at and applauded you . . . when you attacked 
 others. You have always appeared to be honest, but 
 honesty is unpleasant. Once I thought that if I ever 
 met you, I should take great pleasure in strangling you. 
 It was when you said that he appealed only to the un- 
 ripe judgment and the forbidden sentiments of the 
 matinee girl. I treasured that up against you. But 
 now, Miss Sydenham, I do not mind. We ... we 
 change." 
 
 "Yes," said Sallie in a low voice, "I know, Mrs. 
 Stuyvesant, I know. My visit to-night has nothing 
 whatsoever to do with dramatic criticism." 
 
 Mrs. Stuyvesant looked once more at her collection 
 of photographs, and Sallie wondered at her own temer- 
 ity. It was ghastly to apply the probe, as she knew 
 that she must do, if her mission were to be successfully 
 accomplished. 
 
 "I came," said Sallie slowly it seemed cruel to look 
 at the poor little faded woman, and yet she preferred 
 to do it rather than stare at the gallery of dramatic 
 Stuyvesants "I came, Mrs. Stuyvesant, to tell you 
 that the paper has heard has heard this sad story 
 and to ask you to ask you " 
 
 She stumbled, and was silent, literally unable to pro- 
 ceed. She wondered if the "out-and-out" reporter 
 began in this way ... or if he beat about the bush 
 more artistically ... or if he were even more brutal 
 in his frankness. What an agreeable calling! And 
 yet men could be reporters, while there were bricks to 
 be "laid," subways to be dug, tunnels to be excavated. 
 
 "It is quite true whatever you may have heard," 
 said Mrs. Stuyvesant, quietly. "Yes, I know. You 
 are referring to the trouble between Mr. Stuyvesant 
 and myself. You need not hesitate. It is a subject
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 193 
 
 that I have schooled myself to meet. I am quite will- 
 ing to talk." 
 
 Sallie experienced a sense of dismay so keen that 
 she felt the sharpening of he r features, the tightening 
 of the skin upon her face. Old Witherby's insinua- 
 tions were even more far-reaching than he had sup- 
 posed. Mrs. Stuyvesant knew all, had made her plans, 
 and was prepared. For a moment Sallie was utterly 
 taken aback. She had intended to probe and to ferret. 
 Instead, the actor's wife threw the truth at her, and it 
 was a large and a formidable truth. 
 
 "Is it true," she began hesitantly "is it true that 
 you will take steps to to secure a divorce to venti- 
 late the matter?" 
 
 Mrs. Stuyvesant showed no emotion. This was not 
 the picture of the distressed and weeping wife that 
 Sallie had expected to see. Cool resolution was im- 
 pressed upon the bedraggled features of the pale little 
 woman. It was by no means a question of hysterics. 
 
 "See here, Miss Sydenham," she said, "you are a 
 woman at least I suppose you are or have been, at 
 some time. It is like this : Arthur and I have been 
 married for several years, and I have suffered a good 
 deal during those years. I was an actress, but I left 
 the stage to please him. I withdrew from the strug- 
 gle, and at the time was glad to do so. I I wor- 
 shipped him. There could be no matinee girl that 
 ever looked upon him as I did. He deceived me,, not 
 .once or twice, but many times, and I bore it all in 
 silence, and still loved him. I have humiliated myself 
 more than I should care to say, until I felt that I was 
 no longer a woman but a shadow, hovering around 
 him, and thankful for the privilege of being allowed 
 to hover. His plea was always the same thing: pub- 
 licity meant ruin. My ruin, which was achieved long
 
 194 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 ago, did not appeal to him at all. Of late I was never 
 able to discover anything tangible, but we have lived 
 in an atmosphere of indifference and apathy that was 
 appalling. As soon as I learned the truth that he 
 has a mistress and an apartment I resolved to end it 
 all. Kind friends threw out hints, and although I 
 have no idea of the name of the woman or of the lo- 
 cality of her apartment, I am now prepared to take 
 the final step. I will not prostitute myself by wearing 
 his name, and I will show every woman who had ad- 
 mired him as an actor, what he is as a man. The mati- 
 nee idol shall come down from his pedestal." 
 
 She paused, a trifle breathless, but not at all fervid. 
 She seemed to be repeating a lesson, and to Sallie's 
 ears it all appeared irrevocable as the crack of doom. 
 
 "Yet you loved him," she said. Her woman's in- 
 stincts were all with this pitifully disciplined little 
 woman, and her anger struggled for expression. Her 
 hatred of the man gleamed in her eyes, and for a mo- 
 ment she forgot her mission. The next . . . and she 
 recalled the grim intricacy of the web. It was not the 
 wife of the actor, but the cousin of the man who con- 
 cerned her. So she said : "Yet you loved him." 
 
 "Of course," assented Mrs. Stuyvesant. "Otherwise 
 I could never have endured my life as long as I have 
 managed to do. He has always known that I loved him, 
 and has traded upon my weakness and devotion. If 
 you are listening to my remarks with a view to pub- 
 lishing them, I trust, Miss Sydenham, that you will not 
 convey the impression that I am repining. That is all 
 over. I am simply a woman longing to free herself, 
 and absolutely determined to do it at all costs." 
 
 Sallie saw that hope began to look anaemic and wan, 
 and she was utterly at a loss what to do. She tried to 
 oust from her mind all interest in the woman before
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 195 
 
 her, and to realize that the words to which she had 
 just listened meant the dire perdition of her case. This 
 tensely aggrieved wife would hasten the tragedy of the 
 end. She sat there perplexed and meditative. 
 
 "It is a horrible vengeance," she said presently ; but 
 she said it emphatically, for she was urged on by a 
 mental picture of Jack Childers crushed by the knowl- 
 edge of Ivy's infamy and asphyxiated by the noisome 
 scandal. "It is a horrible vengeance. Is it is it quite 
 justifiable, Mrs. Stuyvesant? Yes, you think so now. 
 Have you thought what your sensations will be when 
 the newspapers thresh out all the details of the affair 
 and the whole skeleton is revealed?" 
 
 Mrs. Stuyvesant looked at her coldly. "You are 
 an unusual reporter," she said; "an extremely disin- 
 terested one, apparently. You appear to be thinking 
 of me, rather than of yourself. You should surely be 
 gratified at the points I have given you, and the glow- 
 ing story you could weave around them. Think of it ! 
 'The deserted wife talks.' 'Mrs. Stuyvesant on the 
 war-path.' 'Startling events in the domestic life of a 
 favorite actor.' Ha! Ha!" 
 
 The laugh grated upon Sallie's nerves. It was so 
 direly devoid of human sympathy. She wondered 
 what this woman must have endured before she could 
 have landed herself upon this hard rock of coldly vin- 
 dictive determination. 
 
 "As you know," Sallie said lamely, "I am not a re- 
 porter, and this is the first assignment I have ever 
 undertaken. I am quite a novice at it." 
 
 "I thought so," assented the other. "I was sure of 
 it. My acquaintance with reporters is fairly extensive. 
 I have seen them in all styles, and under all circum- 
 stances, as you may well imagine. And I should ad- 
 vise you, Miss Sydenham, to be satisfied, and to realize
 
 196 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 that you have acquired a story. I may also tell you 
 that I should not have received you if I had not un- 
 wittingly let you in. I should simply not have troubled 
 myself; for, after all, there are surer ways of acting 
 than through the newspapers. They may come later." 
 
 There was but one thing to do, and distasteful 
 though it was, Sallie decided to do it. In face of this 
 icy resolve, this unyielding armor of determination, 
 Sallie saw that the land was slipping fast from her 
 feet . . . that she was achieving nothing but mortifi- 
 cation. 
 
 "Listen to me, Mrs. Stuyvesant," she said. "You did 
 me the honor, a short time ago, to remark that I was a 
 woman, or you supposed that I was, or that I had 
 been at some time. You are right; I am a woman. 
 And I I am deceiving you, as well as as the news- 
 paper that I represent. For I have come to see you 
 to-night, Mrs. Stuyvesant, for no other reason than 
 than because I know the woman who has caused all 
 this trouble." 
 
 Sallie watched her eagerly, and waited to see the ice 
 melt in the fervor of this statement. She expected 
 to see Mrs. Stuyvesant rise and in frenzy demand the 
 name of her rival. She anticipated the usual signs of 
 acute feminine emotion heaving bosom, dilated nos- 
 trils, rapid respiration. 
 
 The actor's wife betrayed no such banal manifesta- 
 tions, and into Sallie's mind was borne the fact that the 
 case was desperate indeed, for it had not a leg of hu- 
 man sentiment to stand upon. 
 
 "In that case/' Mrs. Stuyvesant remarked, in chill 
 indignation, "we need bandy words no longer. I saw 
 from the first that you were not a mere news gatherer. 
 Still, it was rather a pitiful subterfuge, don't you 
 think, Miss Sydenham ? And if, at the same time, you
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 197 
 
 are lacking in loyalty to your newspaper ... I con- 
 gratulate you. You are doing well. You . . ." 
 
 "Stop!" cried Sallie, stung by a truth that had not 
 suggested itself to her before. "Perhaps I can say to 
 you as you said to me : that you were once a woman 
 or I may suppose that you were. Do you imagine that 
 it has cost me nothing to come to you, and to talk as 
 I have done. Yes, I have deceived you, and I am lack- 
 ing in loyalty to my newspaper. But there are reasons 
 which you would understand, or would have under- 
 stood at one time. Mrs. Stuyvesant, I am appealing 
 to the woman who once loved that man, and suffered 
 for him. There are reasons for this visit. I know 
 the girl who is involved with Mr. Stuyvesant, and 
 and if the matter is exposed to the public '. . . oh, I 
 daren't think of it ! The consequences would be too 
 dreadful to contemplate." 
 
 Mrs. Stuyvesant's expression softened. The iron 
 left it, and slowly, it seemed, the rigidity of her man- 
 ner lost a trifle of its tension. Perhaps the knowledge 
 that she was not alone in her misery had something to 
 do with this. But it was more probably due to the 
 bifurcation of the road that led her from that one 
 grimly trodden thoroughfare with which, she was so 
 gloomily familiar. 
 
 "You know the girl !" she repeated. "I am sorry for 
 the girl, for she will suffer. And she would suffer just 
 as inevitably, if, at this moment, I were to fall dead. 
 Any woman unfortunate enough to love Arthur Stuy- 
 vesant must suffer sooner or later, whatever happens." 
 
 A gleam of light seemed to illumine the situation. 
 Sallie, twisted in her chair, her hands grasping her 
 humped knees, saw the change in Mrs. Stuyvesant's 
 expression. 
 
 "I wish I knew you better," she said, "so that I
 
 198 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 might appeal to you with more success. This girl . . . 
 that I know ... is not what you might imagine her 
 to be. She is literally one of those matinee girls of 
 whom you have spoken. Yes, I believe that she must 
 be innately bad cruel, relentless, indifferent. She 
 must be something even worse," she added viciously, 
 hugging her knees, until her chin almost rested upon 
 them, "for she has sacrificed a good, honest, loyal man 
 a gentleman in every sense of the word. She has 
 wrecked his life as your husband has wrecked yours. 
 She has brought reputable names into infamy. He 
 trusted her . . . they had grown up together . . . 
 they were almost brother and sister . . . and he . . ." 
 
 "I understand," Mrs. Stuyvesant asserted compla- 
 cently ; "you are in love with him !" 
 
 Sallie dropped her knees, and stared in bewilderment 
 at the woman. Had she been a mystic, dabbling in the 
 latency of mind, a clairvoyant seeing blurred shadows 
 luminously, this remark could not have sounded more 
 wonderful. Then she flushed furiously, for it was the 
 first time that she had heard this truth humanly ex- 
 pressed. It was the first time, except in self-acknowl- 
 edgment, that she had been confronted with it. It 
 sounded strange and marvellously presumptuous. And 
 it sounded fantastic and adorable. Coming, as it did, 
 from the lips of a woman utterly unknown to her, she 
 could not stifle a sense of the supernormal. It was 
 the sort of statement that would have paralyzed her 
 with wonder, had it issued from the brain of Mrs. Piper 
 in a trance. 
 
 "You know!" she exclaimed in such awe, that the 
 faded little wife of the actor smiled in all human in- 
 dulgence. "Yes, it is true, although I have never said 
 it before. It is not necessary to talk about it, because 
 it is outside the question, and it is just a personal
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 199 
 
 matter that nobody will ev.er know. It is also one- 
 sided, Mrs. Stuyvesant, because ... he is engaged to 
 ... the girl." 
 
 "And you are afraid that he will discover her de- 
 ceit . . . you would let him marry her, if nothing were 
 found out?" 
 
 Sallie writhed at this cross-examination. She felt 
 that she was on the rack. The tables were turning 
 upon her, and the woman she had set out to investigate 
 was investigating her! It was quite unnecessary. 
 She was not at all afraid to suffer it was, perhaps, 
 just a foretaste of what she would be called upon to 
 endure later on. But it did not seem relevant to the 
 matter under discussion . . . unless Mrs. Stuyvesant 
 should be divine enough to pity her, and, for her sake, 
 relinquish her schemes. Of course, she hoped for 
 something of the sort, but she hoped for it with less 
 bleeding from her own personal laceration. 
 
 "I do not know what I should do," Sallie replied to 
 the last question. "No. I do not believe I could let 
 him marry her." 
 
 "Then," said the other, not unkindly, but with a 
 practical flavor that made Sallie's blood run cold, "be 
 satisfied, and do not worry. Let things take their 
 course. She will be discovered, and he will know it, 
 and if he ever loved her he will then hate her. ... It 
 will be your turn. . . . And to put your mind quite 
 at rest, Miss Sydenham, I may tell you that I have 
 set the machinery in motion, and that nothing can stop 
 it ... now." 
 
 "You have done that?" Sallie cried vehemently, ris- 
 ing, and standing before the little faded woman. 
 "You have done that? That is what I feared, and 
 that is why I came. And I thought that by telling 
 you the truth, as I have done, I might possibly just
 
 200 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 possibly arouse your sympathy. I had no right to 
 think it, but there was just the chance. And you be- 
 lieve that if he turned from her . . . that I ... no, 
 you cannot think it. If that were the case I could not 
 say that I loved him. I would give my life if all this 
 could be undone, and he might marry her, and" with 
 a smile "live happily ever afterwards. That is im- 
 possible, but I want to spare him as much as I can . . . 
 and soften the blow. And you must surely understand 
 that when I do that, I shall give up even his friendship 
 for it will be a cold, cruel, but necessary thing to do." 
 
 For the first time Mrs. Stuyvesant showed signs of 
 genuine emotion. Her armor caved in, and she saw 
 that she was confronted by real human anguish . . . 
 the veritable anguish that she herself had sampled so 
 thoroughly. She put her hands on Sallie's shoulders 
 and looked tenderly into her eyes. 
 
 "I am so sorry," she said, "and I do quite under- 
 stand it all. You love him in the true, unselfish way, 
 as I once loved Arthur when I gave up everything 
 for his sake. I am desperately sorry. It seems hard 
 that this horrible muddle in my life should involve 
 others. If I could help you I would gladly do it, 
 but" 
 
 "You will you will ! " cried Sallie, taking her hand, 
 and crushing it. 
 
 "I cannot," was the answer. " It is out of my hands. 
 The man you saw leaving my apartment to-night was 
 a private detective, whom I have employed. He will 
 acquaint me, in due course, with the name of the girl, 
 and the address of the rendezvous." 
 
 "I can tell you both," Sallie said impulsively, "if you 
 will only recall him. You can do that. You will do it, 
 I am sure." 
 
 Mrs. Stuyvesant sat down, and passed a hand wear-
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 201 
 
 ily over her forehead. Sallie noticed the wedding- 
 ring on the third finger of the left hand. It was one 
 of those very wide rings that men give to their wives, 
 as though determined that the golden fetter shall not be 
 overlooked. The woman seemed to be horribly op- 
 pressed. Sallie stood and waited, like an agonized 
 creature pausing for the fateful verdict. The photo- 
 graphs in the room seemed to leer at her . . . espe- 
 cially the glaring Roman picture of the actor in his 
 toga. 
 
 The wife arose at last, and taking Sallie's hand, led 
 her to a door. She opened it softly, and there, in a 
 dimly lighted room, lay a small boy, with fair hair, fast 
 asleep. The face was flushed and rested on a chubby 
 arm. They stood and listened to the regular breath- 
 ing. 
 
 "That is his son, Miss Sydenham," she said ; and the 
 ice had entered into her voice again. "You would 
 have thought that for his boy's sake he would have 
 spared us all this. A woman well, a man tires of a 
 woman, especially of a woman who is foolish enough 
 to love him too devotedly. But the boy! I cannot 
 let this baby suffer, as he must do, with a profligate 
 father ever before him, and these horrible scandals 
 always cropping up. If I died, the boy would go to 
 him, and to his women and his apartments. I must be 
 free ... to go away with the boy, and begin life again 
 somewhere. Yes, I am truly and desperately sorry 
 for you ; but the boy . . . " 
 
 "But the boy will be smirched in it all." Sallie's 
 voice fell. She was beside herself. 
 
 "It will not matter now," said Mrs. Stuyvesant. 
 "He is too young to understand. Later on, he would 
 know . . . and later on, it would be bound to happen. 
 But this . . . this much, Miss Sydenham, I will do,
 
 202 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 for your sake. I shall not ask you the girl's name, nor 
 the address of the meeting-place. I could do so ... 
 and you would tell me. If the detective should dis- 
 cover nothing ... if his work should prove to be 
 fruitless ... as it might do, you know; if they were 
 warned ... if they knew that discovery was immi- 
 nent ..." 
 
 She stopped, and looked at Sallie. The boy moved 
 in his sleep, and the coverlet revealed one small, lithe 
 foot. The mother went in and rearranged the bed, 
 standing over him for a moment in contemplation. 
 Then she rejoined Sallie and closed the door softly. 
 The two women were silent for a long time, but to one 
 of them the woof of the tragedy seemed less dense. 
 
 "Thank you," said Sallie tremulously "thank you. 
 You are a good woman, and you have suffered how 
 you must have suffered! It is perhaps selfish of me. 
 Even unselfishness, I suppose, can be selfish." 
 
 But her heart was lighter as she ran down the stairs, 
 certain that the dreadful scandal could be averted. 
 She had been deeply touched by this interview ; but her 
 sense of relief was so great that she was unable to 
 dwell upon the facts to which she had listened. Arthur 
 Stuyvesant must, of course, be warned in such a way 
 that his detection would be difficult. If she only had 
 the courage to go to him and confront him! She 
 lacked it. Her sense of repulsion was so overwhelm- 
 ing that though her reason pointed out to her the ad- 
 visability of a personal interview, she was absolutely 
 unable to undertake it. 
 
 As soon as she reached her home she wrote to "Mr. 
 Compton," at his address. "When you get this," ran 
 her letter, "you can look upon it as a warning. De- 
 tectives are watching you, to discover where you meet 
 your mistress" (she hated the word, but she wrote it,
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 203 
 
 and even underlined it). "Listen to advice, and do not 
 visit your apartment again. If you do, your name 
 will be dragged into publicity, and there will be a hor- 
 rible scandal. You will be ruined." 
 
 She did not sign it. Although anonymous letters 
 never appealed to her, she knew that in a case like this 
 her mission could not fail to make itself understood. 
 She read the note over, and was satisfied that she had 
 made it quite strong enough. Then she added this: 
 "There is one newspaper in this city that is awaiting a 
 story with great impatience." That would surely 
 clinch it. Perhaps he would recall her words to him 
 on the night of the owls' reception. Memory played 
 strange pranks, and her written words might awaken 
 responses from latent sources in the store-house of his 
 mind. At any rate, nobody could resist such a letter, 
 coming, as it would do, right into the very thick of the 
 flagrant delit. 
 
 Sallie was satisfied. She took the letter herself and 
 posted it. She looked into the letter-box to see that it 
 had not wedged itself into the metal . . . that it had 
 reached a position where it would not go astray. Then 
 she went back, in better spirits than she had known for 
 many days. And the heart of Rosina was rejoiced as 
 she noticed Sallie's lightness of mood, and some of her 
 old-time vivacity. 
 
 It was Ivy Hampton who received the letter ad- 
 dressed to "Mr. Compton" next day. The handwrit- 
 ing on the envelope puzzled her, and, like Mr. Pick- 
 wick, she came to the conclusion that the clue lay 
 inside. She opened it, read it, crumpled it up con- 
 temptuously, and threw it away. 
 
 "It might appeal to him," she said to herself. "It 
 does not impress me at all."
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 JALLIE'S serious moods began to reflect them- 
 selves in her work. Unconsciously her light, 
 bantering, satirical, reckless "style" became 
 more reflective and subdued, and she "saw" 
 realities when she was dealing with mimic facts. The 
 problems of the theatre seemed to enmesh themselves 
 in her own recent experiences of metropolitan life. 
 She felt that she was growing "dignified," and that the 
 many people who had affected to despise her frivolity 
 and the scatter-brain quality of her criticism, would 
 undoubtedly look with relief upon her conversion. 
 
 They did nothing of the sort, and Sallie's experience 
 was merely one that falls to anyone that dares to be 
 original. The very men who had pretended to de- 
 spise her frivolity now sighed at her "heaviness." 
 This moral sentiment was -most worthy, but they didn't 
 like it. They skimmed through her articles to gloat 
 over persiflage at which they had formerly rebelled, 
 and were ardently disappointed when they failed to 
 discover it. 
 
 The feminine owls were the first to notice the cloud, 
 no bigger than a man's hand, that darkened Miss Syd- 
 enham's contributions. But instead of rejoicing to 
 find a quality that they professed to admire, and cele- 
 brating Sallie's access to dignity by some slight ebul- 
 lition of praise, they were more obstinately opposed to 
 her than ever. 
 
 Mrs. Hutchinson opined that it was ridiculous to 
 lavish a large salary upon perfunctory writing that an 
 office-boy could supply; Lamp- Post Lucy declared 
 that Sallie's "speciality" was on the wane, and that this
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 205 
 
 new "experiment" was positively laughable; the pale 
 poetess sniffed at it as a pose, and intimated that 
 Sallie's assumption of womanhood was preposterous; 
 Happy Hippy confessed that Miss Sydenham's change 
 of spirit was perhaps meritorious, but certainly tardy. 
 Eva Higgins and Mamie Munson asserted that this 
 apparent respectability was forced upon Sallie by the 
 strict instructions of "the powers that be." These owls 
 were all highly aggrieved at the girl's irreproachable 
 criticisms, which deprived them of gossip, and cut off a 
 prolific source of inflammatory cackle. 
 
 If Sallie had cared, she would have known that there 
 was nothing more fatal to success than the dire con- 
 ventionality that agrees with the conviction or lack of 
 conviction of the many. But she did not care, nor 
 was she quite conscious of the slight haze of solemnity 
 that veiled her humor. She only knew that the nightly 
 task of dashing off a column, in a sort of fevered be- 
 wilderment and abnormal exaltation, was just at pres- 
 ent almost superhumanly onerous. ... It weighed 
 her down, and she abandoned the effort to "get into 
 the mood." Sallie had never realized before how 
 blessedly free from worry she had been. She felt 
 just now, that no mere pecuniary remuneration could 
 repay her for this terrible struggle for vitality . .-. 
 this awful effort to continue. . . . 
 
 Arthur Stuyvesant's first appearance in a new "so- 
 ciety play," that had been written for him by a well- 
 known London playwright, was "the event" of the 
 season. It occurred a few nights after Sallie's inter- 
 view with Mrs. Stuyvesant, and she hailed it gladly. 
 It had been largely advertised as dealing with "life" 
 (whenever the stage talks of "life," it means the 
 wrong side, or the shady and not cosy corners), and 
 it occurred to Sallie that she might be able to hurt
 
 206 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 him, to make him writhe, to get beneath the hide that 
 he wore for skin, and to hold him up for condemna- 
 tion. For in Stuyvesant's case the actor meant simply 
 the man. He was lacking in genius even in talent 
 even in picturesque mediocrity. If she could but 
 prick the bubble, with its prismatic tints, and give to 
 the public . . . just a few spots of soapy spray. 
 
 She was surprised and pained when, at the door of 
 the theatre, she found her erstwhile devoted escort, 
 Charlie Covington, patiently awaiting her. He had 
 not appeared at one or two of the last "openings" that 
 she had criticized. She had not seen him since he had 
 . . . since the night of the Welsh rabbit, and the 
 woman in the red blouse, and that very foolish speech 
 of his. She had supposed that this would be the end 
 of their intercourse, and the idea had irritated her. 
 The wrong man is seldom pathetic to a woman, except 
 in novels and plays, when the woman claims his father 
 and mother, to become his sister. 
 
 Charlie Covington, at any rate, looked bland and 
 smiling, in all the glory of evening-dress and a white 
 chrysanthemum. He did not suggest to her, in the 
 least, the rejected lover, and she felt a sense of relief 
 in the certainty that he would not begin again. 
 
 "I felt that I could not miss this play," he said elab- 
 orately, "so I thought I might claim the extra ticket. 
 You are alone ?" 
 
 "Alone and unfettered," she replied lightly. "My 
 list of escorts is still limited to yourself, Charlie. 
 When you fail me, I shall have to advertise, 'Critic 
 wants escort for first nights. One without decided 
 views preferable.' " 
 
 Her words were easy, but he could see that it cost 
 her an effort to utter them. He thought that she 
 looked very ill, although she was hectically rouged
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 207 
 
 and as slouchily dressed as usual. They went into the 
 theatre, and he noticed her fatigue, and a dejection that 
 she seemed unable to overcome. And she was think- 
 ing how this man might have helped her if she had 
 dared to confide in him. That idea, however, was be- 
 yond the faintest consideration. She was afraid of 
 herself. If an absolute stranger could discern, from 
 a few desultory remarks, that the man for whom she 
 was doing a horrid thing, was the man whom she was 
 insane enough to love, Charlie Covington would very 
 soon know that fact, and it would be too humiliating! 
 . . . Besides, an unconscious sense of chivalry for- 
 bade her to discuss Jack Childers and Ivy Hampton in 
 such tortuous relations, even with so loyal a friend as 
 poor old Charlie. But in his diffident and well-mean- 
 ing way, he stirred the thick and opaque mass of nause- 
 ous gruel that was simmering, always simmering 
 (and soon it must boil uproariously) before her eyes. 
 
 "I've been watching the paper for that story, Sallie," 
 he said. "I was wondering if you were saving it for 
 Stuyvesant's opening as a sort of boomerang. But it 
 hasn't appeared. When are you going to give it to a 
 palpitating public?" 
 
 She was reading her programme carefully. Arthur 
 Stuyvesant headed the list of dramatis persons as 
 "Lord Algernon Chetwynd," with no apologies to the 
 Family Herald. "There will be no story," she said 
 slowly. "It was it was all a mistake." 
 
 "Ah!" he exclaimed. "Well, I'm glad of it. I'm 
 not a city editor, and I can feel pleasure at the thought 
 that even an actor isn't as black as he's painted. I 
 suppose old Green felt very cut up?" 
 
 On the rack again ! V'lan ! Biff. "I have not told 
 him yet," she said. "I I have not had time. Prob- 
 ably" with a laugh "he's forgotten all about it."
 
 208 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 "No, he hasn't, Sallie," Charlie Covington declared 
 quietly. "Don't you believe it. You are new to re- 
 portorial work, and, -if I were you, I should tell him 
 at once. It is best to do so, because he will think that 
 you are shirking. It is a reporter's duty to ... re- 
 port. Get it off your mind, Sallie, and let this be the 
 last assignment you ever get mixed up in. It probably 
 will be, because city editors have a sort of superstitious 
 belief that if a reporter fails to get a story even if 
 there be none to get it is his own particular fault." 
 
 She knew that he had her own welfare in mind, and 
 could not avoid a sense of gratitude, even though he 
 were trotting out this gaunt spectre when she would 
 have been glad to forget it. He was quite right. She 
 had been procrastinating in the belief that there was 
 always time to tell Mr. Green . . . that she had noth- 
 ing to tell him. He had been ominously silent . . . 
 yes, it was ominous . . . but she had carefully avoided 
 him. She had even written her copy in telegraph of- 
 fices, and sent it by special messenger, rather than meet 
 Mr. Green. Those wheels of journalism! It never 
 occurred to her that they would whiz, as they had 
 always whizzed whether she were there to give them 
 a twirl with one white impuissant finger, or whether 
 she were in the antipodes. 
 
 "Yes, Charlie," she said obediently, "I will tell him." 
 
 "Did you discover that it was all absolutely ground- 
 less?" 
 
 "Absolutely absolutely absolutely," she cried, ly- 
 ing tenaciously, as a sort of rehearsal for her talk with 
 Mr. Green. "Stuyvesant and his wife do not agree 
 very well" she thought she would try how this 
 sounded, and all the time she endeavored to regard 
 Charlie as the city editor "she is jealous of him, as he 
 certainly is rather gay. But the rendezvous, and the
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 209 
 
 veiled lady, and the divorce are all fiction. The only 
 truth seems to be that Mrs. Stuyvesant did at one time 
 engage a detective. That is all ... the only little bit 
 of fire in all this smoke." 
 
 "Good !" exclaimed Charlie ; and she was delighted. 
 She had told her mendacious story, and it had been 
 pleasantly swallowed by Mr. Covington. She might 
 therefore confidently expect that it would be received 
 just as satisfactorily by Mr. Green. It gave her cour- 
 age, and she grew chatty, and lively, and glad that 
 Charlie had met her. For the knowledge that she 
 would have to "report" before she was definitely re- 
 lieved from her self-imposed duty had undoubtedly 
 daunted her. Now now she told herself, there was 
 no need to hurry. She would wait until Mr. Green sent 
 for her, and if he were angry . . . she would laugh, 
 and say outrageous things, and be jolly, and amusing, 
 and . . . oh, she knew the office. She had never yet 
 failed to carry the day. And at first, of course, she 
 would appear dreadfully disconcerted at the loss of the 
 anticipated story, as all good reporters did at the evap- 
 oration of a ten-dollar assignment. 
 
 She shuddered as she saw Stuyvesant appear, smug, 
 smiling, and bowing to the "ovation" for which he de- 
 liberately waited, and for which the ushers worked so 
 laboriously. Lord Algernon Chetwynd was to her the 
 most repulsive object she could look upon . . . this 
 reptile that stood between a brave, fair, chivalrous man 
 and the girl he had selected to marry. . . . The cir- 
 cumstances of the play were not utterly dissimilar to 
 those of the real drama. Lord Algernon loved the in- 
 genue, but he was "tied" to a wife whose beauty had 
 been marred by smallpox, who was a hopeless wreck, 
 a spectacle so abhorrent that one could not look at her 
 without repugnance. He was, at first, true to her . . .
 
 210 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 for the sake of pity, and of auld lang syne. And the 
 audience was asked to sympathize with his struggle; 
 to admire the loyalty that was gradually undermined 
 by love "pure and soulful." The problem to solve 
 was, whether he was justified in his subsequent liaison 
 with innocence. And of course the audience solved it, 
 for the playwright was a good one, in an exuberant af- 
 firmative. He was justified. The cunning playwright 
 said lovely things to further his own purposes and used 
 the word "soul" freely whenever he meant "body." It 
 was very deft. It was the sort of psychology that tells 
 nowadays when its recipients are hysterical women. 
 There was a time when Sallie would have laughed 
 heartily at a play of this calibre. She had seen many 
 such, and had defeated their object by piercing them 
 with ridicule. The "problem" play once pricked by 
 wholesome humor collapses like a child's toy balloon. 
 Its size is merely a matter of careful inflation. It is 
 not solid, with hearty substance; it is gas, ready to 
 escape into the elements at a moment's notice. She 
 could have routed Lord Algernon abjectly, and have 
 forever ruined his chances with a gullible and non- 
 thinking public, if she had let herself loose in the old 
 way that had won renown for her. She could have 
 disabled him, and forced his poison back into his own 
 veins, if she had played her usual felicitous trick of 
 seeming to out-ribald ribaldry and to out-shriek the 
 shrieking. This always appeared to Charlie Coving- 
 ton, and to others who thought on the surface only, to 
 be a very violent remedy; but it was infallible. She 
 had laid two Pinero plays as stark corpses amid the 
 wreckage of a previous theatrical season, for they had 
 dealt sympathetically with "problems" that the world 
 had taken centuries to solve, and had solved irrevoca- 
 bly, and forever.
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 211 
 
 But on this occasion Sallie's humor was temporarily 
 extinct. She took the play seriously, and it nauseated 
 her. She was horribly in earnest about it, and pink 
 spots appeared through her rouge as the final curtain 
 fell, and the suave, smirking actor was vociferously ac- 
 claimed, standing beside the white muslin ingenue who, 
 it was understood, would become his, and live happily 
 ever afterwards, as soon as the poor "legitimate" had 
 shuffled off. And convenient lady! she had every 
 intention of shuffling off speedily ! . . . 
 
 ''Another chance for you, Sallie," said Charlie Cov- 
 ington, smiling rather gravely as he accompanied her 
 to the telegraph office, where she was to do her writing, 
 for she was absolutely determined not to risk an en- 
 counter with Mr. Green until she had screwed up her 
 courage to the sticking point. "The play was written 
 for you to guy." 
 
 "No," she cried furiously, "you are mistaken. I see 
 nothing to ridicule. It is simply disgusting. It nau- 
 seates me. You forget that I am a woman." 
 
 She forgot the time, not so very long ago, when at 
 the close of a performance certainly no less revolting 
 than this, he had reminded her of the fact, as they 
 stood by the owls' nest, with the electric, moonlit City 
 Hall Park behind them. He did not forget it. It 
 came upon him with strange force and significance. 
 Much had happened since then, and perhaps he stood 
 beside her now in a vastly different light. But he re- 
 membered. "After all," he had said, "you are a wom- 
 an." And her words, in reply, came back to him as 
 clearly as though she now spoke them: "Don't be silly, 
 Charlie. You mean well, but you really are a dreadful 
 Philistine. Thanks for remembering that I am a 
 woman. I thought you had forgotten it long ago.
 
 212 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 However, I can't help it, you know I really can't. It 
 is not my fault. I had nothing to say in the matter." 
 
 What had happened to her? What had caused this 
 shifting of the view-point? He felt a sense of alarm 
 though he would not admit it as he heard her last re- 
 mark, "You forget that I am a woman." It was so un- 
 like Sallie so pathetically unlike her. Weird incon- 
 sistency! There she was, apparently pulled up, resist- 
 less, at his own aspect of affairs, uttering the very 
 words with which he had plied her on that long-ago 
 night. And now he was alarmed, and uneasy, and 
 completely disconcerted. 
 
 "I will do up this play," she said viciously, as he 
 prepared to leave her to her task. "This man . . . this 
 actor ... he is not acting. He is playing from his 
 own warped, distorted nature. If people admire this 
 sort of perversion on the stage, why should it be so 
 dreadful in real life? Why should we think his real 
 story so horrible . . ." 
 
 She interrupted herself. She was giving herself 
 away. She was an inexperienced liar, and there is 
 nothing more desperately uncomfortable. Charlie 
 Covington glanced at her with a queer expression in 
 his eyes. If there were any real reason for suspicion, 
 this was surely the cue for its appearance. Sallie was 
 lampooning Stuyvesant as though, in her reportorial 
 trip, she had proved him guilty. She had declared 
 that she had done nothing of the sort. Still, she could 
 have no possible 'motive for attempting to shield 
 him. 
 
 "His real story!" he exclaimed, mystified. "Why, 
 you said there was no real story . . . that there was 
 nothing in it." 
 
 She made a violent effort to be plausible and consist- 
 ent. "His real story is horrible," she said in dreary
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 213 
 
 tones, "to Mr. Green, and to others who suspect it, be- 
 cause, you see, I haven't told them yet that this time 
 he has been . . . maligned. But the man disgusts me. 
 I feel ... I know . . . that he was not acting to- 
 night . . ." 
 
 Sallie wrote a heavy dissertation on morality that 
 was quite unlike her usual airy work. She was bitter, 
 vindictive, eager . . . and she did not know that bit- 
 terness, vindictiveness, and eagerness stamp a dramatic 
 critic as hopelessly banal. She excoriated Arthur 
 Stuyvesant, and throughout her article she made it 
 clear that she was hurling her ire at the man, and not 
 at the actor. Her "story" was logical and impressive; 
 but those who read it felt that their sympathies were 
 wafted towards rather than away from the man who 
 was so vigorously attacked. Others might success- 
 fully indulge in this style of critical demolition, but not 
 Sallie, who had made her mark in another and a more 
 "popular" direction. She wrote for Stuyvesant . . . 
 she wrote for Ivy . . . she wrote for her own innate 
 satisfaction . . . but she did not write for the public. 
 She did the thing that has wrecked many a critic, and 
 appealed to the few rather than to the many. Her 
 article would be a scourge to a feeble score who knew 
 the man, and despised him, but to five hundred thou- 
 sand readers it would make no appeal other than that 
 of weariness and ponderous cruelty. 
 
 Jack Childers read the proof in dismay. Then he 
 read it again in more dismay. "What on earth can 
 have happened to Sallie ?" he asked of little Miss Pop- 
 lets, who liked the girl because she was popular with 
 her lord and master. "Read this. It might have been 
 written by old Billy Summer. It is amazing." 
 
 Little Miss Poplets read the proof, and even to her 
 mind, which was but a reflection of Jack Childers',
 
 214 A Girl w h Wrote 
 
 Miss Sydenham's work seemed odd, and direly pur- 
 poseful. 
 
 "I must talk to the girl," said Jack, as he took the 
 proof from Miss Poplets and stared at it frowningly. 
 "It might be old Parkhurst if he had Sallie's flow of 
 language at his command. I had no idea she could 
 write like this. She has been getting rather serious of 
 late. Perhaps some of the fools in the office have been 
 talking to her and she has got it into her head that she 
 isn't womanly. Confound them ! It would be a great 
 loss to the paper if Miss Sydenham changed her tactics. 
 Positively she has never seemed duller than during the 
 last week. But this caps it all. Why, such a play, a 
 few months ago, would have been hailed by her as 
 the very thing for which she waits. All she has done 
 to-night is to attack Stuyvesant in a manner that is al- 
 most libellous ; to preach morality, as though she were 
 Anastasia Atwood, and to label herself as a prig. I 
 feel quite upset about it ... really I do, Miss Pop- 
 lets." 
 
 "Perhaps she has the blues," opined the little type- 
 writer girl. 
 
 "She's been working on this silly case of Stuyvesant 
 and his wife," declared Mr. Childers, savagely, "and 
 that's what's done it. A critic especially a girl like 
 Miss Sydenham must be left to her own particular 
 affairs, and not tacked to a reportorial job. Green is 
 an old fool, and I shall tell him so. I don't know what 
 he was thinking of. I . . ." 
 
 "But," interposed little Miss Poplets, meekly, for she 
 was too fond of Jack to allow him to glance in the 
 wrong direction, "you will remember, Mr. Childers, 
 that Mr. Green came in here, and asked for your per- 
 mission to assign Miss Sydenham to the case. He
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 215 
 
 said that he couldn't do it on his own responsibility. 
 And you . . . you gave him the permission. . . ." 
 
 Jack Childers grunted and looked uncomfortable. 
 Little Miss Poplets was right. He distinctly remem- 
 bered having told Mr. Green to humor Sallie, and to 
 give her this reportorial job, if she particularly desired 
 it. He was anxious to please her. He had made a 
 mistake, and henceforth Sallie Sydenham should be 
 kept to dramatic criticism. The paper could not af- 
 ford to run the risk of losing her humor, her bright- 
 ness, her pungency . . . 
 
 Charlie Covington read the article next morning in 
 abject bewilderment. Had it not been for Sallie's sig- 
 nature at its close nothing on earth could ever have in- 
 duced him to believe that she had written it. It was 
 impressive, good from a literary point of view, inter- 
 esting (for to Charlie Covington nearly all that was 
 heavy, was interesting), but it was cruel, biting, and 
 dangerous. He sat and wondered, in his chair at the 
 window of his club. Something was happening to 
 Sallie, and he had no idea what it was. He could not 
 be insane enough to imagine that the little episode in 
 which he had figured with her, could have affected her. 
 He knew that a girl suddenly confronted with the 
 woman-thoughts that hover around a "proposal" is 
 sometimes strangely altered. Poor Charlie ! He hated 
 to admit it, but he was bound to confess that his "af- 
 fair" with Sallie could not possibly have resulted in 
 anything very forceful. She had probably forgotten 
 all about it an hour afterwards. 
 
 "Of course it would be better," he said to himself, 
 "if she really did get more serious, and really wrote 
 from the woman's point of view. But this article is 
 not the woman's point of view. It is the devil's."
 
 2i 6 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 And he knew that, in his heart of hearts, he would 
 feel sorry if he saw Sallie change. He realized that 
 her seeming ribaldry of expression, her recklessness, 
 her abandon of style, which he had always thought 
 that he despised, were in reality good, useful things in 
 their way. They diu not appeal to prudes ; but Sallie 
 wrote of plays that prudes do not go to see. In any 
 case her most uproarious contribution, her most sweep- 
 ing gust of levity, her most hopelessly flippant and 
 frivolous arraignment, was better than his . . . this 
 gloomy, pessimistic, hate-riddled thing that seemed to 
 smear his mind with black suggestions. . . . 
 
 All Sallie's readers marvelled. Her friends were 
 aghast, her enemies foresaw her downfall. But she 
 read her own article and thought it the best thing she 
 had ever written, for the two people to whom it was 
 addressed, would writhe and squirm, at its damning 
 insinuations. .
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 ALLIE awoke with a start. She had an un- 
 comfortable feeling that somebody was 
 standing by her bedside looking at her. The 
 room was still dark, although it was eleven 
 o'clock. Even in the radiance of the sun the "all-light 
 rooms" of Sallie's small apartment were usually all 
 dark. But it was a gloomy, foggy day; she could 
 hear the rain splashing through that apology for a 
 window known in New York as an air-shaft, and her 
 bedroom was blacker than usual. At first, as she 
 opened her eyes sleepily, pushing aside a fantastic 
 dream, from which she was glad enough to escape, 
 she thought that it was Rosina come to tell her that 
 breakfast was ready. 
 
 "Sallie !" cried a young voice that was not Rosina's. 
 "Wake up, Lazybones. I've been most patient, but I 
 simply can't wait any longer." 
 
 Sallie rubbed her eyes, but could scarcely believe 
 what they told her. Before her stood Lettie Syden- 
 ham, her sister, of whose departure from Chicago she 
 had known nothing. She was not dreaming, although 
 the fantastic imaginings of the night had been less 
 amazing than this. She hopped out of bed, and threw 
 her arms around the girl, overjoyed, astonished, but 
 quite certain now that there was no deception. 
 
 "What does it mean, Lettie?" she exclaimed, trail- 
 ing away in her night-gown, and surveying the appa- 
 rition from the four points of the compass. "You 
 never wrote me. I I had no idea that you contem- 
 plated coming to New York. How did you get here ? 
 Why? When? . . ."
 
 2i 8 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 Lettie Sydenham was amused. She was taller and 
 thinner than her sister, and she looked rather poor in 
 her commonplace Chicago outfit. But to Sallie she 
 was an angel of light, the one domestic tie that influ- 
 enced her life, the stimulus for most that she did. 
 Lettie was surveying the room, with no very ardent 
 appreciation in her eyes. She had already dubbed it a 
 "poky hole." Somehow or other, she expected to see 
 her famous sister, of whom Chicago spoke, and whose 
 name figured frequently in the journals of that city, in 
 a costly "suite," with flunkeys and maids and all the 
 appurtenances of that Bohemianism which the rising 
 generation has fitted up with "modern improvements." 
 The sinister gloom of her sister's surroundings damp- 
 ened her enthusiasm. But her affection for Sallie was 
 deep and abiding, and her voice grew fresh in its glad- 
 ness. 
 
 "Dress, and I'll tell you all," she said. "I'll leave 
 you while you adorn yourself. I have already intro- 
 duced myself to your cook." 
 
 "My maid, please," retorted Sallie, demurely. 
 "How dare you call her a cook ? Rosina is my colored 
 maid very swell and stylish." 
 
 She threw on her clothes, in blissful forgetfulness 
 of the trials that Lettie's advent had interrupted. She 
 "touched up" her cheeks with the invariable carmine, 
 arranged her hair in a style that was a compromise be- 
 tween Psyche and Twenty-third Street, with a leaning 
 towards the thoroughfare, and rushed into the parlor, 
 where Rosina had prepared breakfast. The hand- 
 maiden was delighted at the arrival, as the loneliness 
 of Miss Sydenham's life, forever unrelieved, had be- 
 gun to impress her as little less than grewsome. 
 
 "Now let me look at you, old lady," she said, turning 
 Lettie towards the window and scanning her with
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 219 
 
 critical eyes. She was rather soberly impressed with 
 what she saw. Her sister looked ill, and she had 
 grown alarmingly thin. Her complexion had an un- 
 healthy tint, and there was a listlessness in her manner 
 that even the temporary excitement of the meeting 
 could not successfully dissipate. Sallie sat down and 
 waited, busying herself with pouring out the coffee in 
 order to collect herself. 
 
 "Well, my dear," said Lettie, quietly, "you've 
 guessed it, I can see. I've come to you in New York 
 because it is no use my remaining in Chicago. Valerie 
 tells me that my voice has gone. My chest is not 
 strong oh, there is nothing to be at all alarmed about 
 but as a possible vocal phenomenon my chances are 
 nil. So I thought I'd surprise you, and I think I have 
 done it. Henceforth, I'm going to live with you, and 
 be your love." 
 
 In the genuine joy that this announcement gave her, 
 Sallie forgot the sinister menace of ill health. Be- 
 sides, a mere menace was not particularly awe-inspir- 
 ing, and it counted for little beside the prospect of con- 
 stant association with this cherished girl, who would 
 give to her dreary six rooms something of the unre- 
 membered aspect of home. 
 
 "It is quite too lovely," exclaimed Sallie, joyously. 
 "It is too good to be true. Of course, I'm dreadfully 
 sorry about your voice, dear, because I know you hoped 
 so much from it. But we'll have such jolly good times 
 together, and and I was just beginning to get desper- 
 ate all by myself. I'm so awfully lonely, Lettie al- 
 most like a hermit." 
 
 Lettie Sydenham looked extremely surprised, for 
 she had contemplated something very different. She 
 had expected to pass through crowds in order to reach 
 Sallie. She had imagined eager actresses, ambitious
 
 220 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 actors, cringing managers, and luminous playwrights, 
 all surrounding Sallie, as she sat in state, in a sumptu- 
 ous apartment, dealing out favors. This was indeed a 
 revelation. Her disappointment was unmistakable. 
 She had taken her sister unawares, to find her in a dis- 
 mal little "flat," badly lighted, sparsely furnished, with 
 a solitary attendant, and nobody positively nobody 
 waiting to see her. 
 
 "I thought," she said and she could not conceal her 
 depression, "I thought you had such a lively time of it, 
 Sallie. I even imagined I should have to make an ap- 
 pointment with you. I thought you would have 
 to disarrange a breakfast, or a luncheon, and that 
 you never told me, Sallie, that you that you lived 
 like this. In Chicago they think that you are positive- 
 ly rich and and never alone." 
 
 The note of disillusion in Lettie's voice was unde- 
 niable, but it did not annoy Sallie. She could not be- 
 lieve that the girl would have been glad to find her liv- 
 ing in a tumult that would have rendered their com- 
 radeship less strenuous. 
 
 "You must feel like Pauline in 'The Lady of 
 Lyons,' " she said lightly. "I'm not very elaborately 
 situated, old girl, and I may as well tell you that I'm 
 generally hard up. I'm hard up now. And as for 
 society functions, and all that sort of thing, I go no- 
 where, and see nobody. When I'm not working, I sim- 
 ply burrow. But now you've come, I sha'n't do it any 
 more. I shall have something to live for." 
 
 Lettie grew even more oppressed. "You have been 
 sending me such a lot of money, too," she said rather 
 ruefully. "But, of course, I sha'n't sing any more, 
 and I don't want to be idle. I thought if I came on 
 here that although it would not be necessary 
 I should like to do newspaper work. Perhaps I could
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 221 
 
 make a hit as you have done. And I suppose that a 
 word from you would be enough to get me a position 
 on the paper." 
 
 "No," said Sallie quickly, "that is quite impossible, 
 Lettie. I don't say that I couldn't get you on the 
 paper. But I do say that I sha'n't. One in a family 
 is enough, and I should hate to think of you going 
 through what we all go through. I'm not talking of 
 my own position, which is a pleasant one, but I simply 
 couldn't let you undertake the horrid work that most 
 newspaper women do. You see I know it all, and have 
 gone through the mill. Anything rather than jour- 
 nalism, Lettie. But it will not be necessary for you 
 to do anything. I make quite enough money, and, my 
 dear, you don't know how utterly charmed I am to 
 think that you've come to me and in the nick of time 
 too, just as I was beginning to loathe it all." 
 
 The younger Miss Sydenham did not appear to 
 share her sister's sentiments. Certain roseate visions 
 had haunted her, in connection with journalism, and 
 her arrival in New York had been joyously anticipated. 
 She had abandoned her vocal aspirations without a 
 tremor, and had looked forward jubilantly to metro- 
 politan possibilities. 
 
 "I should like to meet people, Sallie," she said de- 
 jectedly. "You must meet charming men in news- 
 paper offices, and between sisters there need be no 
 restraint if I met somebody I liked, I should be so 
 glad. I have a horror of being an old maid, and want 
 to get married. Doesn't it sound cold-blooded? But 
 it is true. I don't want to be dependent on you. 
 Even if you were rich, it would not be fair. Don't you 
 know people?" 
 
 "Oh, my poor old girl," said Sallie, sympathetically, 
 "you really are quite mistaken. The men in news-
 
 222 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 paper offices are simply machines at least most of 
 them are. They are nearly all married. They marry 
 at a most ungodly age, because they have nothing else 
 to do. They tie themselves down before they realize 
 that they are alive, and journalism is glad because it 
 keeps them at it. Their wives live like widows, and 
 their homes would not appeal to you at all. I know so 
 many of these people, and . . ." 
 
 "I might like them," cried Lettie, rebelliously, "even 
 if you don't. Besides the freedom of association must 
 be very fascinating. After all, they are educated men, 
 and and I should just like a year or so in a news- 
 paper office. Anyway, though you talk as you do, I 
 bet you have a good time, Sallie. I can't see you stag- 
 nating quite as much as you would like me to believe. 
 Have you never had a chance to marry?" 
 
 Sallie flushed to the roots of her hair. She hated 
 this conversation, and began to feel indignant with 
 Lettie for having begun it. Surely these were tabooed 
 subjects, and it was not quite "nice" for a girl to say, 
 without provocation and with nobody in mind, that 
 she wished to marry. She thought of plays and novels 
 in which the heroines generally fainted at the mere idea 
 of matrimony. And yet here was a girl who calmly 
 asked to be cast among men, in the far-fetched hope 
 that she might "meet her fate." 
 
 "Yes, the other day somebody clamored for my 
 hand and heart," she replied lightly. 
 
 "And you replied?" Lettie Sydenham's voice was 
 shrill with surprise. She looked at this apartment, to 
 the 'pettiness of which she could not accustom herself, 
 and it was hard for her to realize that Sallie had been 
 apparently unwilling to give it up. 
 
 "I refused," replied Sallie. Then she went on, 
 rather warmly. "See here, Lettie, I don't like this kind
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 223 
 
 of dialogue at all. It is most unpleasant. I don't say 
 that I haven't declared at various times, that if I could 
 find a man foolish enough to pay my rent I would glad- 
 ly let him do it. I certainly despise earning my own 
 living. I think it is something that a woman ought 
 not to do. But I wouldn't marry a man I didn't care 
 for in that way just for the sake of marrying him. 
 So I refused." 
 
 "I am interested," cried Lettie, jumping up. 
 "You've been concealing things from me. I suppose 
 you refused one because you were fond of another. 
 Own up, Sallie. Ah, I knew I was right." 
 
 She saw the expression of her sister's face change, 
 and she was determined to probe this matter. She 
 had no strain of sentiment in her nature, and would 
 probably, as a "prima donna," have been "wedded to 
 her art." But that dream was all over. 
 
 Sallie made her confession quietly. "Yes," she said, 
 "there is or there might have been somebody else. 
 But he is engaged, and so oh, Lettie, you make me 
 say these things, and I've never put them into words 
 before. I refused Mr. Covington, of whom I have 
 often written to you, because of the other. That is all. 
 Won't you change the subject, dear? Your trunks 
 have they arrived? Would you like to go to a mati- 
 nee?" 
 
 "And yet and yet " Lettie spoke solemnly, hardly 
 hearing her sister's questions, "you tell me you stag- 
 nate? Why, it is a regular romance. You love one 
 man, who can never be yours, and you refuse the other 
 and will never be his. Yet they are all a set of hope- 
 lessly married men, and their wives are widows . . . 
 and their homes wouldn't appeal to me ... and you 
 wouldn't let me undertake the horrid work that news- 
 paper women do ... I think you are really selfish, 
 Sallie, though . . ."
 
 224 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 She thought of her long musical studies in Chicago, 
 all paid for by the girl whom she was now torturing. 
 She remembered the many gifts that had been show- 
 ered upon her. Whenever she had been in difficulties 
 a note to Sallie, and they had all vanished. She had 
 never even worried about the drain these constant de- 
 mands must have been upon her sister. She had pro- 
 fessed gratitude, and humility, in her letters. That 
 was all. But now she was accusing her benefactress 
 of selfishness. Her heart smote her a little. . . . 
 
 "Of course, I don't mean that you are really selfish, 
 dear," she went on. "I should be the very last to say 
 that. But you admit that all these charming things 
 have happened to you in journalism, and you won't 
 help me to get there. I could be musical critic or 
 something of that sort and I know I should get along 
 well. But, principally, I should meet people. It is so 
 trying not to do so." 
 
 "You shall meet people, if you're good, and stay 
 quietly with me," said Sallie, soothingly, although Let- 
 tie's words hurt and stung her. "I'll see that we do 
 not stagnate. But I shall not introduce you into a 
 newspaper office. It is all very well for girls like me, 
 who understand it. But it would be very ill for girls 
 like you, who don't." 
 
 Rosina came in and removed the breakfast things. 
 She had heard every word of the conversation, and 
 her good opinion of Miss Lettie Sydenham had van- 
 ished. She did not like to hear her young mistress 
 "moithered," and she could not sympathize with such 
 an unmaidenly confession as that just uttered by the 
 younger Miss Sydenham. Even a "colored girl" 
 would blush (if possible) at the suggestion that she 
 was really anxious to wed for the sake of wedding. 
 
 After breakfast, Lettie studied her sister carefully.
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 225 
 
 She had been so full of her own schemes and anticipa- 
 tions that she had scarcely noticed her sister. Now 
 she observed, for the first time, that Sallie looked worn, 
 and she saw the thick inroads of rouge, and the hair 
 that was yellower than she had ever remarked it before. 
 Certainly Sallie looked showy, and garish, and not at 
 all pretty. 
 
 "Between sisters there need be no restraint," she 
 said again it was her favorite way of uttering un- 
 pleasant things, "so I sha'n't apologize for asking you 
 this question, Sallie. Why do you paint and dye . . . 
 so badly?" 
 
 Sallie's good spirits were returning, for she could 
 not remember Lettie's foolish remarks, and, even in 
 spite of them, it was delightful to see her there in the 
 flesh, and to realize that the thousand-mile barrier had 
 been removed. Lettie was simply a silly girl, and 
 nothing more. She had Whittingtonian ideas of New 
 York, and like most young women, when they ap- 
 proach a metropolis, her thoughts had flown to the par- 
 donable theme of marriage ; only most young women 
 do not express their thoughts. 
 
 "Why do I paint and dye so badly?" she repeated, 
 and she took Lettie by the shoulders and pushed her 
 into a chair. "Listen, you silly old thing, and I'll tell 
 you the story of my past. Once upon a time there was 
 a girl named Sarah horrid name and she was teach- 
 ing terrible children unnecessary things. She was 
 very good, and wishy-washy, and drab, and respect- 
 able, but she hated teaching. And she met a young 
 man named Covington who said to her, 'I'll get you 
 into a newspaper office.' Sarah was rejoiced, and 
 Sarah swore to herself that she would make a hit, or 
 die. She knew, the first day, that she was thrown 
 among men, and she also knew, that first day, that
 
 226 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 there were other women. They were ugly and stupid, 
 and dull, and frumpy, and disagreeable, and the men 
 hated them." 
 
 "How do you know?" asked Lettie. 
 
 "So," resumed Sallie, "Sarah made up her mind to 
 be different. It occurred to her for she was no fool, 
 that these poor hard-worked persons would appreciate 
 something feminine that was jolly and good-natured. 
 Besides it would not be exactly a pose, for Sarah was 
 never very fond of the conventional, and was a Bohe- 
 mian at heart. So she entered upon her task. She 
 made herself look lively perhaps a little too lively, 
 for she was never famous for good taste. She knew 
 no more about clothes than she did about astronomy. 
 She did the best she could with limited means, and 
 added rouge and peroxide to her toilette accessories. 
 Poor Sarah ! There came a time when she began to 
 see that she was misunderstood. It grieved her at first, 
 and then she flared up, and swore to herself that she 
 would do what she had set out to do. And it soon be- 
 came apparent that the more reckless she was in every 
 way, the more completely she succeeded." 
 
 "But, my dear," interposed Lettie, "please remember 
 that you were always inclined a little in that direction. 
 Between sisters there need be no restraint but you 
 forget, Sallie, that you were expelled from school, and 
 that er you always played with boys, and never with 
 girls. Surely " 
 
 Sallie waved her aside tranquilly. "Don't interrupt 
 the story of Sarah's life, and please remember that she 
 is not trying to whitewash herself, or to pretend that 
 her conduct was all a pose, and that it was very diffi- 
 cult. It was easy to be herself, but it was not so easy, 
 when she saw how thoroughly she conflicted with 
 recognized behavior. But Sarah persisted. At first
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 227 
 
 she wrote cautiously, and rather worthily. Then she 
 saw how all the men in the office laughed at her spoken 
 comments on plays. Sarah said to herself, 'If they 
 laugh so, when I speak, wouldn't they consider me 
 equally funny if I wrote?' She tried it, and it was 
 most successful. Without wishing to throw bouquets 
 at herself, Sarah realized that she had veritably 
 founded a new school of criticism. Everybody began 
 to try imitating her, but nobody could do it. She grew 
 bolder and bolder, and became genuinely entertained 
 by her own brilliancy. She was not precisely shock- 
 ing, but she trembled on the verge. She was no longer 
 Sarah. Sallie sprouted. And Sallie became a power- 
 ful person, and talked like a boy to boys, and when 
 very evil plays were produced she discussed them 
 openly with the men in the office, and they liked it. 
 And Sallie came to no harm. She is still unspoiled 
 extremely vestal and er vestal she will probably 
 remain to the end of the game, even if she has to 
 swear, for the sake of her profitable reputation, that 
 she has been led to her ruin, and has loved, not wisely, 
 but too well." 
 
 "Sallie, you are really horrid' disgusting," cried 
 Lettie, primly. "If you talk like that to men . . . well 
 really . . ." 
 
 Sallie kissed her and laughed. "Oh, I talk ... I 
 talk," she exclaimed, "and that is all. You want to 
 enter a newspaper office, you silly child, to fall in .love 
 with some poverty-stricken reporter or impertinent 
 editor. You admit it. I don't. I don't admire them, 
 and have not the slightest interest in them. I amuse 
 them, and laugh with them, because it seems to be the 
 most sensible thing to do. They look upon me as a 
 jolly good fellow one of the boys and the novelty of 
 the thing goes."
 
 228 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 "And he," asked Lettie, curiously, "he who is en- 
 gaged to another ? What of him ?" 
 
 She felt that this was coming. Lettie could certain- 
 ly not be accused of a repressive sense of delicacy. 
 "Oh," she replied ; but it was not as easy to talk lightly, 
 "he also regards me as one of the boys. He told me 
 so. He looks upon me as a comrade, and we are good 
 friends and devoted comrades, and all that." 
 
 "I should say," remarked Lettie, reflectively, "that 
 in his case you were hoist by your own petard." 
 
 "Don't, Lettie," she implored. "Don't, my dear. I 
 regret nothing. That friendship has been too charm- 
 ing for regrets. And I bless the plan that I adopted 
 and carried out, because it gave me that friendship. I 
 should never have had it if I had been a frumpish con- 
 ventionality. I should have had nothing at all. So I 
 have nothing to complain about except fate, and . . . 
 one or two other things. And those other things . . ." 
 
 But she could not bring herself to discuss them with 
 Lettie. She was dimly aware that though the antici- 
 pated association with her sister would be charming, 
 it would not be sympathetic. She could not tell her 
 about the "complication" in which she was involved, 
 and which now threatened her peace of mind so seri- 
 ously. And yet she was sorely tempted to disclose the 
 mysteries of the drama in which Jack Childers, Ivy 
 Hampton, Arthur Stuyvesant, and she, herself, played 
 leading parts. It would be such a relief to talk it over 
 just to talk, and talk for the sake of talking. The 
 silence corroded her. It was poison to her. But her 
 sister would not understand, and she hated that word 
 "Quixotic." She knew that Lettie would call her 
 "Quixotic." It was the adjective by which gray con- 
 ventionality inevitably hailed the unintelligible hues of 
 unconventionality. Everybody who did anything un-
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 229 
 
 necessarily "nice" who was not paid in dollars and 
 cents for "niceness" measured by the yard was 
 "Quixotic." 
 
 Lettie decided to drop all allusions to her plans, for 
 the present, at any rate. She knew her sister, or fan- 
 cied that she did. In her selfish little heart she was 
 aware that to gain any purpose all she had to do was 
 to mope, to be pensive, to seem ill, and to look miser- 
 able. Sallie could never resist these little subterfuges. 
 She had indulged in them when they were both chil- 
 dren. By their means, Sallie gave up her dolls, her 
 books, all her treasures. One look at Lettie's "peaked" 
 face and the elder sister was conquered. 
 
 She found the apartment even "grubbier" than she 
 had at first supposed. What a parody, for a woman 
 who was known and talked about, to live like this . . . 
 to dine in a room in which you could scarcely "swing 
 a cat" ... to sleep in a substitute for the "Black Hole 
 of Calcutta" . . . and to suffer it all without friends 
 or gossip-mongers ! Lettie vowed she would know the 
 "nine refined families" in the house before she had 
 been there a week. She would ferret out their his- 
 tories, and make them trot out brothers, and cousins 
 and eligible belongings. She would oust Sallie from her 
 solitude, and fill the stuffy rooms with people. And 
 she made a mental note, underlined twice, of Charlie 
 Covington. He had "proposed" to Sallie, and she had 
 refused him. What about Sallie's sister? Lettie be- 
 lieved in the principle of "t'other dear charmer." 
 
 There were certainly prospects. She was not in- 
 clined to regard her weak chest and her abandoned 
 vocal aspirations as undiluted misfortunes after all.
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 ROCRASTINATION had at last ceased to 
 be possible, and Sallie Sydenham knew that 
 the time had come when she must seek out 
 Mr. Green, the night city editor, and report 
 to him the non-success of her assignment. Further 
 delay was quite out of the question ; and, indeed, Sallie 
 marvelled at the silence that enveloped her strange 
 quest. Ignorant as she was of the relentless mill that 
 grinds out news, and pulverizes the possibilities, it 
 never occurred to her that this silence was ominous. 
 She had no knowledge of the wonderful arteries 
 through which the life blood of metropolitan journal- 
 ism rushes, in the pride of its myriad scarlet corpus- 
 cles. She looked upon it as a little game, in which she 
 might successfully hoodwink a force as irresistible as 
 that of Niagara. 
 
 All that she had to do, she told herself, was to go 
 down to the office and inform Mr. Green that she had 
 worked up the story and that there was "nothing in it." 
 That would end it. What further could be said? 
 Sallie, in her new mendacity, artlessly believed that she 
 was splendidly rusee. She intended to act her part 
 realistically, and to gloomily deplore the failure of her 
 mission. She recalled an episode that had occurred 
 when she was new to journalism. It had greatly im- 
 pressed her. One of the reporters had been sent to 
 a New Jersey hamlet to investigate a "story" that had 
 mysteriously "blown in" to the office. The report was 
 that the body of a certain wealthy woman had been 
 found hideously mutilated. The reporter spent a day 
 investigating, and returned with tears in his eyes.
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 231 
 
 "There's nothing in it, Mr. Green," Sallie remem- 
 bered hearing him say. "After all this work, I found 
 out that the woman was actually alive. I insisted that 
 she was dead and mutilated, but later on, when I saw 
 her walking around, I was obliged to believe trie evi- 
 dence of my own eyes." 
 
 He had been seriously grieved. He had -even felt 
 indignant with the wealthy lady, for daring to be 
 alive and intact. He had eagerly anticipated a blithely 
 illuminative "story" of her cruel dissection, and had 
 even contemplated sketching the pieces. Poor little 
 owl! Sallie had tried to put herself in his place, and 
 feel sorry for him. But she was too new to journal- 
 ism, and had not yet reached the point where she could 
 callously consider the mincing-up of humanity in the 
 light of "copy." 
 
 And on another occasion she had heard an owl 
 screech in agony to the moon as news of a dynamite ex- 
 plosion with a loss of sixty lives had been telephoned 
 to the office. "Hang it all !" the owl had cried, "I had 
 a dinner on to-night, and now I can't go. I hate these 
 holocausts, and they always occur at such ungodly 
 hours. My fiendish luck !" 
 
 She had never forgotten these incidents. Her mind 
 was very receptive, at the time of their occurrence, to 
 the influences of Owldom. Possibly to-day they would 
 make no impression upon her. The novelty had worn 
 off. She had heard owls discuss murders at fixed 
 rates of remuneration, and she knew the "tariff" for 
 suicide, elopement, adultery, arson, and jail-breaking. 
 The last was always attractive. Nobody "broke jail" 
 at less than three columns ! 
 
 So she betook herself to Owldom, in an easy and non- 
 apprehensive frame of mind. The fact that Lettie was 
 now established in her home made her feel comfort-
 
 232 
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 able. Her sister was a moral support, and the dread- 
 ful sense of irremediable loneliness had left her. Let- 
 tie had accompanied her to the theatre, and she had sent 
 her home, in spite of the younger Miss Sydenham's 
 fervent entreaties to be allowed to "go to the office" 
 with her. The idea of journalism at midnight ap- 
 pealed irresistibly to Lettie; but Sallie was relentless. 
 Some day, perhaps, Lettie should accompany her; but 
 to-night she was busy. It was out of the question. 
 And Lettie went back to the lugubrious little apart- 
 ment, to utter her plaints to Rosina, who was silent and 
 unsympathetic. 
 
 As Sallie entered the office, she felt nervous. She 
 would have liked to believe that Mr. Green had for- 
 gotten her assignment she even tried to believe it 
 but she knew that city editors were not forgetful. 
 They might be indulgent and amiable, but they suf- 
 fered from sheet-iron minds. 
 
 The night city editor was discussing his inevitable 
 ham sandwich as Miss Sydenham entered. She 
 adopted a familiarity of manner that she was far from 
 feeling, and she made a strenuous effort to assume the 
 recklessness and pictorial joviality so popular with the 
 male owls. Mr. Green certainly looked as though 
 nothing had happened since she last saw him. He 
 was heavy, opaque, blunt, and unyielding. She heard 
 him addressing the reporters in his usual frank and 
 unconsidered manner. He had just dismissed an of- 
 fice boy with the withering epithet "Dolt!" and she 
 heard this with pleasure. It sounded like home. Evi- 
 dently nothing had changed. It would be easy. 
 
 "Ah, Miss Sydenham," he said carelessly, as she ap- 
 proached him. "Welcome, little stranger. What's 
 been the matter ? You have deserted us in our hour of 
 need. Theatres rather dull lately, eh? Well, what's 
 on the programme to-night?"
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 2 33 
 
 This sounded very promising, and Sallie felt ex- 
 tremely relieved. "Nothing much," she replied. "I 
 came in particularly, Mr. Green, to tell you that that 
 you remember Witherby's 'tip' and the Stuyvesant 
 matter? Well, I've worked it up spent days at it 
 and there's nothing in it. My first assignment has 
 failed, and I am furious about it. It certainly had 
 splendid possibilities, but it isn't true and oh, I'm so 
 sorry !" 
 
 Her words sounded rather tame, and she knew it. 
 She would have liked to indicate a deeper depression, 
 a keener mortification, but . . . but . . . now that she 
 was trying to close this hateful aperture, she was mere- 
 ly anxious to close it quickly. 
 
 Mr. Green glanced at her rather humorously. He 
 ate his sandwich slowly, and she could not quite under- 
 stand a certain twinkle that she felt sure she detected 
 in his eye . . . yes, it was a twinkle. "Ah !" he said, 
 swallowing a crust, "so that is your report, Miss Syd- 
 enham. You have taken your time, haven't you? 
 You just dropped in er to tell me that there was 
 nothing in this story. H'm ! That was most thought- 
 ful of you. And journalism sits down and waits for 
 you until you are ready. You are a very bright and 
 brilliant critic, Miss Sydenham, but you are not going 
 to make your mark as a reporter. We have just had 
 news of a fire. I suppose if I sent you to it, you 
 would come in some time next week or next year 
 and tell us about it. Unfortunately, my dear young 
 woman, we don't do things in that way. We want our 
 tit-bits hot from the griddle, so to speak. It is a little 
 way we have." 
 
 Sallie sat still and listened to him, and her heart 
 sank. Still, she would carry the thing through. After 
 all, the case was hers. She had done nothing with it,
 
 234 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 and Mr. Green could be as sarcastic as he chose. He 
 could hurl his shafts of sarcasm at her, if he felt re- 
 lieved by so doing. And he could not force her to 
 give him the slightest inkling as to the truth about 
 Arthur Stuyvesant. That, fortunately, was locked 
 tightly in her own breast, and there it would stay until 
 the crack of doom, as far as he was concerned. So 
 she laughed rather insolently, and felt ridiculously sure 
 of herself. 
 
 "Bad news always keeps, Mr. Green," she said pert- 
 ly, "and, of course, when I found that I was balked of 
 my honest prey, I considered it bad news. If I had 
 discovered a, story, I should have rushed to you all alive 
 with legitimate excitement, but . . ." 
 
 "Tell me what you did, Miss Sydenham?" he asked, 
 interrupting her. He crumpled up the paper that had 
 enveloped his sandwich and threw it away. Then he 
 dusted his hands and sat up. Sallie still felt that she 
 "had him" where she wanted him. 
 
 "I must disclose my tactics?" she asked amiably. 
 "Sherlock Holmes must explain his tactics? Isn't that 
 rubbing it in, Mr. Green?" (She began to feel lively 
 and rather amused.) "Well, I did the very best thing 
 I could do. I called upon Mrs. Stuyvesant herself, 
 and she, with her own lips, denied the story from start 
 to finish." 
 
 This lie was uttered glibly, on the principle that what 
 was worth doing at all was worth doing well. It 
 shocked her for a moment, for she was unaccustomed 
 to falsehood ; but she realized that it was well done, and 
 she paused to watch its effect upon Mr. Green. His 
 face was inscrutable and sphinx-like. 
 
 "She told you" he spoke slowly, clearing his 
 throat "that it was quite untrue, and that she was 
 living happily and contentedly with a husband who was 
 very much abused."
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 235 
 
 "Oh, no," Sallie laughed gayly. She could, at any 
 rate, give a little "local color" to her story, and, inci- 
 dentally, to Arthur Stuyvesant. She would paint things 
 up a little bit for Mr. Green, as he was addicted to tints, 
 and as a slight embellishment would do no harm. "I 
 didn't say that, Mr. Green," she remarked coquettishly. 
 "Between ourselves, I don't believe that Mr. and Mrs. 
 Stuyvesant are living together at all. Apparently they 
 have agreed to differ. He is a bad lot, and she told me 
 her troubles oh, a long list of infidelities, recrimina- 
 tions and conflicts, but nothing definite, or tangible. I 
 tried to pin her down to this particular case, but she 
 insisted that she knew nothing about it. It isn't a 
 question of one woman, but of half a dozen and all 
 perfect ladies," she added frivolously. 
 
 He eyed her with unusual sternness, and it was hard 
 for her to meet his look unflinchingly. But she did it, 
 and even managed to convey an impression of indiffer- 
 ence. - 
 
 "You are sure of that?" 
 
 She felt that a little indignation, of the righteous 
 order, would not be inappropriate. "Sure of it," she 
 repeated ; "I talked to the woman. Do you doubt me? 
 Shall I bring you a certificate of conversation? Sure- 
 ly, Mr. Green, you must know that . . . that this as- 
 signment meant . . . meant much to me. I worked 
 at it in the hope of spearing a good story, but when I 
 go to headquarters and discover that . . . that there 
 isn't a story, you must surely believe that ... it is 
 very galling to my amour propre" 
 
 She wondered why he looked at her so oddly, and 
 she could not avoid the impression that it was all ex- 
 tremely ominous. But why? Her last utterances 
 were somewhat hesitant, and she felt annoyed with 
 herself. Perhaps she was not as plausible as she had
 
 236 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 tried to be. However, she had said her say, and fur- 
 ther discussion was useless. 
 
 "I expect the play at the Empire next week will be 
 something rather interesting," she remarked, in a 
 jaunty effort to change the subject. She even rose and 
 prepared to move away. 
 
 "Sit down, Miss Sydenham," said Mr. Green, rather 
 imperiously, she thought he was not accustomed to 
 use an imperial intonation in his intercourse with her. 
 "Sit down. I am not throwing any doubts upon the 
 honesty of your work. Nor am I unduly forgetful of 
 the fact that you have lost a good story, which is al- 
 ways deplorable. I am most sympathetic with my re- 
 porters when I see them fall down. But, Miss Syden- 
 ham, I am sorry to tell you that Mrs. Stuyvesant has 
 misled you. In fact, to put it plainly, she has lied to 
 you." 
 
 Sallie started. A sensation of coldness crept down 
 her spine. Her quick intelligence was quite unable to 
 grasp Mr. Green's possible meaning. She had no idea 
 of "wheels within wheels." She sat in benumbed ap- 
 prehension and waited. 
 
 "Mrs. Stuyvesant," he went on and there was as- 
 perity in his voice "lied to you. The mendacity of 
 women, the fear of publicity, and the desire to avoid 
 discussion, are the most dangerous obstacles that re- 
 porters meet. An experienced reporter knows how to 
 cope with them, and that is why I objected to putting 
 this case in your hands. Possibly you approached 
 Mrs. Stuyvesant courteously, and begged her to tell 
 you the truth. Now, a seasoned reporter would have 
 adopted other tactics. He would have said to her, 
 'Mrs. Stuyvesant, we know all. The story is in the of- 
 fice all set up. We are anxious to give you a chance 
 to explain, and if you don't do so, you will appear
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 237 
 
 under colors that you will not like.' Had you ap- 
 proached her in this way, Miss Sydenham, she would 
 have told you the truth." 
 
 Sallie was aghast, and could merely sit and listen, 
 for she did not know what to say, as she was quite un- 
 aware of what she had to cope with. 
 
 "I do not blame you," he resumed, "because this is 
 all new to you. I merely regret that you did not 
 report to me at once, not that it would have made much 
 difference, but because it would have given me a more 
 exalted opinion of your journalistic instinct." 
 
 She longed for the point . . . she thirsted for it. 
 But Mr. Green rather enjoyed his lordly attitude, and 
 the pose did him good. He liked the sound of his 
 own voice, when he had time and opportunity to select 
 appropriate language in which to clothe his ideas. 
 
 "Fortunately, Miss Sydenham" and he almost 
 cooed "in journalism we do not put all our eggs into 
 one basket. We have our little surprises. If one 
 thing fails, we turn hopefully to another. In a well- 
 regulated newspaper office the sources of information 
 are many. A reporter works up a story, and announces 
 that there is nothing in it. Perhaps this is true, and 
 perhaps it isn't. At any rate, we do not bank irrevoca- 
 bly upon his word. He is human, of course, but the 
 machinery of events revolves and one man counts for 
 little in that machinery. When I gave you that assign- 
 ment, I kept my eyes and my ears open. I did not dis- 
 credit your ability, but I did not disregard other 
 sources." 
 
 Sallie moistened her dry lips, and tried to speak, but 
 without success. Mr. Green looked at her in rather 
 spectacular sympathy. Naturally, he reasoned, she 
 would feel rather cut up. Reporters were always cha- 
 grined when their own human fallibility was suddenly
 
 238 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 flashed before them. And this was her first assign- 
 ment. . . . He felt admirably merciful. 
 
 "In a newspaper office," he declared slowly . . . she 
 squirmed at this apparently goal-less tirade ... it 
 tortured her . . . "the most valuable man is the man 
 with the longest list of useful acquaintances. I always 
 say to my reporters, 'Cultivate people, for they will 
 help you.' I flatter myself, Miss Sydenham, that I 
 have lived up to this precept myself. I have kept it 
 continually before me. I have a lunching acquaint- 
 ance with statesmen, Wall Street financiers, politicians, 
 city officials, lawyers, and detectives . . ." 
 
 "Won't you . . . won't you. . ." she pumped out 
 the words with difficulty, "please, Mr. Green, tell me 
 what all this means. I I don't understand." 
 
 He smiled indulgently, and savored the joy of "mak- 
 ing an impression." It was quite a pleasure to initiate 
 this most receptive girl into the limitless mysteries of 
 Owldom. He treasured up his denouement, and de- 
 layed it as long as he could, for the sake of dramatic 
 effect. And he had no idea that the very apparent dis- 
 tress of the poor little owl by his side, was due to any 
 other cause than that of mortification at a story "gang 
 aglee" in a very ordinary way. 
 
 "One of my warmest friends," he said, "is Sylvester 
 Jackson, a Pinkerton detective. I might almost say 
 that we are brothers. In fact, Mr. Jackson dines at 
 my house, and Mrs. Green knows his fondness for 
 curry, and also for terrapin. Many tips has good old 
 Jackson given me, and I could tell you of a long list of 
 'beats' secured by me at no other cost than a dish of 
 curry, or a casserole of terrapin. Well, Miss Syden- 
 ham, to cut a long story short" (which he hated to do 
 in this case), "Mr. Jackson dined with me a couple of 
 nights ago, and he gave me a tip that will interest you.
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 239 
 
 Mrs. Stuyvesant has given her case to him. He has 
 already discovered the truth of the report that Arthur 
 Stuyvesant has an 'address' at which he meets an un- 
 known woman. He has already ascertained the ad- 
 dress. All that remains for him to do is to catch them 
 there together in well-attested flagrant delit. That he 
 is about to do, and he has intimated that if I care to 
 send a reporter with him, I can do so. This this, 
 Miss Sydenham, is absolutely exclusive. You will 
 realize that this Stuyvesant woman has simply made 
 a guy of you if you will excuse the expression and 
 you will also see how the machinery of journalism 
 works." 
 
 He paused, in supreme delight at his own well- 
 chosen words. A great dread seized Sallie, and for a 
 moment she mentally collapsed. It seemed to her that 
 the worst had happened, and that Mr. Green knew the 
 whole hateful story, in all its naked ugliness. Her 
 thoughts, however, were quick, and while he was yarn- 
 ing on, she was reviewing the situation. It was cer- 
 tainly dangerous . . . but . . . but she had warned 
 Arthur Stuyvesant. She had, in fact, told him all that 
 Mr. Green knew. She had put him on his guard. 
 But her chronology of these happenings must be con- 
 sidered. The detective had discovered that there was 
 a rendezvous; but possibly by this time her anony- 
 mous letter had borne fruit, and the meeting-place no 
 longer existed. Still, she had written that letter imme- 
 diately after her visit to Mrs. Stuyvesant, and the 
 detective had left the house an hour earlier merely to 
 begin his search. 
 
 If he had discovered the rendezvous . . . then it 
 had not been given up immediately on receipt of her 
 letter. Perhaps the missive had gone astray . . . per- 
 haps it had been delayed . . . perhaps they had not
 
 240 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 met until it had been there for a day or two. She was 
 racked by an agonizing uncertainty. But they would 
 get the letter, and no man, with a reputation in jeop- 
 ardy, would be such a fool as to disregard it. Anony- 
 mous letters were, of course, liable to be disregarded, 
 but not such a note as she had written. . . . 
 
 "Well, Miss Sydenham," said the night city editor, 
 rather annoyed at the silence that greeted his well- 
 conceived, and admirably executed harangue, "do you 
 follow me ?" 
 
 Sallie resolved upon a bold stroke, for she felt des- 
 perate. "Yes," she replied, "I quite follow you. I 
 quite understand. But let me tell you this : your de- 
 tective may fancy that he has discovered a rendezvous, 
 but he will find nobody there, because there is nobody 
 to find. Your reporter will be indulging in a wild goose 
 chase just like mine. It sounds very plausible, and 
 you're a very clever man, Mr. Green, and I admire you. 
 But your detective is wrong. There will be no discov- 
 ery. There will be no story. It is all untrue." 
 
 Mr. Green rather admired the vehemence of her ex- 
 pression. He felt that she was knocking her head 
 against a stone wall, and although the process was 
 painful, still it was worth watching when it was well 
 done. And Sallie was doing it very well indeed. 
 
 "Perhaps, Miss Sydenham," he remarked blandly. 
 "Perhaps. We shall see." 
 
 "You will send a reporter on this fool's errand ?" she 
 cried excitedly, scarcely realizing that she was address- 
 ing a doughty potentate of Owldom ; "you will do this, 
 when I tell you that it is useless. Suppose Mr. Stuy- 
 vesant has an address or had an address it doesn't 
 follow that he used it for clandestine meetings. Let 
 the detective go, and see what he can find. He will 
 find nothing nothing nothing. I am willing to 
 swear to it."
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 241 
 
 She was in a rather hopeless condition of excitement, 
 and the reporters paused in their work to listen to her. 
 Mr. Green was exceedingly amused. What a little 
 spitfire ! What a novel way of escaping an unpleasant 
 situation! What a quaint girl Miss Sydenham was, 
 and how bitterly she resented this defeat. 
 
 "I am sorry you feel like that about it, Miss Syden- 
 ham," he said suavely. "It is always irritating, in 
 journalism, to be thrown down. But it happens to us 
 all. Try to look at the thing sensibly, and when you 
 read the story we shall have and I fancy it will be 
 a scorcher you will have new impressions of a news- 
 paper office, and I fancy you won't clamor for any 
 more assignments, eh?" 
 
 She could have throttled him gladly, as he sat there 
 exulting in a catastrophe that even to his dull intelli- 
 gence would make some sort of an appeal. She longed 
 to hurl the truth at him, and tell him that if he per- 
 sisted in this demoniac quest of sensationalism, he 
 would find that his own managing editor would 
 dampen his ardor very quickly. Had he been less of a 
 machine, she would have done it. She would have 
 thrown the situation at him, and have paralyzed him. 
 She would have said, "Go ahead, and you'll find that 
 the mysterious girl is the fiancee of your managing 
 editor." She could not do it. It would have been 
 non-loyal to Jack; it would have been a surreptitious 
 nine-days' wonder in Newspaper Row. Besides, the 
 detective would find nothing. There was not one 
 chance in a hundred, she told herself, that Arthur 
 Stuyvesant and Ivy Hampton would run such unneces- 
 sary risks. . . . 
 
 She would make one more effort though she 
 scarcely realized what it meant. She quieted herself, 
 and put forth her allurements once more. 
 
 "I bow to the inevitable, Mr. Green," she said, meek-
 
 242 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 ly. "You are the inevitable, of course, and what you 
 have told me is a revelation. I could scarcely believe 
 it, and that is why I may have seemed refractory. But 
 it is hard to be squelched, isn't it? You are going to 
 send a reporter with Mr. Jackson. When?" 
 
 Mr. Green humored her, though the process was 
 rather unusual. "As soon as he notifies me to do so," 
 he replied. "It may be very soon. A telephone mes- 
 sage might come in a day in an hour now. It all 
 depends upon Jackson. He is a very cautious man, 
 and he knows his business." 
 
 "Mr. Green," she said eagerly; and she placed her 
 hand on his chubby shoulder, "I know I'm a failure, 
 and that I have done my work badly, because I'm new. 
 But I don't like to give it up. Will you let me be the 
 reporter to accompany Mr. Jackson?" 
 
 He was astonished, and perhaps for the first time 
 into his befogged, densely routined brain crept a sus- 
 picion of the unusual. 
 
 "You," he cried, "you a girl want to accompany 
 a detective in a quest of er adultery ? You ask this, 
 and for no reason at all? Really, Miss Sydenham " 
 
 "Oh, yes," she said recklessly and miserably, "I 
 know it's unwomanly and all that sort of thing. I 
 know it isn't respectable, and that a girl ought to be 
 terrified at the possibility. But I'm not, Mr. Green. I 
 can't help it. I'm not. Please let me go please." 
 
 He scratched his head with the tip of his pen, and 
 puzzled. This certainly meant something; but what 
 did it what could it mean ? He stared at her, seeking 
 inspiration in her eyes, in her manner, in her pose. He 
 was completely perplexed. 
 
 "I can't help thinking, Miss Sydenham," he said 
 slowly, "that you are concealing something. This zeal 
 this enthusiasm is not reportorial. You are inter-
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 243 
 
 ested for reasons that you have not told me. What 
 are those reasons? Surely I have a right to ask. 
 They exist, do they not? The case appeals to 
 you . . ." 
 
 Confession was on the tip of her tongue. After 
 all, Mr. Green was a man, and he had a wife, and he 
 would understand. He must possess a certain amount 
 of the spirit of loyalty. He would surely see in this im- 
 plication of his superior editor an all-sufficient reason 
 for allowing the matter to drop. Yet it was impossi- 
 ble ... it was beyond her power. 
 
 "I am not interested," she cried. "I am not. How 
 can you suppose such a thing? What could Arthur 
 Stuyvesant and his inamorata be to me? I despise 
 him ... I loathe him. I I am anxious to confront 
 him ... to see his smug self-complacence vanish. 
 That is all. May I go with Mr. Jackson?" 
 
 "No," he replied, angry at last ; "certainly not. I am 
 surprised that you should ask it. The matter is ended. 
 You had your assignment, and you failed in it. This 
 persistent chatter around the subject is ridiculous. I 
 told you the situation, in order to explain the complexi- 
 ties of journalism, and you behave like a spoiled child. 
 I have no more time to waste, Miss Sydenham." 
 
 She accepted her dismissal and rose ; but she was not 
 discouraged. Detective Sylvester Jackson might be a 
 very "smart" person, and undoubtedly was. But he 
 had "detected" nothing so far, either because there was 
 nothing to detect, or because the time was not ripe. 
 She felt that she was a match for him, or for anybody 
 else, except journalists, owls, night city editors. . . . 
 
 She would ascertain if her letter had fulfilled its mis- 
 sion. That would be easy to ascertain. And if she 
 found that it had failed, she would intrude herself upon 
 the dulcet tete-a-tete of Mr. and Mrs. Compton, and
 
 244 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 distasteful, repugnant though it might be she would 
 herself explain the situation to them. 
 
 She was aglow with enthusiasm and energy. She 
 felt that she could not sleep quietly until she had begun 
 to put her plans in operation. And before going home 
 to Lettie and her slumbers she decided to take a 
 nocturnal glance at Mr. and Mrs. Compton's hiding- 
 place. It was a nauseating trip, in cold, dark midnight 
 cars, through regions filled with roysterers and night- 
 birds. That part of her journey that had to be accom- 
 plished on foot was particularly repulsive. She was 
 stared at, accosted, and even grasped by the stagnant 
 denizens of foul and treacherous thoroughfares. 
 
 There were lights in most of the windows of the 
 house in which Ivy and Arthur were Comptons. There 
 were none in theirs. Their name was still visible over 
 the letter box, in the vestibule. Evidently, they had 
 not relinquished their pied-a-terre. The lack of illumi- 
 nation, of course, meant nothing, as they would not 
 pass their nights there. Ivy was probably sleeping the 
 slumber of the reluctant ingenue in Central Park West. 
 Sallie could picture her pale, cool Madonna face on its 
 pillow, haloed by strands of silver-gold hair. 
 
 But the name was there above the bell ! The apart- 
 ment still belonged to Mr. and Mrs. Compton. Per- 
 haps they had abandoned it in abrupt finality. Per- 
 haps the time had been merely inauspicious for the 
 meeting. 
 
 But if they did meet there again, Sallie swore that 
 she would confront them. And detective Jackson . . . 
 she smiled and snapped her fingers.
 
 n 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 ACK CHILDERS chuckled in extreme appre- 
 ciation of the result of Miss Sydenham's as- 
 signment. Night city editor Green, who 
 knew his superior's propensity for entertain- 
 ment, always saved up the "tit-bits" of the office for 
 him, and Mr. Childers listened to many quaint inci- 
 dents of Newspaper Row, as he lolled nonchalantly in 
 his office, and took life pleasantly. Mr. Green, after 
 his somewhat palpitant interview with Miss Sydenham, 
 forgot his doubts and his apprehensions, and returned 
 to his original view of the girl's non-success, and he 
 built it up into a merry anecdote for Jack Childers' de- 
 lectation. He liked to please Mr. Childers. In Owl- 
 dom an ounce of authority can be kneaded into pounds 
 of flunkeyism. The powers are deftly graded. It is 
 like a comic opera company, in which the reporters are 
 the chorus, and the managing editors the principals, 
 standing haughtily in the centre of the stage and de- 
 claiming beautiful, puissant things. 
 
 Mr. Childers thought Sallie's incursion into the re- 
 portorial field one of the best jokes of the season. The 
 idea of her interview with Mrs. Stuyvesant, according 
 to Mr. Green's adaptation of the story, appealed to him 
 with an intensity of humor. It occurred to him that 
 the picture of Sallie in her war paint, toying with the 
 sensationalism of adultery, and probing the languishing 
 plaintiff herself, was quite too killing. And he was 
 convulsed at the result at Sallie's easy belief that there 
 was "nothing in it," and at her charmingly supercil- 
 ious neglect to "report progress" to Mr. Green. 
 It was so extremely original and so archly funny.
 
 246 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 He wondered if Sallie had laughed with Mrs. Stuyve- 
 sant, and had aired her quaint and outre philosophy. 
 He could imagine Miss Sydenham discussing the case 
 with outbursts of epigrams, and he was not surprised 
 that she had failed to "worm" a "story" from the act- 
 or's wife. Mr. Childers could not hear enough. 
 He plied Mr. Green with questions, and sat tinkling 
 with laughter at his answers. And Green, in the 
 safety of an immaculate position that assured to him 
 all the truth of the incident, felt that he could afford to 
 weave Miss Sydenham's exploit into a sort of comic 
 interlude. Had the paper been "left" on the "story" 
 he would probably have avoided Mr. Childers. Mr. 
 Green always encased himself in an impenetrable shell 
 of mystery, when things went wrong. And he was 
 careful to place the responsibility for the miscarriage 
 upon the first set of available shoulders that he could 
 find. 
 
 Mr. Childers, as a man, had little sympathy with 
 these owl pursuits; but, as a journalist and a man- 
 aging editor, he was bound to regard them. And he 
 did his duty by them. Many a nauseous dose had he 
 swallowed ; but he never grew quite accustomed to the 
 taste, and he invariably promised himself that one day 
 he would "own a paper" that should be as solid and 
 heavily dignified as the London Times, the mighty 
 thunderer that would make such splendid wrapping 
 paper and parcel covers in New York. There were 
 many denizens of New York's Owldom who saw happy 
 rest and stout, stolid dolce far niente in the lugubrious 
 doughiness of the London Times. 
 
 The managing editor was anxious to see Miss Syden- 
 ham; but she had been strangely absent of late. He 
 missed the uptown trips on the Elevated train even 
 more thoroughly than he realized. He had uncon-
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 247 
 
 sciously grown accustomed to them as relaxation, and 
 he had no intention of allowing Miss Sydenham to neg- 
 lect him. He looked upon these trips as his perquisites, 
 and his aunt and Miss Hampton found him singularly 
 "cranky" when he was forced to abstain. There were 
 other "jolly good fellows" in the office, of course ; but 
 they wore trousers, and Jack Childers was not inclined 
 to replace Miss Sydenham. 
 
 He could not help noticing that she was a little dif- 
 ferent in her manner of late. She seemed to be slight- 
 ly distraite, and the frivol of her talk was less spon- 
 taneous. He knew that she was not ridiculously 
 conventional enough to pass him by because he was la- 
 belled "engaged." Other women might do it, but such 
 a proceeding would be quite unlike Sallie Sydenham. 
 He did not believe that she considered his sex at all, 
 and he told himself that he was far from considering 
 hers. Mr. Childers had no faith in platonic attach- 
 ments, as a general thing, but in Sallie's case it was 
 even less than platonic. 
 
 His "engagement" to Miss Hampton had by no 
 means altered his life. It was a pleasant arrangement, 
 and not at all moving. It was progressing "as well as 
 could be expected" as he always felt absurdly inclined 
 to say when questioned. Ivy was quite well, thanks, 
 and able to be about also thanks. He had discovered 
 no new charms in his cousin ; but Jack Childers did not 
 believe as so many seem to believe that an engage- 
 ment brings out a girl's qualities as if they were a rash, 
 or an eruption better out than in. 
 
 To be sure, he now permitted himself to accord Miss 
 Hampton a chaste kiss or two on fitting occasions. 
 But it was quite perfunctory and his blood pulsed no 
 more warmly ; nor did hers, he was quite certain. Once 
 or twice he felt the irony of this condition, and he won-
 
 248 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 dered if Lamp-Post Lucy could tell him why he was 
 "so cold and unresponsive." Possibly she had some 
 recipe for it. He felt certain that Lamp-Post Lucy 
 and Mrs. Amelia Amberg Hutchinson could, between 
 them, brew him some admirable advice. Later on, of 
 course, he would be obliged to "incandesce" a bit, but 
 just at present matters were cooler and, perhaps, more 
 desirable as they were. He knew that flamboyant man- 
 ifestations of affection were rather bourgeois; still, he 
 reasoned, those who did without them missed a good 
 deal. They were supposed to be natural, and a man 
 could not go through life in artificial apathy just for 
 the sake of "good form." 
 
 He liked Ivy principally because she was such a pic- 
 turesque contrast to the self-supporting ladies of Owl- 
 dom with whom he came in such brusque and frequent 
 contact. She chilled him so refreshingly. It was like 
 sitting in the shade "under a spreading chestnut tree" 
 to be near her. When he got home late at night or 
 early in the morning, all a-fever with the worries and 
 cares of journalism, it was pleasant to meet Ivy in her 
 cool, chaste peignoir, her silver-gold hair knotted loose- 
 ly on her neck, and with her meek Puritan eyes free 
 from all perturbing influences. It was as good as a 
 bromide. It rushed his temperature down to the nor- 
 mal point, and many formidable problems that had 
 seemed to him unsolvable in the early part of the morn- 
 ing, ranged themselves discreetly and satisfactorily in 
 his mind as he sipped his cup of bouillon, sitting by her 
 side. 
 
 It was certainly a cosy arrangement. Aunt Hamp- 
 ton, who always used to sit up in the drowsy propriety 
 of chaperonage, during these meetings, felt that she 
 could now leave Jack and Ivy together. It was emi- 
 nently proper to do so. Moreover . . . she was not
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 249 
 
 far away. Mrs. Hampton felt that nothing wrong 
 would happen. From her adjoining bedroom she 
 could have heard a kiss, but she felt bound to admit 
 that she had never done so. Nothing but the soft un- 
 dertones of dialogue reached her ears, as she sank to 
 slumber. She would perhaps have liked to feel that 
 her duties as chaperone were a trifle more arduous. It 
 would have pleased her to frown at an occasional out- 
 break of youthful impetuosity, and she believed that 
 she could have done it very gracefully indeed. But 
 she could sleep in perfect security, certain that the 
 convenances would receive no unhandsome treatment. 
 Yet she would gladly have remained awake . . . 
 
 No date had been fixed for the wedding; the "glad 
 day" stayed frigidly unnamed. Mrs. Hampton tried 
 vainly to stir up a little enthusiasm on the question. 
 She would have liked to see Ivy go out and buy things 
 those beautiful, useless things that excitable brides- 
 elect love to purchase. It would have given her some- 
 thing to talk about to her cronies. It was always an 
 exhilarating topic, and elderly ladies, from their ped- 
 estal of superiority, and the wisdom that the years have 
 brought, cling to it as a sort of souvenir. 
 
 But Miss Hampton did nothing of the sort, and her 
 aunt reluctantly admitted that the edicts of modern 
 "good form" were rather cheerless. Ivy was submis- 
 sive, non-refractory, but hopelessly apathetic. If she 
 had only worked things ! Surely the most rigid rules 
 of etiquette could scarcely have conflicted with the 
 making of doylies, sofa pillows, and the hundred arti- 
 cles of decoration that were consistent with refined pos- 
 sibilities. The girl's frequent absences from home 
 raised hopes in Mrs. Hampton's breast. Each time she 
 returned, the elder lady looked for parcels, bundles, the 
 feminine symbols of "shopping." She waited eagerly
 
 250 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 for some such manifestation of betrothed impulse. 
 And the disappointment was keen. 
 
 Ivy had always been to afternoon teas or to chat 
 with her girl friends, and it was on these returns that 
 she really seemed most antipathetic to allusions to Jack 
 Childers. As a rule, she listened placidly to the gar- 
 rulity of her aunt ; but on these occasions she was irri- 
 tated by the chatter, and the perpetual suggestion. And 
 Mrs. Hampton began to consider the condition of 
 things as due to Ivy's peculiar temperament. 
 
 Once or twice she made unsuccessful attempts to rec- 
 tify matters not that she admitted a positive need of 
 rectification. The engagement of one of Ivy 's friends had 
 been announced, and nobody had ever dared to criticize 
 the perfect "good form" of Pollie Bethson. Yet Miss 
 Bethson, after her betrothal, was very unlike Ivy. She 
 was eager, fervent, and enthusiastic. She talked of 
 her Paul in rhapsody ; she contemplated her domestic- 
 ity in admirable effervescence ; her projects were aired, 
 her plans were ventilated, her happiness was apparent 
 to the merest outsider. She behaved as a girl should 
 behave in the fruition of her dearest hopes. 
 
 Mrs. Hampton hoped that Ivy would be impressed 
 by all this. She invited Pollie Bethson to the house; 
 she led her on, she drew her out, she stimulated her to 
 fervent expressions ... all in the hope of interest- 
 ing Ivy. But Miss Hampton was unbudging, en- 
 trenched behind the gray cloak of her Puritanism, and 
 she listened to it all without responding in kind. Pol- 
 lie Bethson was selecting furniture, and spent her time 
 in the fascinating emporia downtown. It was inspiring 
 to listen to her, and Mrs. Hampton felt the temporary 
 return of her own youth as she heard this adorable 
 small-talk and this enviable, feminine chiffonage. 
 
 "I could almost wish, Ivy," she said, with a sigh, one
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 251 
 
 afternoon after Pollie Bethson's departure, "that you 
 were as enthusiastic as Miss Bethson perhaps not 
 quite as enthusiastic," she added, in order to chasten 
 her remark. "But she does seem young and happy, 
 and one can't help thinking that her Paul is a lucky 
 man." 
 
 Ivy's lip curled and she shrugged her shoulders. "It 
 is very nice," she said. "Pollie reminds me of cook and 
 her policeman. They are also young and happy es- 
 pecially the policeman." 
 
 "It is not quite necessary," the elder lady retorted 
 severely, "to turn everything I say into ridicule. Nor 
 do I see that the perfectly appointed engagement of 
 Miss Bethson has any points of similarity with the 
 kitchen affair you mention. If I did not know you, I 
 should really be inclined to think that your engagement 
 to Jack was a mistake. Self-repression is very desir- 
 able beforehand, but afterwards it may surely be re- 
 laxed." 
 
 Miss Hampton turned away to hide a smile as she 
 heard "self-repression" hurled at her. She thought of 
 an East Side apartment and of Mrs. Compton scorch- 
 ing Mr. Compton. in a sirocco of fervor. She saw her 
 other self, in all its fiery demonstration, as in a vision. 
 She gazed "on this picture, and on that," and she won- 
 dered at this dual personality. She had certainly 
 two sides most marvellously differentiated. She took 
 little trouble to hide anything, and she was surprised 
 at Mrs. Hampton's blindness. Elderly ladies were very 
 easily gulled. No revelation would have affrighted 
 Miss Hampton, and the situation in which she found 
 herself was due rather to deference to Arthur Stuyve- 
 sant, than to her own personal desires. Those clan- 
 destine arrangements were the only ones possible, and 
 she accepted them. But she had no intention of feign-
 
 252 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 ing an overwhelming affection for Jack Childers, whom 
 she tolerated and rather liked. He appealed to her 
 placid, Puritan-like pose, and was not disturbing. 
 Moreover, he seemed perfectly satisfied with existing 
 conditions, and she thought that he, too, might possi- 
 bly have another side that was not available for home 
 consumption. 
 
 "I am not of an enthusiastic nature," she said to 
 Mrs. Hampton, "and I consider that Pollie Bethson 
 makes a vulgar exhibition of herself. It may be very 
 stimulating, but it is the sort of thing that is more ap- 
 propriate in a boudoir. I am sorry that I do not meet 
 with your approval, but Jack does not complain. And 
 after all ... it is Jack to whom I am . . . engaged." 
 
 The word "engaged" amused her. It was so cut and 
 dried. It seemed so silly to think of human passions, 
 and then, of being prettily and methodically "engaged." 
 She liked to speak the word, because it seemed to point 
 to the reality of her untrammelled love of Arthur Stuy- 
 vesant. She might be "engaged" to Jack Childers, but 
 such an expression could never under any turn of the 
 kaleidoscope approach her attachment to Mr. Stuyve- 
 sant. The precepts of etiquette titillated her fancy. 
 Mr. Childers might now kiss her with perfect propri- 
 ety, and he could even clasp her to his breast . . . just 
 because they were "engaged," and the people who went 
 to afternoon teas had been kind enough to sanction 
 it all. 
 
 This regular and well-conceived grading of love en- 
 tertained Ivy Hampton. She felt that she could walk 
 up to the denouement of marriage by shallow steps. 
 The first step was an easy attachment, kissless and 
 undemonstrative ; second step, an embrace, a coy 
 squeeze, a look in the eyes; third step, "engagement," 
 with kisses, applauded by the mob, and constant com-
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 2 53 
 
 munion; steps four, five, and six, more kisses, luxuri- 
 ous tete-a-tetes, suggestions of the blissful future ; sev- 
 enth step and top of the ladder, the absolute blending 
 of souls, that all the world approved. 
 
 Miss Hampton's cool cynicism enjoyed this suave, 
 matter-of-fact labelling of emotionalism. She herself 
 had begun at the top of the ladder, which the eyes of 
 the world cannot see, must not see, dare not see. The 
 eyes had to be deftly prepared for it, and the film re- 
 moved as methodically as one peels apples or seeds rai- 
 sins. But she never argued the matter, and looked 
 upon "women who did" and the verbose heroines in- 
 vented by feminine authors as very unnecessary people, 
 who were too fond of hearing themselves talk. These 
 little affairs were eminently private, and in real life 
 women who believed in them were wise enough to keep 
 their beliefs to themselves. Ivy had suffered, of 
 course. The knowledge that Stuyvesant had a wife 
 had been bitter to her, and at times she had rebelled at 
 the rigidity of the conventions. They made matters 
 difficult . . . and very expensive. But of late she had 
 schooled herself to regard those very difficulties and 
 subterfuges as a voluptuous feature of her love. A 
 faint tinge of the ecstasy of martyrdom caught her oc- 
 casionally. When she suffered ... it was for him. 
 The path that she followed, with its briars and its bram- 
 bles, led to him, and she braved its intricacies for his 
 sake. 
 
 Even her "engagement" was part of her martyr- 
 dom ; her marriage, if it ever occurred, would be its cli- 
 max, the very summit of her voluptuous tragedy. 
 There were times when she fought in physical rebellion 
 at the idea ; but those occasions were now more widely 
 spread, and she hoped that in time they would entirely 
 disappear.
 
 254 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 But she could not play the game of the mutinous lit- 
 tle fiancee for the benefit of Mrs. Hampton, though it 
 was always a pretty game and one that never failed 
 to produce a salubrious effect. She could not work 
 doylies, and embroider mantel-piece covers, and manip- 
 ulate table-centres, and make herself pretty wrappers 
 for when she "wasn't feeling well." Pollie Bethson 
 had two of these wrappers in ostentatious manufacture. 
 Ivy thought it strange that brides-elect, in the midst 
 of their gay enthusiasm, should think so seriously of 
 days when they were "not feeling well." But they al- 
 ways did. It was like the miser and his "rainy day" 
 that is always so felicitously anticipated. 
 
 She did not change her demeanor toward Jack Child- 
 ers because she was "engaged," and she was thankful 
 to him because he did not seem to exact it. He might 
 have been very much more unpleasant ; and, if he had 
 been, her course might not have been so easy. For she 
 could not simulate what she did not feel. The one 
 side of her nature was distinct from the other, and en- 
 croachment would have been impossible. She could 
 not give to Jack Childers even the faintest imitation 
 of what she lavished upon Arthur Stuyvesant, and he 
 did not ask it. In Central Park West she was Ivy 
 Hampton ; in her East Side environment she was Mrs. 
 Compton. 
 
 And so Mrs. Hampton gradually abandoned her ef- 
 forts to cope with the chill imperturbability of this be- 
 trothal. Occasionally she rallied Jack upon his un- 
 lover-like behavior. But Mr. Childers was most plaus- 
 ible. He had known Ivy for so long; she was his 
 cousin ; it was impossible to turn on a melting stream of 
 picturesque enthusiasm because they were "engaged." 
 Jack and Ivy reached the same point, but by different 
 paths; hers led through cynicism and a morbid dis-
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 255 
 
 agreement with the best verdict that the centuries have 
 given ; his rolled over easy and non-reasoning indiffer- 
 ence and a smooth, unruffled "liking." 
 
 As chaperone, who might have done so much, Mrs. 
 Hampton felt vaguely aggrieved. But she slept health- 
 ily after listening for kisses that never were kissed and 
 for "airy nothings" that turned out to be most prosa- 
 ically substantial.
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 JcNALLY Silverman Compton Riving- 
 ton Lambwell. Sallie knew the names by 
 heart. They were tabulated in her mind like 
 the lines of a double acrostic; but the puzzle 
 was more abstruse. The time for solving it had at last 
 arrived, and further procrastination of any sort was no 
 longer feasible. 
 
 A small and frowsy little shop where the "ladies" 
 of the neighborhood had their hair "waved," sham- 
 pooed, dyed, and bleached, overlooked the apartment 
 house in which McNally, Silverman, Compton, Riving- 
 ton, and Lambwell wore out their lives. It was on the 
 other side of the street, and from the window it was 
 possible to observe the exits and entrances of the five 
 refined families. To this little shop Miss Sydenham, 
 with many misgivings, repaired, fully convinced that 
 she would be able to steal a march upon Detective Syl- 
 vester Jackson, and half inclined to surmise that Sher- 
 lock Holmes was a somewhat over-rated person, and 
 that Dr. Conan Doyle had cleverly constructed a series 
 of conspicuous mountains out of a pusillanimous little 
 mole-hill. 
 
 Sallie undoubtedly earned that coveted position at 
 the window which she assumed later. She was sham- 
 pooed and singed, she was combed and tinted. They 
 "treated" her scalp and let loose upon it the contents 
 of dozens of bottles, all labelled with words ending in 
 "cide." She did not rebel. If they had suggested 
 shaving her she would have submitted with good grace. 
 The bill was a heavy one, and the proprietor was 
 charmed with a ladv who had such infinite and undi-
 
 A Girl, Who Wrote 257 
 
 luted faith in his most clap-trap persuasions and de- 
 vices. She bought perfumes and cosmetics, pencils 
 for her eyebrows, "blue" to make veins in her neck, 
 tampons with which to polish her fingers, and boxes 
 of rouge. After which she frankly admitted that she 
 wished to sit in a chair at the window, all day if neces- 
 sary, and await some expected friends. She had made 
 herself popular, and no objection was offered. 
 
 Dreary hours passed and nothing happened. Chil- 
 dren appeared from the flats, and played noisily in the 
 street tots that seemed to know their bearings. Sallie 
 marvelled at the wonderful nonchalance of the moth- 
 ers who allowed these babies to flaunt their tiny enti- 
 ties in the squalor of such a neighborhood. She sup- 
 posed that these represented the "agonized mothers" 
 who -always "read" so well in Owldom's "stories" when 
 their children were run over, or abducted, or mal- 
 treated. Then they always "came out" so glowingly 
 in tints of warm maternal devotion and exquisitely 
 pictorial solicitude. These "stories" were very pop- 
 ular in journalism, and careful reporters wrote them. 
 Something was always happening to these children. 
 And no wonder, thought Sallie. These mothers seemed 
 to simply work for headlines in the newspapers. They 
 were about as fit to own children, as cows would be to 
 nurture kittens, or cats to possess chronometers. 
 
 Sallie counted twenty-two children that emerged 
 from the McNally Silverman Compton Rivington 
 Lamb well abode. And she remembered her chat 
 with the janitress. But the Comptons were certainly 
 unduly conspicuous, and decidedly out of fashion. 
 Probably their childlessness was the most ostentatious 
 emblem that they could have worn. 
 
 It was late in the afternoon, and dusk was settling its 
 comfortable, concealing pall upon the hideousness of
 
 258 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 everything, when Sallie realized that the eve of execu- 
 tion had arrived. She saw the slow approach of Ivy 
 Hampton in the heavy veil -voile d'adultere, as they 
 call it in France. Sallie knew her at once. She rec- 
 ognized the slow, indolent gait and the lithe, swaying 
 figure. Miss Hampton ploughed her way through the 
 motley crowd of children who barred the entrance to 
 the flat, howling, shrieking, singing, jumping, and 
 making a declaration of independence that was care- 
 fully inculcated by parents, anxious to impress upon 
 those feeble, dawning minds the weird fact that they 
 were as good as anybody else aye, and better. But 
 Miss Hampton was not at all disturbed. She had no 
 nerves. 
 
 Sallie still waited, watching Mrs. Compton's windows, 
 at which no face appeared. Shades were drawn, and 
 no sign of internal life was made manifest. Fully an- 
 other hour passed before she noticed the advent of Ar- 
 thur Stuyvesant. It gave her a pang to realize that 
 her anonymous letter had borne no fruit whatsoever. 
 It had either gone astray, or it had been disregarded, 
 and she felt that since her interview with Mrs. Stuy- 
 vesant, she had indeed been living in a fool's paradise 
 albeit there was precious little of the paradise that 
 she could recall. If she had only warned them per- 
 sonally . . . then her present distasteful mission would 
 not be confronting her now. Yet ... in spite of all 
 . . . they must have absented themselves from their 
 rendezvous they must have abstained or would not 
 Detective Sylvester Jackson have "detected" them be- 
 fore this? Chance had probably befriended her. 
 Stuyvesant had been busy with the production of the 
 new play, and had found no time for clandestine dal- 
 liance in the purlieus of Third Avenue. 
 
 He walked swingingly and with his head held high.
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 259 
 
 Evidently he had no fears. It became more and more 
 apparent to her that he had never received her warning 
 missive. He glanced carelessly around, patted the 
 heads of the children, and was serenely at his ease. 
 Then Arthur Stuyvesant disappeared in the gloom of 
 the flat-house and became Mr. Compton. 
 
 She thanked the accommodating hairdresser, prom- 
 ised to call again for her purchases, and left. Now that 
 the critical moment had arrived when the "situation" 
 must be manipulated with all due force, her courage 
 seemed to evaporate. She walked up and down the 
 street, giving the "Comptons" time to establish them- 
 selves, yet keeping an alert eye for the expected arrival 
 of the detective and his recruit from Owldom. She 
 wondered what reporter Mr. Green would send with 
 Mr. Jackson. Her greatest triumph would be if the 
 owl were forced to return with the dry : "Nothing. We 
 found nothing." Poor, desperate Mr. Green! The 
 thought surged joyfully in her breast. She had no 
 time to lose. She must clear them out . . . eradicate 
 the Comptons . . . and give the detective a chance to 
 add to his diary a- few notes on a case "in which I 
 failed." 
 
 Courage courage! She braced herself up, and 
 told herself consoling things. In one hour from now 
 it might all be over. It might really not be so very 
 dreadful. After all, it was a mission of mercy to which 
 they could scarcely object. Courage courage ! 
 
 She crossed the street and rang the electric bell above 
 the Compton name. Then the deed was done, and it 
 was impossible to retract. She might, of course, run 
 away in an undignified manner, and there was still time 
 to do that. But as she stood there, a clicking indicated 
 that the front door was open; she went upstairs. It 
 was a dark and cut-throat staircase, down which chil-
 
 260 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 dren tumbled all day long. The banisters were cold 
 and damp ; the stair carpets hung in shreds that almost 
 threw Sallie to the ground. At the Compton door she 
 paused and knocked. The calm, unruffled tones of Ivy 
 Hampton called out: "Who's there?" and a moment 
 later the door was opened, and Miss Hampton stood be- 
 fore her, as suave and unmoved as though she were 
 there by the laws of Heaven and the sanction of man. 
 It was dark in the hall, however, and Miss Hampton 
 was unable to distinguish the face of her visitor. 
 
 "Let me in," Sallie said quickly. "Let me in at once. 
 I have important business. I I " 
 
 Miss Hampton, superb in her disdain of all fears and 
 suspicions, moved aside, and Sallie stepped in. Then 
 the door was closed, and the Comptons and their in- 
 terior stood revealed before her. She occupied the 
 few seconds that were necessary for the restoration of 
 equilibrium, mental and physical, in a quick survey of 
 the scene. Arthur and Ivy were dining at a tiny table 
 in the centre of the room. He wore a smoking- jacket 
 and slippers, completely "at home ;" she trained a thin, 
 white peignoir, scarcely fastened, and displaying her 
 bust and arms. Sallie was amazed at the striking met- 
 amorphosis from the gray Puritan she had seen at the 
 owls' reception to this languorous cocotte, with all the 
 allurements and mannerisms of vice. An alcove 
 opened from the room in which they sat the "parlor" 
 and it was fitted up as is usual in the cheap New 
 York flat-house as a bedroom. The picture was over- 
 whelming, and Sallie stood and gazed at the reckless 
 couple on the very verge of exposure, on the utter brink 
 of being rudely photographed for the inspection of 
 the world. This was the future Mrs. Jack Childers, 
 and the idea filled her with a savage vindictiveness. 
 
 Arthur Stuyvesant rose as he saw her, folded his
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 261 
 
 arms and grew a shade paler. Miss Hampton simply 
 resumed her seat at the table, schooled against all out- 
 ward expression of emotion. Sallie remained by the 
 door, her face crimson with excitement, unable to 
 speak, unable to move, as all the emotions tore at her, 
 and robbed her of her projected words. 
 
 A malignant expression crept into the actor's face. 
 The terribly scathing article which this woman had 
 just printed about his latest venture, rankled in his 
 breast like a knife in an open sore. And he recalled 
 her threatening words on Owldom's balcony words 
 that had since, in the general security of things, been 
 forgotten. "If you don't play square," she had said, 
 "if you try and foist your precious theatrical person- 
 ality upon a girl like Miss Hampton she is the cousin 
 of my managing editor, Mr. Jack Childers, if you 
 please I'll roast you until you are the laughing stock 
 of the town. I'll ridicule you, pull you to pieces, show 
 you up, dissect you, until you will wish that you had 
 never been born. I can do it, you know. I'm not 
 malicious in print but I shall take particular delight 
 in doing something in that direction for your own es- 
 pecial benefit. Go it if you like with your matinee 
 girls, but leave Miss Hampton out of it." 
 
 He heard the words as clearly now, as though she 
 had re-uttered them, and as he saw her standing there 
 like a Nemesis in make-up, he began to believe that this 
 visit was a fateful one. This devilish girl boded him 
 no good. A second later, and the malignancy of his 
 look was replaced by a craven fear, a poltroonly mis- 
 giving that something ruinous he did not quite know 
 what was about to happen. He looked at Ivy, cool 
 as a summer morning, the white tints of her flesh 
 gleaming through her laces and needlework. 
 
 "Well, Miss Sydenham ?" he said at last, with an at- 
 tempt at defiance. And he waited.
 
 262 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 Sallie, impressed feverishly by the necessity for im- 
 mediate action, was still too bewildered to find coherent 
 utterance. If the detective discovered them like this 
 and he might be coming along the street at this very 
 moment all would indeed be lost, and nothing could 
 possibly palliate the crude, unmistakable story. 
 
 "I wrote you," she said, almost tumbling over her 
 words, "I wrote you some time ago. I warned you. 
 I told you not to come here, that you were watched, 
 that you would be discovered, and that you were in 
 danger. I wrote you. Why are you here ?" 
 
 "You wrote me?" he cried. "You warned me? It 
 is a lie. I received no letter. You know it This is 
 a conspiracy this is an outrage this " 
 
 "Stay," interposed Miss Hampton, in her cool, im- 
 perturbable voice. "If this er Miss Sydenham, I 
 believe refers to an anonymous letter that reached 
 here some time ago, she is right. I received it, 
 opened it, read it, threw it away, and would do the 
 same again." 
 
 She smiled contemptuously, disciplined completely 
 in the school that had seemed so hard at first. She 
 had no fear, and the abjection of Mr. Stuyvesant mere- 
 ly amused her. As for the crimson-faced woman at 
 the door in the garb of a saltimbanque ', she regarded 
 her as a cheap figure in a melodrama. 
 
 "You tore up a letter addressed to me?" he asked 
 fractiously, as the possibilities loomed up nakedly be- 
 fore him. "That you surely had no right to do. It 
 was a great indiscretion." 
 
 He was going to say impertinence, but he could not 
 bring himself to do so. He was afraid of Ivy Hamp- 
 ton. Her progress in the iniquitous school over which 
 he had presided as principal, had been so rapid that she 
 had swept past him. The slight compunction that she
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 263 
 
 had felt at the beginning of the dcgringolade, had van- 
 ished, and Miss Hampton had no qualms, no self- 
 reproaches, no distrust, no embarrassment. She had 
 left her lover in the background, and was imperiously 
 Indifferent to his vague scruples. 
 
 "An anonymous letter," said Miss Hampton, icily, 
 with her eyes on Sallie, "is the work of a coward, who 
 for some reason or other and generally the other is 
 afraid of a signature. I thought it best not to worry 
 you, Arthur, as I know you have an objection to that 
 sort of thing. I attached no importance to the mon- 
 grel note ; and since it was Miss Sydenham who wrote 
 it -well, as she is here, perhaps she will explain." 
 
 Sallie had completely recovered her self-assurance 
 and felt primed for the work on hand. Yet she was 
 still amazed at the aplomb of these two, even though 
 in the face of the actor there were rudimentary traces 
 of shame. To be detected like this by a girl, by one 
 who wielded a potent pen in the service of a powerful 
 newspaper, was surely infamous enough. A certain 
 callousness, however, came to his rescue, and he was 
 able to brazen it out. But never Sallie told herself 
 amid all the fictitious types through which she had 
 roamed, had she encountered such an utter disregard 
 of the conventions as Ivy Hampton manifested. After 
 all, she was a girl of education, reared amidst refin- 
 ing influences, well-born, and with a certain position. 
 Yet not an eyelash quivered as she stood there in her 
 spectacular undress, confronted by the outer world in 
 the shape of a girl. Sallie wondered whether it was 
 natural depravity or a lack of the instincts of morality ; 
 but she was unable to find a satisfactory answer to the 
 self-imposed question. 
 
 She briefly stated her case, and made it sound archly 
 plausible. It was very simple, and she was not obliged
 
 264 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 to draw upon her imagination to any very formidable 
 extent. The fact that Mrs. Stuyvesant had become fa- 
 miliar with the latest infidelity on the part of her hus- 
 band (Sallie emphasized viciously the word "latest;" 
 Miss Hampton winced at it; Mr. Stuyvesant glow- 
 ered) had been told to Mr. Green by an ex-reporter. 
 The ex-reporter was unable to state the name of the 
 woman in the case the latest woman (again Sallie ma- 
 levolently accentuated the word). Mrs. Stuyvesant 
 had engaged private detective Sylvester Jackson, and 
 Miss Sydenham had been assigned by the city editor 
 to work up the story. And Sallie, her suspicions hav- 
 ing been aroused at the reception in Newspaper Row, 
 had scented the truth. Just then the news of Miss 
 Hampton's engagement to Jack Childers had been an- 
 nounced. In order to spare him a cruel blow and avert 
 a scandal, she had undertaken to warn Mr. Stuyvesant. 
 She was here to do so now, but there was no time to be 
 lost. Detection was, perhaps, a question of minutes. 
 
 As he listened to her, Arthur Stuyvesant again grew 
 limp with fear. His knees shook ; the subtleties of the 
 case escaped him. He was even inclined to regard 
 Sallie as a sort of disinterested benefactress. She was 
 doing a noble deed for his sake. He had entirely mis- 
 judged her. And a wave of irrepressible coxcombry 
 swept through his mind. Perhaps, after all, she was 
 not utterly indifferent to his personality. She might 
 be and probably was interested in him. It was a 
 comforting thought, and in this moment of quaking 
 apprehension, it possessed more than mere soothing 
 qualities. 
 
 "It was good of you, Miss Sydenham," he said. "I 
 regret that I did not get the letter. As you say, there 
 is no time to be lost. This is certainly a most distress- 
 ing dilemma, and there is nothing to do but clear 
 out. , ."
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 265 
 
 "Miss Sydenham is probably alarming us unneces- 
 sarily," Miss Hampton drawled, "or alarming you ; for 
 I confess that the situation does not appeal to me. May 
 I ask, Miss Sydenham, why the affairs of Mr. Childers 
 are so vital to you ?" Then, with an insolence that was 
 almost sublime, she added: "Is it possible that daily 
 intercourse in a newspaper office has given you a more 
 than professional interest in my cousin? If so, I will 
 withdraw. As you may imagine, I can do so without 
 any heartache. I am not in love with your managing 
 editor." 
 
 Sallie felt a dead weight at her heart. She would 
 have liked to do physical violence to this girl, who was 
 so astonishingly devoid of even the feminine instincts 
 of modesty and shame. 
 
 "My sentiments toward Mr. Childers need not con- 
 cern you," she said. "I am quite aware that you would 
 not understand them. And please try to believe that 
 I am actuated by no desire to save you personally from 
 the results of your shall we say impropriety? Mud 
 is your destination, and to mud you will undoubtedly 
 go. It is apparently your natural preference. But 
 Mr. Stuyvesant, for his own sake, will assuredly save 
 the situation." 
 
 There was a trace of "Kilkenny cat" in this ... it 
 sounded rather suspiciously like Billingsgate . . . but 
 Sallie could not restrain herself. She was cruelly af- 
 fronted by Miss Hampton's oblique outlook. Mr. Stuy- 
 vesant for a moment felt that he was in duty bound to 
 resent this language, but . . . there was no time for 
 recrimination. Miss Hampton herself glanced towards 
 her lover for the championship of her cause, a vindic- 
 tive gleam in her gray, pool-like eyes, that had some- 
 how lost their opal fires. Her impulse was to turn 
 Miss Sydenham out, and to calmly await developments
 
 266 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 the coming of which were powerless to affright her. 
 The idea of being labelled in dual iniquity with Arthur 
 Stuyvesant caused her no dismay. It would be a nine- 
 days' sensation, and she felt amply strong enough to 
 live through it. Nothing ever lasted more than nine 
 days. A big fire or a murder would oust her "affair" 
 from the public mind ; and there were always big fires 
 and murders. 
 
 "In the meantime, Ivy," he said, "you must go, and 
 you must not return here. We can discuss matters 
 later. You must go now this very moment. Had 
 it not been for sheer, blind luck that kept me away 
 from these rooms owing to my theatrical engagements 
 we should have been discovered long before this. 
 Never mind Miss Sydenham's motives, Ivy. Put on 
 your things and . . . go. Go at once. I will pack 
 up a few belongings, pay my rent and end it all. Go, 
 Ivy, please . . . please go, for my sake." 
 
 She stood there like a statue, watching his gusty fear 
 and listening to his hurried words. Then she slowly 
 moved to the alcove room, and began to obey him. 
 
 "Very well," she said. "For your sake I will go. 
 We can find another place." 
 
 "Hurry, Mr. Stuyvesant," said Sallie, feverishly, for 
 the time had passed quickly and the peril became mo- 
 mentarily more acute. "I will help you to pack. Only 
 only get this this woman out." 
 
 Ivy heard her words, and for a moment a fear as- 
 sailed her. She remembered seeing Sallie with her lover 
 on the night of Owldom's reception, and the strange 
 sensation that it had given her. Suppose that this was 
 all a ruse on the part of a girl who did not look re- 
 spectable, and who, therefore, could not be respectable, 
 to fasten her tentacles upon Arthur? Yet it was ab- 
 surd. She knew full \vell that Miss Sydenham could
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 267 
 
 not be Arthur's style. She was about to hint at her 
 fear, and to make sarcastic allusions to the recklessness 
 of leaving them together even for a few minutes; but 
 she decided that even a hint would be too monstrous. 
 She looked at the rowdily dressed girl, with scarcely a 
 vestige of good looks left, and . . . she felt quite safe. 
 So she simply said : "You will hurry, Arthur, and leave 
 as soon as you can?" 
 
 And Sallie understood. She could not repress a fee- 
 ble shot at them both, though it was wanting in dig- 
 nity, and seemed to place her on their repulsive level. 
 "He will be intact, Mrs. Compton, v she said, accenting 
 the alias. "You need not be afraid. If I went in for 
 actors, I should choose those who have no ties. I don't 
 believe in going thirds with a wife and child. I want 
 all or nothing. You are not as greedy, I perceive. Go 
 ahead, Mrs. Compton. I will help Mr. Compton to 
 get out as quickly as he can. Hurry up, little Comp- 
 ton, and don't mind me." 
 
 It did her good to utter these swiftly ridiculous 
 words, beneath which she could see that he writhed. 
 Miss Hampton was unmoved. She was calmly don- 
 ning her every-day clothes. She removed the peignoir 
 and stood before them bare-necked and bare-armed, 
 without the slightest appreciation of the gross indeli- 
 cacy of the proceeding. Sallie, who prided herself 
 upon all sorts and conditions of Bohemianism and who 
 loved to say, and often said : "I'm no prude," experi- 
 enced a thick discomfort as she watched Miss Hamp- 
 ton buttoning her dress, fastening her shoes, and omit- 
 ting no details. Mr. Stuyvesant, in the meantime, was 
 unearthing trunks, boxes, dress-suit cases, and hastily 
 arranging for the finality. 
 
 "Good-bye," said Ivy, draping the dark veil over her 
 face. "After all, I was due home at this time. Mamma
 
 268 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 is dining out as usual but she promised to be back 
 earlier. So, even if Miss Sydenham had not burst upon 
 us like a ray of salvation, I could not have stayed much 
 longer. Good-bye, Arthur. Kiss me. You'll hear 
 from me to-morrow. I shall not be idle. Adieu." 
 
 He would gladly have been spared the ill-ease of kiss- 
 ing her before Sallie Sydenham. He flushed, and tried 
 to avoid it. But Miss Hampton was perfectly indiffer- 
 ent to the ineffectiveness of public embrace. Had there 
 been a seething mob in the room she would not have 
 been balked of her kiss. Her outlook was warped; 
 and if he, by injudicious cynicism and the argument of 
 fallacy, had helped to warp it, he must pay the penalty 
 now. He could not conceal his chagrin, as he kissed 
 her. It was so evident that Sallie, in the tumult of this 
 disgraceful night, was obliged to smile. Never had 
 kiss been more unlover-like. It was a sort of sweet re- 
 venge to her. She was glad that Ivy made a fool of 
 him; she rejoiced to see that he hated being made a 
 fool of. And what a fool he looked ! She laughed 
 aloud carefully, deliberately, savoring the luxury of 
 pardonable spite. 
 
 Miss Hampton glanced at the array of trunks, cases, 
 baskets, and . . . hated to go. 
 
 "Be careful how you pack the ornaments," she said, 
 in soft tones. "I shall be furious if you break those 
 Cupids, Arthur. They are the only decent things we 
 have in this hole. Jack gave them to me for my birth- 
 day. He asked me the other day where they were. 
 Of course, I couldn't tell him, but I said that they were 
 quite safe. So do be careful. Jack would be so angry 
 if anything happened to them." 
 
 She glanced with amused eyes at Miss Sydenham 
 and enjoyed the idea of shocking her. And how mar- 
 vellous it was that Miss Sydenham could be shocked !
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 269 
 
 Ivy found it almost impossible to believe that this girl 
 of Tenderloin aspect was, after all, convention-proof. 
 It seemed too ludicrous. "Les apparences sont trom- 
 peuses," a line of her early French days, occurred to 
 her. They were indeed. If this newspaper woman 
 were so intensely respectable, why was she such a 
 sight ? Why did she write such boldly suggestive arti- 
 cles ? Miss Hampton, who had always read Miss Syd- 
 enham's work in spite of Mrs. Hampton had surely 
 detected epigrams, witty remarks, novel view-points, 
 all called forth by illicit plays, and situations fifty times 
 worse than the simple reality of a girl, and a clandes- 
 tine lover. 
 
 She left them, and they heard her slowly descending 
 the stairs. She returned a moment later, with pro- 
 voking insistence, merely to say that her slippers were 
 under the bed and not to forget them. Then she was 
 gone in reality, and they heard the outside door close. 
 
 Left alone with Arthur Stuyvesant, Sallie felt a sen- 
 sation of relief that was simply luxurious. The dan- 
 ger had been effectively averted. Ivy had been ousted, 
 before detective Sylvester Jackson had shown up. The 
 situation was saved; the rendezvous was broken up; 
 nothing could happen. The removal of the terrific 
 strain to which she had been subjected, was so grateful 
 that the tears rushed to her eyes and her hands trem- 
 bled. She felt insanely thankful to Arthur Stuyvesant 
 for promptness of action, even though she completely 
 realized that he acted neither for her sake, nor for that 
 of Mr. Childers, nor for the safety of Ivy Hampton, 
 but solely, exclusively, unremittingly for his own. The 
 most unyielding selfishness egotism, in its most ran- 
 cid and pernicious form had actuated him. He was, 
 in reality, a coward, a traitor, and a fool. Still, she 
 felt grateful to him, for her work had been successfully
 
 270 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 accomplished. Had he been braver, more defiant, more 
 genuinely devoted to the shameless woman who had 
 just left, she would still have been here in the midst of 
 the danger. 
 
 Sallie sat quivering. There was no need for her to 
 remain a moment longer, but . . . but . . . she craved 
 to see them both safely away. Miss Hampton might 
 return ... it was just the sort of thing she would do 
 ... in order to prove her already sufficiently proven 
 disdain for the conventions and the proprieties. And 
 if she came back, she might prevail upon this shaken 
 thing called man to trust to chance. Such a possibil- 
 ity, far fetched though it assuredly was, caused Sallie 
 to sit there, and to gather up her forces to help him in 
 his demolition of the apartment. 
 
 Her strength returned to her, and her lightness of 
 heart with it. It had all been very trying, but she had 
 much to be thankful for. She took a few cheap pic- 
 tures from the wall and handed them to him. She re- 
 moved half a dozen photographs from the mantel- 
 piece. It gave her a shock to find among the staring 
 collection a picture of Jack Childers. This proved to 
 her the completion of Miss Hampton's moral disinte- 
 gration. She not only ruthlessly betrayed her fiance, 
 but she flaunted his portrait where she could look upon 
 it in her communion with the actor. It was the acme 
 of perfidy, the very ecstasy of infamy. 
 
 On the picture she read in Jack's handwriting: "Is 
 it not very handsome?" Poor Jack! Little had he 
 imagined the uses to which his portrait would be put. 
 As he wrote those foolish, lightly penned words, it had 
 not occurred to him to invest them with an ironical sub- 
 tlety. A temptation to take the portrait and to keep 
 it, assailed her, but she resisted it. It was not hers, 
 . . she did not want it. It had been given to
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 271 
 
 this woman, and it should stay with her. Perhaps later 
 on, when the day of remorse came (for Sallie was old- 
 fashioned enough to believe that days of remorse al- 
 ways came in cases like these; she had read that they 
 did), Miss Hampton would writhe at this remem- 
 brance of days that were easier and brighter. When 
 she had trampled herself in the mud (mud was Miss 
 Sydenham's invariable synonym for degradation), she 
 would look at this bland, smiling picture with the friv- 
 olous inscription, and curse herself. 
 
 The dismantlement of the room was completing itself 
 swiftly. She gave her assistance to Mr. Stuyvesant, 
 who, now that Miss Hampton had gone, seemed unduly 
 hurried. He had suggested to Sallie the advisability 
 of departing. He could get along very well alone, 
 thanks . . . there was really no need for her to re- 
 main ... it was extremely kind of her. She did not 
 address him, as her sense of repulsion, in spite of all, 
 was too great. She regarded him as though he were a 
 reptile in a zoological garden. His antics, his move- 
 ments, his haste, his excitement . . . she saw them all, 
 as though she were a spectator at a public performance. 
 He was one of the finest parodies on man that she had 
 ever noticed. Still, the situation was saved. That 
 fact seemed to buzz in her ears. It was a splendid 
 achievement. At least half an hour had passed since 
 Miss Hampton had left. She was now at home in all 
 her beautiful arch girlhood, with the silver-gold hair 
 knotted at the nape of her neck. And she was talking 
 ingenuously to Mrs. Hampton and telling pretty stories 
 of the girl-friends she had visited, and the "very pleas- 
 ant afternoon" she had spent. And Mrs. Hampton 
 was quite satisfied. Sallie could almost see the silly old 
 dame with the gold-rimmed lorgnettes aping the man- 
 nerisms of the ultra-exclusive. And through the gold
 
 272 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 lorgnettes she saw nothing . . . absolutely nothing. 
 Gold lorgnettes were inadequate to the task of focus- 
 ing the truth. They could not see into the heart of 
 the turgid young woman with the silver-gold hair. 
 Perhaps gold lorgnettes emitting X-rays would have 
 been equally incompetent to penetrate the opacity of 
 Ivy Hampton. 
 
 She tossed the varied articles to Arthur Stuyvesant, 
 and watched him idly as he deposited them in the open 
 receptacles. The task was nearly finished. In ten 
 minutes the home of the Comptons would be a shell 
 ... an empty husk. She remembered Ivy Hamp- 
 ton's slippers, and stooped to gather them up. They 
 were red, embroidered in heavy gold, pointed, thin, 
 pretty. She handed them to him. . . . 
 
 At that moment an insufferable odor of escaping gas 
 reached her nostrils. It was so strong, so unmistak- 
 able, that it caused her to gasp. Arthur Stuyvesant 
 had become aware of the same thing. Undoubtedly 
 there was a leak somewhere. Without speaking, they 
 both tried the gas-brackets, to see if, by some mistake, 
 they had been turned on. Nobody had tampered with 
 the gas ... it had not been touched. Whence came 
 the pungent odor, and why had it so suddenly forced 
 itself upon them? Sallie grew restive. She had no 
 desire to be found here in this apartment, pictur- 
 esquely suffocated with Mr. Stuyvesant. It would be 
 too horrible not the suffocation, but the juxtaposition 
 with the actor. A nauseating idea suddenly seized her. 
 She took her hat from the peg upon which she had 
 hung it, and . . . 
 
 She heard voices outside evidently discussing gas. 
 There was a murmur, a whisper, a scarcely perceptible 
 brou-haha. Then somebody knocked at the door, loud- 
 ly, boldly, and cried : "Open at once. There is an es- 
 cape of gas."
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 273 
 
 Sallie stood in the alcove, by the Wfl, from which she 
 had just rescued Miss Hampton's red-gold slippers. 
 Arthur Stuyvesant went to the door and threw it open. 
 An instant later a well-dressed, tan-gloved man entered. 
 He walked up to the nearest gas-bracket and made a 
 feint of testing it. Then he looked at the room, de- 
 voured Miss Sydenham with his eyes, as though not a 
 detail of her dress, not a line of her form, not a 
 feature of her face should escape him. Sallie stood 
 paralyzed with astonishment. Arthur Stuyvesant, red 
 to the roots of the hair, understood. 
 
 Miss Sydenham was not left long in perplexity. The 
 well-dressed, tan-gloved man was followed by a timid, 
 reluctant youth, in whom Sallie immediately recog- 
 nized little Robinson, the reporter. 
 
 "It's all right, Robinson," said the man. "Nothing 
 more." Then, with ironical politeness : "Thank you, 
 Mr. and Mrs. Compton. I find that the gas was escap- 
 ing in the hall only. I have just turned it off. A 
 thousand pardons for disturbing you." 
 
 Little Robinson, shaking from his boots upward, 
 white, distraught, amazed, stood staring at Sallie Syd- 
 enham as she was revealed in the dismantled room, 
 smiling at him yes, positively smiling at him. He 
 sat down and passed his hand over his eyes. Detective 
 Sylvester Jackson, always ineffably busy, had left. Lit- 
 tle Robinson had made one effort to detain him to say 
 something anything but he felt incoherent. The 
 detective, smiling at this very apparent instance of re- 
 portorial human weakness, had merely patted him in- 
 dulgently on the shoulder. He had other fish to fry. 
 He had already popped the "mysterious veiled lady" 
 into a very wide-open saucepan. 
 
 "You!" cried little Robinson at last, his loyal heart 
 wrung. "You, Miss Sydenham. I don't believe it. 
 It isn't true. Tell me say it isn't true."
 
 274 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 "But it is, Robinson," Sallie replied energetically. 
 "You came here with the worthy Mr. Jackson to find 
 Mr. Arthur Stuyvesant's accomplice. And, well you 
 can't find her, dear boy, can you? The truth is that 
 there was no accomplice. It was a pretty story, but it 
 wasn't true, was it, Mr. Stuyvesant?" 
 
 She did not understand. Arthur Stuyvesant, hard 
 as his hide was, realized that she did not understand. 
 In her fitful joy at the certainty that Jack Childers' 
 cousin was far from the scene of "detectiving" she 
 could grasp nothing else. An honest sentiment of gen- 
 uine pity came into his heart. 
 
 "Of course it wasn't true," he said boisterously. 
 "There was nobody here, and you came just to just 
 to interview me for the . . . paper." 
 
 Little Robinson sat there and moaned : "It is hate- 
 ful. It is detestable." Then, "What shall I say, Miss 
 Sydenham ? Help me out." 
 
 She laughed at him. Could it be that he was agi- 
 tated merely because he was balked of his prey? For 
 he surely was balked. He had accompanied the de- 
 tective, certain of discovering the identity of the wo- 
 man of mystery. And lo, there was no mystery! 
 There was, moreover, no woman. It was really rather 
 amusing. 
 
 "You can say you found me," she cried hilariously. 
 "Poor old Green will fall off his chair with mortifica- 
 tion. It is a pity that we can't oblige him. Perhaps 
 he will even try to picture me . . . as the veiled 
 lady." 
 
 Her own words awoke her. She saw the situation 
 for the first time. The white, drawn face of little Rob- 
 inson gave her a shock. Yes, she quite understood 
 . . . but it was too absurd . . . too preposterously 
 grotesque . . . too overdrawn. 
 
 The three of them sat there staring at one another.
 
 n 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 HE devotion of a very young man to a woman 
 somewhat his senior is not unusual, and it is 
 not lacking in a certain crude and picturesque 
 beauty. Its predominant flavor is chivalry, 
 rather than mere physical attraction, though perhaps 
 it is never wholly platonic. The woman generally re- 
 sponds with some awakened instinct of maternity. 
 Little Robinson's attachment to Sallie Sydenham be- 
 longed to this order of affection. He admired her sin- 
 cerely in his earnest, boyish fashion. Many a time 
 had he defended her against the crass insinuations of 
 Owldom and checked the insensate reportorial jests of 
 his colleagues. He had fought battles for her unasked, 
 and, in diffident knighthood, had pledged himself to 
 her support. He did not attempt to fathom the whim- 
 sicalities of her character, nor to argue pro and con 
 with respect to her unconventional behavior. He sim- 
 ply accepted it. It was ; it existed. His not to reason 
 why. 
 
 Little Robinson was very young. Had he lived a 
 century earlier he would have done interesting things 
 in an interesting way. In Owldom he was unhappy. 
 The vulgarity of his daily tasks offended his simple, 
 chivalrous nature. Perpetual contact with the doings 
 of unlovely people, and the happenings in their tight- 
 wedged world, went against his grain. He could not 
 accustom himself to the vagaries of Newspaper Row, 
 and, although he had long ago made up his mind to do 
 the best he could, it was a feeble best, with little prom- 
 ise in its wake. 
 
 The shock of this astounding denouement to the
 
 276 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 banal history of adultery that Mr. Green had yum- 
 yummed as a tit-bit of a particularly choice description 
 benumbed his energies. For a time he was unable to 
 think. Detective Sylvester Jackson had focused the 
 picture of the woman discovered with Arthur Stuyve- 
 sant in his mind's eye, blissfully convinced that he could 
 "identify her in court" if necessary, and he had gone. 
 As the power to think returned to him, little Robinson 
 wondered if, in his distress, he had revealed her name. 
 He could not remember; he rather thought that he 
 had. He was ignorant of the intricacies of divorce 
 subtleties, and had no knowledge of the methods that 
 they followed. 
 
 Arthur Stuyvesant was the first to puncture the 
 thick, gray, resilient silence. Although the role played 
 by Miss Sydenham was unintelligible to him, he 
 grasped the danger of his position. He disliked the 
 woman who had been a stumbling block in his way for 
 so long, but he had no desire to see her branded in this 
 manner. He dimly reasoned that the "paper" might 
 "do something" to prevent publicity, now that one of its 
 most admired contributors was apparently involved. 
 He felt safe ; still, selfish and utterly personal though 
 he was, he realized that the blithe injustice of "appear- 
 ances" in this case was too flagrant. 
 
 "Of course you will understand," he said, "and your 
 city editor will understand, that Miss Sydenham's pres- 
 ence here was purely accidental. She will explain it. 
 You look disturbed. Pray consider how very unneces- 
 sary such agitation is." 
 
 Sallie, though she at last realized the possible signifi- 
 cance of the event, recovered herself quickly and palely 
 rose to the occasion. 
 
 "Don't be a silly boy, Robinson," she said. "It is all 
 as clear as a pikestaff. I am poor but honest, as you
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 277 
 
 know. Go downtown, tell Mr. Green the truth, and 
 nothing but the truth, and I'll explain later. After all, 
 old man, I think they all like me in the office. They 
 have always treated me well, and I have nothing to 
 fear. One word from me, and and they'll see it all. 
 Don't look so blank, dear little chap." 
 
 If ten men, with Bibles in their hands, had sworn to 
 this boy to this little loyal excrescence on the skin of 
 a sordid age that he would have found in this 
 room . . . what he had found ... he would have 
 jeered derisively. He would have refused to believe. 
 But he was confronted by the evidence of his own 
 senses, and the sight overwhelmed him. Some philoso- 
 phers maintain that the testimony of sense is fallacious ; 
 but poor little Robinson was not a philosopher. 
 
 "Explain to me, Miss Sydenham," he implored pite- 
 ously. "Explain to me. I I . . . you know I like 
 you so much. Explain to me. Bother the office. Do 
 you think I wouldn't rather give the whole thing up 
 than go near Mr. Green, or any of them again than 
 cause you trouble make things hard for you? Ex- 
 plain to me . . . not because you have to, or for the 
 sake of the newspaper^ but because I am I am your 
 friend. Explain to me. Do." 
 
 He was tremulously in earnest, and even the hard- 
 shell sophistication of Arthur Stuyvesant was pro- 
 foundly touched. Sallie was inclined to weaken under 
 this stress of a so evident attachment. She had always 
 liked little Robinson. Now she could have kissed him 
 in warm approval of his sentiments, and not because 
 they referred to her. But it would never do to wax 
 pathetic and all that sort of thing. She braced her- 
 self up. 
 
 "There is nothing to explain, Robinson," she said 
 lightly. "Instead of discovering a naughty lady in this
 
 278 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 apartment . . . you found me. And you know me. I 
 am very beautiful, but not dangerous. I am an ex- 
 quisite creature, but am warranted to be harmless. It 
 is very mortifying, of course and very rough on Mr. 
 Stuyvesant He is a gentleman of marvellous tact and 
 culture. He is therefore acquitted on the spot. The 
 driven snow is tainted, compared with me. Can you 
 not see the unmistakable glance of bland and baby-like 
 gentleness in my neat blue eye in both my neat blue 
 eyes? ..." 
 
 "Don't," cried the boy "don't. Don't make fun at 
 a time like this. Just tell me why you were here . . . 
 that is all. I I must know." 
 
 She wondered what .she could say, and cast about in 
 her mind for a fitting response. Apparently she 
 needed to be "set right" even before this devoted little 
 boy. But she could not tell him the truth. As she be- 
 came aware of this, she grew nervous and embarrassed. 
 She had no desire to be a martyr and a heroine. In 
 plays and books, of course, it was always very lovely 
 for a girl to immolate herself, when a few cheap words 
 would render the immolation unnecessary. 
 
 Arthur Stuyvesant tried to come to her rescue. 
 "Don't worry Miss Sydenham," he said. "I told you 
 that she was here to interview me on my opinions on 
 art, or the drama, or the future of the stage . . . and 
 so forth." 
 
 "No," Robinson retorted bitterly. "Miss Syden- 
 ham wouldn't want to interview you you of all men. 
 The paper wouldn't print your views. You have none 
 except on women and forbidden topics. You are a 
 coward a cur a beast " 
 
 Robinson rose, blood in his eye, prepared to inflict 
 dire chastisement upon the thickset actor. He was 
 small, but he felt that he could do it. He itched to dis-
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 279 
 
 figure the smug, smiling face, and to pound the body 
 that took up so much valuable space. Sallie at first 
 felt inclined to let him do his worst. She sympathized 
 with the boy's worthy indignation, and the idea of the 
 fat actor, lying stretched on the floor, done into stupor 
 by honest physical blows, appealed to her. But it 
 would only make matters worse, and present another 
 loophole to the scandal-mongers. Mr. Stuyvesant, 
 pale, and not precisely in the humor to defend himself, 
 moved away, and Sallie pushed the reporter back into 
 his chair. 
 
 "You mustn't," she said quietly. "You have called 
 Mr. Stuyvesant rather hard names. I endorse them. 
 He is all that you say a coward a cur a beast." 
 Her eyes flashed, and her indignation emphasized it- 
 self. "He is even more and he knows it. And now, 
 Mr. Robinson, you will realize that, under these cir- 
 cumstances, the blindest fool could not imagine, could 
 not believe that my appearance here had any subtleties. 
 But I'll tell you the truth, as you seem so very anxious 
 about it. I was here to warn Mr. Stuyvesant, and that 
 is all. I had already warned him, and had you arrived 
 an hour later, you would have discovered that the bird 
 had flown. That is the truth and now you know it." 
 
 "But why did you warn him?" The little reporter 
 plunged from one labyrinth into another. Personally, 
 he was satisfied when he heard her echo his own vitu- 
 perative epithets. But the world could not hear this, 
 and the world would want to know why she was here. 
 "Why did you warn him? What interest had you in 
 him? What did you care whether we found him, or 
 whether we didn't find him? What " 
 
 "That will do," Sallie said imperiously. "That is 
 enough. I have explained all that it is necessary to 
 explain. You are not a very loyal friend . . . you
 
 280 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 are very ready to believe in appearances. If you really 
 liked me, as you say you do and as I thought you 
 did you would not want every i dotted and every t 
 crossed. It is not nice or kind." 
 
 But she knew that she was unjust. She was quite 
 aware that the boy was endeavoring to formulate a 
 plausible, logical statement in her favor. He would 
 have to describe a scene without the little embellish- 
 ments of actuality. He was anxious to sketch a clean, 
 determined picture which should be clean and deter- 
 mined without her appearance in its foreground. 
 Still, she could do no more. She could not hint at 
 the presence of another woman, revealing all but the 
 name. That would merely pique Mr. Green's curios- 
 ity all the more. The mole-hill would become a stu- 
 pendous mountain, or rather, the mountain would de- 
 velop into a whole range. Mr. Stuyvesant had retired 
 to the alcove gladly enough, and was finishing his 
 packing. He had been insulted by them both ; it was 
 his cue to leave them to "fight it out" between them. 
 
 "Miss Sydenham," said little Robinson, desperately, 
 "won't you tell me? You are of course quite inno- 
 cent. I was a brute, a contemptible jackass I ought 
 to be kicked around the universe for thinking when 
 I first came into this room . . . oh, you know . . . 
 how could I help it? Just outside Jackson said to me, 
 'Now, you'll see the woman. The first look inside the 
 door will give the whole snap away.' And then, after 
 that humiliating, sneaking, dastardly business with the 
 gas, when we entered ... I saw you! Can you 
 blame me, Miss Sydenham? But, thank Heaven, you 
 loathe that man that wife-deserter! I might have 
 been quite sure that you did. You were here to warn 
 him. You won't say why or of what. You will tell 
 me nothing more. Then, Miss Sydenham, I shall not
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 281 
 
 go back to the office. I will never report there again 
 and to-morrow I shall send in my resignation." 
 
 He folded his arms and sat back in his chair, the 
 light of a clear motive in his eyes. And Sallie was 
 frightened, for she knew that reporters were always 
 poor, and she felt that there was another string to this 
 tragedy, and that little Robinson, robbed of employ- 
 ment, would starve in a big, cruel city. She did not 
 stop to think of the absurd rapidity of this unjustifi- 
 able conclusion. She was overwrought, unable to 
 cope any further with a situation that projected a stone 
 wall in all directions. This was the last straw that 
 broke the camel's back. She saw him on a doorstep, 
 white and emaciated, in rags and tatters, crying for a 
 crust and moaning perhaps about his mother and 
 the home of his childhood. Her sense of humor took 
 unto itself wings and flew aloft. She burst into tears. 
 
 "Oh, you are cruel!" she sobbed. "You really are, 
 and I don't know what to do. If you give up your 
 position, what will happen? You will be wandering 
 around the streets . . . and you will get to look like 
 old Witherby . . . with nothing to rely on but 'beats.' 
 You make me feel that I am a wretch. I wish I were 
 guilty and that you had caught me. It would be eas- 
 ier, and I shouldn't care. Promise, promise that you 
 won't resign . . ." 
 
 Little Robinson grew frantic as he saw her tears. 
 Sallie Sydenham weeping! Sallie, light-hearted, friv- 
 olous, nimble-tongued, feather-brained, elastic-mooded 
 crying like this! It was all most amazing, and if 
 she could have thought about it it would have been 
 more amazing to her. But the strain of recent events 
 had been severe. Something had snapped, suddenly, 
 in the wrong place of course, in the wrong place 
 and she could not repress herself.
 
 282 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 "Sallie," he said unsteadily, "for goodness' sake, 
 don't cry. I was a fool to talk as I did. I won't re- 
 sign; I promise I won't. My dear, dear girl, do try 
 and be calm. Even if I did resign, I assure you that I 
 shouldn't starve. I am a most able-bodied person, and 
 I daresay I have nine lives. But I won't do it. I'll 
 stand it all. Tell me what to do, and I'll do it. Let's 
 put our heads together and see what we can arrange." 
 
 Sallie wept steadily on and the more she attempted 
 to restrain herself the more unable she seemed to re- 
 gain her composure. The one touch of pathos that 
 the situation needed seemed to have been supplied by 
 little Robinson. She would have reproached herself 
 so bitterly if this accursed entanglement had reacted 
 upon his welfare. He was a foolish, impulsive boy, 
 and she liked him very much indeed. She was fond 
 of him in a sane and elder-sisterly way. 
 
 He was hopelessly perplexed and very deeply de- 
 jected. He took her hand and dared reverently to 
 smooth her hair, and he said ludicrous, soothing 
 phrases, such as "There now !" "That's it !" Gradu- 
 ally her mood spent itself, and she dried her eyes and 
 tried to smile and to consider the outlook alertly. 
 
 "Thank you," she said, half laughing, as he uttered 
 "There now !" again, and capped it with a "That's it," 
 as though the remedial qualities of those phrases were 
 beyond cavil. "I am quite ashamed of myself, old 
 chap, but you made me cry. I sha'n't do it again ; you 
 needn't be afraid. I wonder what Mr. Childers would 
 say if he saw a jolly good fellow like me in tears. It 
 is quite unmanly, isn't it? It is a pastime for weak 
 women, and I'm not a weak woman, I'm thankful to 
 say." 
 
 She was ashamed for Stuyvesant to see her in tears ; 
 but the actor, busy at his work, had paid little attention
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 283 
 
 to them. He had now finished his packing, and there 
 was nothing further for him to do but leave. Every- 
 thing was labelled with the address of a storage house, 
 and in the morning the goods would be sent for, and 
 the home of the Comptons finally dismantled. As far 
 as Ivy Hampton was concerned, the situation, he 
 thought, hadn't a leg to stand on. Of that much he 
 felt certain. He was distinctly uncomfortable and ill 
 at ease in the knowledge that the young people before 
 him despised him too completely for expression. It 
 was not a cosy situation, and Stuyvesant, replete as 
 he was with blunt edges, thoroughly realized that. 
 They had each of them called him a cur . . . and the 
 force of this double suggestion made itself sentient. 
 But except in the garish melodrama that is flashed 
 before an indiscriminating public, the worst villain is 
 not as black as he is painted, and vice is never so thick- 
 ly laid on as to be devoid of ventilation. "Few are as 
 bad as censorious professors imagine," said Richard 
 Baxter, anxious for his "Saints' Everlasting Rest." 
 "In some, indeed, I find that human nature is cor- 
 rupted into a greater likeness to devils than I once 
 thought any on earth had been. But even in the 
 wicked there is more for grace to take advantage of, 
 and more to testify for God and holiness, than I once 
 believed there had been." 
 
 Arthur Stuyvesant felt that this clever woman would 
 save the situation entirely. He did not even contem- 
 plate the possibility grotesque and caricature-like 
 of finding his name coupled with hers. The powerful 
 wheels of journalism would undoubtedly interpose. It 
 was all very trying, and the distress of the two news- 
 paper cogs affected him. He would willingly have ap- 
 plied balm to their feelings if it had been in his power 
 to do so. But his sphere was restricted. The most
 
 284 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 decent thing that he could now do was to leave them. 
 Yet he must avoid thanking her, or giving any clue to 
 the blurred outlines of the map, by which the boy could 
 profit. It was annoying, because a silent departure 
 made him look even more blackguardly than was neces- 
 sary. 
 
 "I am ready, Miss Sydenham, and I will go," he said. 
 "Can I be of any use? No? Well, if you will kindly 
 turn out the lights and close the doors when you leave, 
 you will be very kind. The villain slinks away," he 
 added, with an uneasy laugh for little Robinson's bene- 
 fit, "but, in this case, Mr. Robinson, he is misjudged. 
 Appearances certainly proved their own treachery." 
 Then, theatrically, "Miss Sydenham, of course, is sans 
 peur et sans reproche. It goes without saying." 
 
 When he had left, Sallie's sense of humor came back 
 swiftly, as though completely ashamed of its temporary 
 absence. She saw the absurd side of things, and Mr. 
 Stuyvesant's last words filled her with irresistible 
 mirth. 
 
 "That!" she cried in uncontrollable merriment 
 "that! I am sans peur et sans reproche, and it goes 
 without saying! Isn't it killing simply too scream- 
 ing? Imagine the farce of having to 'say' anything! 
 He is really a very amusingly revolting person. I 
 should think that even on a desert island he would be 
 de trop, shouldn't you, Robinson? And you thought 
 when you came into this room no, I can't believe it. 
 You didn't really, did you, old boy? Now, own up. 
 You thought that it was very quaint and inexplicable, 
 but you didn't imagine " 
 
 The conviction of her mood was so absolute that 
 little Robinson began to earnestly wonder how he could 
 have been such an ass. What was there, even in the 
 seeming testimony of one's own eyes, to warrant such
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 285 
 
 a ridiculous supposition? Are the eyes and the ears 
 impervious to the rays of logic ? Little Robinson pon- 
 dered the question . . . and then it occurred to him 
 quite unpleasantly that though his conviction was in- 
 eradicable, it was still not backed up by any luminous 
 explanation. He had forgotten this fact; now he re- 
 called it. 
 
 "Tell me," she persisted, "if you really thought that 
 I was the veiled beauty ? Do. Then I shall no longer 
 write about improbable plays, or bother to criticize 
 things because they could not be possible. I shall try 
 to believe in everything, and when I remember this 
 I feel certain that I shall succeed." 
 
 "Of course," he said haltingly, "I was very much 
 worked up, and I explained to you how Mr. Jackson 
 had arranged things. He told me that I should surely 
 see the guilty woman as soon as the door was opened. 
 And I saw you. I didn't stop to reason. I was a fool, 
 of course; I know it now. But but don't remind 
 me of it, Sallie." 
 
 "I notice," she remarked good-naturedly, "that you 
 are calling me Sallie. Don't mind me. I like it. 
 Keep on calling me Sallie, old boy. It's my name. 
 And as you've acquitted me and labelled me not guilty, 
 I'm going to do a nice thing for you. I intend to in- 
 troduce you to a very pretty sister of mine. You must 
 come up and dine with us, and we'll have high old 
 times." 
 
 Little Robinson did not seem to be wildly elated at 
 the prospect of an introduction to Sallie's sister. But 
 he was anxious to decently manipulate the frayed edges 
 of this situation. Miss Sydenham apparently looked 
 upon events with her accustomed cheeriness of out- 
 look and could turn to other topics but the young 
 reporter felt that nothing had really happened to miti-
 
 286 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 gate the ugliness of the prospect. All that had really 
 occurred might be called internal illumination. But 
 it was with externals that they had to deal. 
 
 "I am to go to the office " he began. 
 
 "Yes," she assented; and she gave her orders with 
 slow emphasis. "You are to go to the office like a 
 good boy and a conscientious little reporter and 
 you are to see Mr. Green and you are to laugh and 
 you are to say in a rather vexed tone, 'Mr. Green, I'm 
 sorry to say that the only woman we found with Arthur 
 Stuyvesant was Sallie Sydenham,' and " 
 
 "Don't you think," interrupted little Robinson, "that 
 it would be more telling if I went in laughing, and said 
 something like this : 'Oh, Mr. Green, such a sell ! The 
 whole story has caved in, for there was no mystery 
 and no veiled lady. We found him simply discussing 
 platitudes with Miss Sydenham.' Don't you think that 
 would be more forcible more diplomatic?" 
 
 "No," she replied ; and she could not resist a smile 
 at the boy's labored Machiavellianism. "It would be 
 too elaborate, old man. And you must remember that 
 Mr. Green is suspicious by nature, and by choice. Ad- 
 mit that you found a woman, and . . . then mention 
 me. For, after all, I am a woman, Robinson. I find 
 it necessary to remind all my friends of that fact occa- 
 sionally, and I don't quite know why. But let Mr. 
 Green's conviction of the absurdity of the situation 
 come naturally. Don't help it. Don't allow him to 
 think that you are prejudiced either for or against the 
 story. You went to the house with the detective, and 
 you found me. That is all." 
 
 Little Robinson frowned anxiously. Perpendicular 
 lines furrowed themselves down his brow, and he re- 
 flected rather painfully for a moment or two. Then he 
 said: "But suppose Mr, Green should jump to horrid
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 287 
 
 conclusions? If he did if he did oh, Sallie, I should 
 punch him ... I know I should. I couldn't help it; 
 I begin to feel the need of punching somebody. If you 
 had only let me work off steam on the actor! ... I 
 think I'd sooner manage the thing in my own way, if 
 you don't mind, Sallie. If I see that Green, for one 
 second, is inclined to regard the position in a way de- 
 rogatory to you, I ... I ... shall smash him!" 
 
 "Oh, Robinson," she exclaimed, "please, please don't 
 say such things." Then, as she realized the inspired 
 loyalty of this doughty young champion, she went on : 
 "I am so grateful to you, old friend, for your allegi- 
 ance. If, at first, Mr. Green takes an evil view of the 
 case, you must remember that . . . you did it too, 
 Robinson. Yes," holding up her hand as he was about 
 to impulsively interrupt her, "you could not resist the 
 obvious conclusion. But as soon as you began to con- 
 sider it, it showed itself to you as grotesque. The 
 same thing may happen to Mr. Green. Why not? 
 He is a kind man, and I think he likes me, but he is not 
 as staunch an adherent as you are, you silly, impulsive 
 boy. So do not worry yourself about anything that 
 may happen. Go to the office, unburden yourself of 
 your story, and then go horn:. I will see Mr. Green 
 to-morrow, and everything will come out all right; I 
 know it ; I feel it in my bones, and am not in the least 
 afraid. Perhaps," she said rather bitterly, "I have 
 been a bad advertisement for womanhood. I have not 
 done much, in the office, for the dignity of my sex. 
 But, at least, I have never indicated a preference for 
 wanton behavior, and my errors have all been of the 
 pen . . . penny." 
 
 "You have been a brick !" he exclaimed impulsively, 
 "and it was just your unconventionality that won us. 
 Of course, we chattered about you when you said
 
 288 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 risky things, and wrote riskier but it was because we 
 had never met any girl like you. Bad women don't 
 talk; they just think and act. We all know that . . . 
 and I know one or two of the boys who'd fight for you 
 to their last drop of blood." 
 
 "I don't want to be fatten for," she said, with a laugh ; 
 but she was moved by this picturesque devotion, and by 
 the aggressive attitude of the young reporter. "It 
 isn't a case for bloodshed, Robinson," she went on. 
 "Of course, a battle would be rather startling and 
 wouldn't the other papers enjoy it? But," wearily, 
 "the sooner we end all this the better. It is nasty, 
 however one may look at it. The theme is repulsive, 
 and we must drop it, as though it were pitch. Let's 
 go. The atmosphere of this place sickens me." 
 
 "Tell me one thing," he said suddenly, "and I prom- 
 ise never again to allude to the subject. There was a 
 woman here when you arrived?" 
 
 Sallie looked into his eyes splendid, fearless eyes, 
 in which she saw the young, warm radiancy of his 
 sentiment. It was cruel to use this boy blindly to 
 keep him in utter darkness, as though afraid of his 
 chivalry when subjected to an illuminating ray of 
 knowledge. She felt somewhat ashamed of herself. 
 She was behaving like the insensate heroines of the 
 stage, who remain lugubriously silent until the fifth act, 
 to pose as martyrs in the eyes of those who clamor for 
 fifty cents' worth of high-falutin martyrdom. Yet she 
 was bound to be careful . . . for Jack Childers' sake. 
 It was Jack Childers who was at stake, and so far he 
 was luxuriously safe. She hated to jeopardize the 
 position. Still, it was unkind to treat this boy with 
 such crude courtesy. 
 
 "See here, Robinson," she said ; and she went to him 
 and put her hands upon his shoulders and spoke into
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 289 
 
 his eyes "I rely upon your honor upon your honor 
 as a man. You must swear to me, on your solemn 
 oath, that never under any conceivable circumstances 
 will you give me away. You must also swear that 
 you will ask no further questions if I answer this. 
 I ... I do appreciate your devotion, old boy, and that 
 is why I can't help believing that I am too rigid. You 
 swear . . ." 
 
 "So help me God," he said solemnly. 
 
 ''Then," she went on, "there was another woman. 
 She was she was a friend of mine. That is all. Are 
 you satisfied?" 
 
 His eyes lighted up, and he looked at her as though 
 she were a saint, and he half expected to see a halo 
 spreading from her head. To his boyish mind her ac- 
 tion appealed as something super-femininely luminous. 
 He told himself that no mere man could realize the 
 depth and breadth and width of this sacrifice ; for no 
 mere man could ever be called upon to imperil a reputa- 
 tion for chastity . . . inasmuch as no mere man ever 
 coveted such a reputation. To a woman it meant a 
 good deal. He tried to put himself in her place and 
 to imagine what her sensations must have been when 
 for a moment he had judged the situation by its super- 
 ficial measurements. Fool that he had been ! Unrea- 
 soning idiot! And just then he could not find it in 
 his heart to believe that there could possibly be other 
 such fools other such unreasoning idiots. How glad- 
 ly he would go forth and demolish them all ! He felt 
 strong, pugnacious, inspired, as he turned the situation 
 over in his mind. He would have loved to confront 
 any of her possible slanderers, and make them eat their 
 own empty suspicions. He rose, took her hand, and, 
 bowing his head, kissed it, while the tears sprang to 
 his eyes.
 
 290 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 And Sallie battled with herself and sought for the 
 airy moods that of late seemed to be playing hide-and- 
 seek with her. . . . just when she needed them. 
 
 "You can kiss me properly," she said flippantly 
 the mood had arrived, labelled "fragile," however 
 "you needn't bother about my hand. Oh, how you 
 tickled! Positively, old man, the hand-kissing business 
 is most ridiculous, and I should think that kings and 
 queens must be wonderfully un-ticklish. Kisses are 
 silly things at best, but there is no use beating about 
 the hands for them. Please kiss me for my mother." 
 
 But her scatterbrain words had won, and he had no 
 desire for the conventional salute that she suggested. 
 Sallie was quite aware that this courtly boy would not 
 bend forward and peck her on the cheek as soon as 
 she said that he might do so. 
 
 "I move that we herewith adjourn sine die" she 
 said quickly. 
 
 All around them lay the trunks and cases of the dis- 
 rupted Compton menage, and the dismantled room 
 looked as though a conflict had been waged in its 
 midst. In the morning no trace of the drama tliat had 
 been acted in and around it would remain. This was 
 the very "finis," she triumphantly told herself the 
 irrevocable end. The woman was saved; the villain 
 had slunk away, to the hisses of an audience of two. 
 And that audience of two could now withdraw. 
 
 "Ring down the curtain," she cried joyously, "and 
 may it stay down." 
 
 They turned out the gas slowly and went quietly 
 out, meeting nobody, and closing the situation in grim 
 deliberation. 
 
 "And now," said Sallie lightly, as they reached the 
 street and she inhaled the tainted air of the neighbor- 
 hood as though it were a vital draught of bracing
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 291 
 
 ozone, "and now, my boy, you go right down to the of- 
 fice and do your little turn. Tell Mr. Green that I' shall 
 pay him a visit to-morrow evening. Thank you, Rob- 
 inson, so much. I am going to paint you in most glow- 
 ing colors to my sister Lettie. You'll like her, for she 
 is really a charming girl, and awfully jolly. Mind you 
 'speak your piece' well ; stand up like a little man and 
 address the audience nicely. Oh, I'm so tired. I feel 
 about a hundred and ninety-nine in the shade posi- 
 tively decrepit as though I ought to wear a cap and 
 have nice little white curls jiggling around my ears. 
 Good-night, old chap ; good-night." 
 
 He wrung her hand and left her. Her mood had 
 infected him; but as soon as he was alone, dark and 
 dreary misgivings asserted themselves. He tried to 
 oust them from his mind, but without success. He 
 attempted to laugh at his fears, but he could not dis- 
 cover laughter's cue. He was to pillory a noble girl, 
 and then to stand aside and watch her in the antics of 
 torture. He was about to ply a sensation-hungry 
 journalist with a keen scent for deeds, but no olfac- 
 tory perception of motives with a bald story that 
 might stand ashamed in its starkness. And of the real 
 truth Sallie had left him in ignorance. He knew just 
 enough to make him cry out in the stress of starvation 
 for more. The glimmering of truth that was so con- 
 vincing to him would even if he were allowed to hint 
 at it merely add to the possibilities of crass suspicion. 
 "I did it for another woman a friend a nameless 
 friend" that would be the final ignominous support of 
 infamous incredulity. That support he was pledged 
 not to offer. 
 
 Little Robinson felt that the irony of events encom- 
 passed him irremediably.
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 CAN'T bear to think of your confronting the 
 men in the office with this dreadful story," 
 said Lettie, anxiously, after she had thor- 
 oughly threshed out the situation with her 
 sister and they had talked into the "wee sma' hours" 
 in exasperating repetition. "You don't seem to realize 
 it at all, Sallie. It is wonderful to me how you can 
 even contemplate it. You are so bright in some ways 
 and so dense in others. And then don't you think 
 you are awfully conceited to believe that those editors 
 and things will reverse the most obvious opinions 
 just because it is you?" 
 
 For three hours they had argued round a circle, in 
 endless revolution. It was now three o'clock. Two 
 hours earlier, Lettie had made precisely the same re- 
 mark, and then . . . on, on, round the circle. If they 
 continued talking Lettie would arrive again at the iden- 
 tical phrases, and they would be due at five o'clock. 
 And again at seven. Every two hours she would say, 
 "I can't think of your confronting the men in the of- 
 fice" until one of them fell by the wayside in sheer 
 exhaustion. 
 
 "I told you, dear," Sallie said patiently, "that it is 
 because I am I that I dare to confront them. You 
 can't understand, you silly girl, that they don't look 
 upon me as a woman. I admit that if an ordinary girl 
 were found in the position in which I was placed, evi- 
 dence would be dead against her. But it is different 
 in my case. I am not a woman, and I am not a man. 
 I am just Sallie, a sort of jester who wears cap and 
 bells for the benefit of the office. I can find sanctuary
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 293 
 
 where other girls would discover all sorts of horrid 
 danger. I should be dreadfully afraid, Lettie, to face 
 women in such a case. But . . . men are different." 
 
 Lettie sighed . . . she had sighed a good deal lately. 
 "Of course," she remarked, "my experience with men 
 has not been very extensive, and I wish I could enlarge 
 it. I have never found men so vastly superior to 
 women as they like to appear. They are inveterate 
 gossips; they have their petty jealousies and their triv- 
 ial outlook. They are malicious, and spiteful, and 
 coarse. But they have their distractions, and so are 
 able to be other things. Give men the restricted hori- 
 zon to which feeble women are assigned and their su- 
 periority would crumble." 
 
 "Perhaps," said Sallie, wearily. "Just the same, I 
 like them, and I believe that they will stand by me. If 
 they don't, I can't help it. I've made my bed, and I 
 must lie in it. And I'm going to do it now, Lettie, if 
 you don't mind, for I'm simply done up." 
 
 She lay awake, thinking over her jeopardy. The 
 one thing she dreaded, the thought of which turned her 
 cold with horror, was the inevitable enlightenment of 
 Jack Childers. For he must be told. The whole 
 point of the case lay in that fact. She could not allow 
 his engagement to Ivy Hampton to endure, with mar- 
 riage imminent at any moment. She had undertaken 
 to involve herself in this matter for his sake only, and 
 for no other reason. She had been eminently success- 
 ful so far, and had pushed aside the indurated scandal. 
 The world would never be any the wiser now, but she 
 would not have done all this just for the sake of the 
 world. Jack Childers was the pivot of it all, and now 
 that the truth had been detected, and asphyxiated in its 
 detection, his engagement must be irreparably rup- 
 tured. How? By whom? When?
 
 294 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 She recalled his words when she had frivolously 
 asked him what would happen if Miss Hampton said 
 "Stand aside. I can never be yours." They had com- 
 forted her those words and she heard them now. 
 "Well, Sallie," he had said, "I'm afraid I'm prosaic. 
 I'm awfully sorry, but I don't think it would kill me. 
 I wish I could tell you that I should pine away in a 
 beautiful green and yellow melancholy. Alas! I fear 
 I shouldn't. The twentieth century doesn't lend itself 
 to that sort of thing, does it? Of course, I should be 
 horribly put out, and I think I should make it very 
 warm for Miss Hampton." 
 
 Blessed words! But they were powerless now to 
 console her. It was not a question of a charmingly 
 simple melodramatic "Stand aside !" She must let an 
 avalanche of nauseating fact fall upon his unsuspect- 
 ing shoulders. She must drench him, as he stood there 
 in his bonhomie and his easy good-natured indulgence, 
 with this vile story. She must prove to him that his 
 ingenuous cousin, with the silver-gold hair, was . . . 
 oh, what was she ? She would dot the i's and cross the 
 t's, and destroy his ideal, and paint his family in the 
 gruesome tints of dishonor. And and, perhaps, he 
 would not believe her. Why should he do so, without 
 investigation? Would it be possible that, at a mo- 
 ment's notice, his ideas of Ivy Hampton could be ab- 
 ruptly revolutionized? He would loathe her for what 
 she told him. He would turn from her in repulsion. 
 He would recoil from her damning revelation. And 
 she could see him, pale and stricken, before her. It 
 was quite too ghastly. And if she approached Mrs. 
 Hampton? That that she could never do. Even 
 were it more advisable, were she to feel assured that it 
 was the most politic course to pursue that she could 
 never do. She could not subject herself to the scru-
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 295 
 
 tiny of the gold lorgnettes, or to the shower of sly 
 disbelief that would fall upon her. 
 
 Sallie rose from her bed, and, falling on her knees, 
 prayed as she had never prayed before. She begged 
 for enlightenment ; she besought for illumination ; she 
 implored, with a fervor that seemed to send her brain, 
 in shocks, straight to the Cause of all Things, for some 
 consolation in this, her hour of need. Her whole being 
 went out in this prayer, and when she had ended it, she 
 went back, limp, weak, and hardly conscious, to her 
 bed. But the sharp agony was over, and she fell 
 asleep. 
 
 And as to the efficacy of prayer, Sallie knew next 
 morning that she would never again doubt. That her 
 prayer was answered and luminously answered she 
 felt as certain as she did that the sun shone. For dur- 
 ing the early morning hours a messenger brought her 
 a letter that read as follows : 
 
 DEAR Miss SYDENHAM : 
 
 Though I am contemptible and completely merit the 
 very worst things that you can think of me, still I am 
 not such an utter brute as to be unmoved by your con- 
 duct of yesterday. You may be surprised to hear that 
 Miss Hampton, during a discussion that we have just 
 had, was in spite of herself and her unfriendly feel- 
 ings also touched. You have done a great thing, and 
 we know why you have done it. Do not believe that I 
 am writing in any spirit but that of admiration. You 
 may think that we are a bad lot, but there are worse, 
 and we sympathize with you. Of course, you will feel 
 it your duty to break the engagement between Ivy and 
 Mr. Childers. That will be even harder for you than 
 the difficult task you have already undertaken and car- 
 ried through. And so I write these lines to you, Miss
 
 296 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 Sydenham, to tell you that the engagement will be 
 broken, and that you can leave the matter to us. I 
 swear to you solemnly, by all that I have ever held holy 
 (and there have been a few things, Miss Sydenham; 
 there are still one or two) that Ivy and Mr. Childers 
 will never be married. Rest quite assured of that. 
 You can leave Mr. Childers in tranquillity for the pres- 
 ent. You need not be the bearer of news that you 
 would loathe to tell him. When the time comes, every- 
 thing will be explained. I can tell you nothing more at 
 present. Only be satisfied and convinced that you 
 have nothing further to do. You can rely upon this 
 as surely as you can rely upon anything in this world. 
 You can also believe that we are actuated solely by 
 our own interests. That will be easier for you; you 
 would not readily credit a statement that we were 
 moved by sentiment for you and for Mr. Childers. It 
 would also be untrue. So this letter is designed mere- 
 ly to make you feel less uneasy, and to assure you that 
 matters will take their proper course without your 
 interference. Your burden will thus be lightened. 
 You can leave Mr. Childers to us, and if nothing hap- 
 pens just at present, you can still abide in all security. 
 For something will happen. 
 
 "ARTHUR STUYVESANT." 
 
 Sallie threw the letter to her sister, and sat smiling 
 with utter thankfulness as she realized its stupendous 
 meaning. Her prayer had been answered swiftly, di- 
 rectly, and unmistakably. Even the fools who explain 
 away things by the elastic law of coincidence would be 
 impressed by this. She felt light-hearted, happy, and 
 she went about the house singing blithely. 
 
 "And, Lettie," she cried, "little Robinson shall come 
 up, and if you don't fall head over heels in love with
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 297 
 
 him, then you are like your sister, and I've no patience 
 with you. Oh, you will be charmed. He is the dear- 
 est little boy. What luck, Let, to think you came to 
 me in New York! It is perfectly delightful. Aren't 
 you glad?" 
 
 But when the time came for the trip downtown and 
 the interview with Mr. Green, her high spirits left her, 
 and she felt subdued and a trifle shaky. The matter 
 had now resolved itself into a mere question of self; 
 but altruism had been stretched to its limits, and Sallie 
 was now obliged to realize her own personal danger. 
 Of course, there really was no danger, she told herself, 
 but she would totter on the brink, and stand, dizzy, at 
 the extreme verge. 
 
 "I feel I ought to wear scarlet," she said to Lettie, as 
 she prepared for her visit to the office, "and dash in 
 upon them like a beautiful, reckless picture of sin." 
 
 "Hush!" cried Lettie, distressed. "How can you 
 joke about it? I don't like to think about it. I wish 
 you would let me go with you, Sallie, just for the sake 
 of company, of course ; I shouldn't be any use, but per- 
 haps you would like to know that I was there." 
 
 But Sallie had no intention of creeping in, abashed, 
 behind a sister. She understood the owls as nobody 
 else understood them. She would be brave, and 
 jaunty, and amusing, and flippant . . . and they would 
 be easily convinced. And Mr. Green would laugh and 
 look at her with that curious expression which she 
 knew so well. She had seen it frequently when she 
 discussed improper plays with him and skated over 
 their thin ice in devil-may-care abandon. It was a sort 
 of look she rather liked, as it was so completely un- 
 usual. She was not to be non-plused, and she would 
 make a staunch fight for her immaculacy. It should 
 all be humorous, for the pathetic was stupid and gen-
 
 298 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 erally unconvincing. It might be harder to cope with 
 Jack Childers . . . but she would not think of that 
 at present. Once in working order again, with her 
 nose to the grindstone, and her daily routine that had 
 been sadly displaced re-established, and the old foot- 
 ing with Jack Childers would be comfortably resettled. 
 And then . . . well, there was no use worrying fu- 
 turity. It must take care of itself, as it would prob- 
 ably do, with or without her intervention. 
 
 Owldom was at labor . . . and the owls blinked into 
 New York's midnight. Their time had come and their 
 moping hour was over. But Sallie was not impressed, 
 for she knew it all by heart. Only . . . only on this 
 occasion she approached the nest upon a very different 
 mission. No fictitious heroine of theatredom claimed 
 her attention, and the pros and cons of imaginary situa- 
 tions seemed absurdity unsubstantial. It was a real 
 drama that had been played, and her object was to 
 prove that she was not its villain. She, herself, was 
 on trial to-night not the dreamy creations of a play- 
 wright's brain, and the criticism of this real drama 
 would be made by others. 
 
 She wondered if she imagined it, or if it were really 
 a fact . . . but surely the click, the whirr, and all the 
 indescribable onomatopoeia of Owldom ceased as she 
 entered the large, live, tense reportorial room. She 
 noticed or she thought she noticed that the report- 
 ers paused in their work to look at her. They shook 
 off the temporary thraldom of murder, arson, lust, and 
 deviltry, hung their meagre list of trite verbs, adverbs 
 and adjectives in abeyance, and watched her as she 
 slowly approached the night city editor. And they sat 
 at their desks mute, happily interrupted as schoolboys, 
 gloating over the momentary alienation of "teacher." 
 
 Surely . . . she thought . . . there was something
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 299 
 
 in the atmosphere, some strange, disturbing influence 
 that subtly attacked her sensory nerves. She saw little 
 Robinson with a huge mound of "copy paper" before 
 him. He smiled at her, but it was the pale ghost of 
 a smile. Even the office-boys grouped themselves to- 
 gether and talked. But they always talked . . . they 
 were incorrigible. Still, just now, their voices seemed 
 to be peculiarly hushed. The entire office, in fact, 
 struck a sibilant sound, the meaning of which she 
 could scarcely penetrate. 
 
 Mr. Green did not see her until she reached his desk. 
 Then he started, glanced at her in weird, unsmiling 
 grimness, and betrayed embarrassment. It was very 
 odd, and the bravery of her intentions was weakened 
 at their very foundations. She felt depressed, and she 
 was conscious of a fierce struggle to appear before this 
 office in her true and usual light. "He's armed with- 
 out that's innocent within," she remembered ; but was 
 he? Then she arrayed her forces, bracing herself up 
 to present a fairly graphic substitution for Sallie Syd- 
 enham as she used to be. But Mr. Green did not speak, 
 nor did he help her by gesture or relenting manners. 
 The burden of the position drooped heavily upon her 
 own unprotected shoulders. 
 
 "You have heard," she began, "Mr. Robinson told 
 you, I daresay, that his mission with Mr. Sylvester 
 Jackson was not successful; that that nobody was 
 found with Arthur Stuyvesant but" she bowed, 
 and clutched at her saving grace of frivolity "your 
 humble servant. And" with a laugh "she she 
 doesn't count." 
 
 Mr. Green played a five-finger exercise on his blot- 
 ting-paper, and kept his eyes fixed upon the digital 
 process. She resented his silence, for he was making 
 the easy explanation unnecessarily difficult. Had she
 
 300 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 been guilty had he believed that she was guilty he 
 could scarcely have been more unyielding. 
 
 "Well, Mr. Green," she went on, with a laborious 
 smile, "are you are you angry ?" 
 
 He ceased the inaudible five-finger exercise, and 
 looked at her. A dull flush settled upon the corruga- 
 tions of his forehead. His solemnity was lugubrious. 
 "I am shocked, Miss Sydenham," he said slowly. "I 
 am deeply mortified. I believe that I have no very 
 definitely settled code of morality, but I confess that I 
 am routed. I could not have credited it. I had looked 
 upon your work as the result of an unconventional but 
 harmless point of view. At least, I tried to coincide 
 with the opinion of the office. I will confess that there 
 have been times when your strange, unveiled expres- 
 sions appeared to me inconsistent with the notion of 
 er purity. I stifled this . . . I " 
 
 "You revelled in my 'good stories,' " she interposed 
 hotly, in the cruel marvel of topsy-turvydom. 
 
 "Perhaps," he said with the meekness of an Uriah 
 Heep. "That is outside of the present question. At 
 any rate, Miss Sydenham, my sentiments toward you 
 have always been of the friendliest. So much so, that 
 Mr. Robinson's story was an absolute shock. Yet I 
 might have put two and two together your strange 
 demand for this assignment your neglect to work up 
 the case the cock-and-bull story you told me the ir- 
 regularity and peculiarity of the entire proceedings." 
 
 She was silent, and she knew ... he had con- 
 demned her. She was unable to see the force of the 
 irresistible tide of logic that had swamped this man 
 who was not innately unkind. She could only per- 
 ceive the absurdity of the thing from her own point of 
 view. But her heart sank, for nothing was asked of 
 her. He did not question anything at all.
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 301 
 
 "Then," she said and she struggled with a deaden- 
 ing sense of calmness "then you really think " 
 
 "Come, Miss Sydenham," he interrupted bluntly, "I 
 do not waste my time with thinking. The situation 
 does not call for thought. I presume that you have not 
 come here to-night to listen to my thoughts. Indeed, 
 I admit that I am surprised to see you at all. Your 
 advent here is inconceivable to me. You must surely 
 understand that this very grave scandal is not suscepti- 
 ble to vague discussion, as are the fictitious complica- 
 tions of the many plays you have dissected. You " 
 
 "Oh," she said, in swift affright, for she felt that 
 she was being deliberately branded seared by the iron 
 of his tones, "you talk as though you really believed it. 
 I defy you to do so. You cannot no, you cannot in 
 your heart of hearts really imagine that I whom you 
 have known for so long could be so grossly depraved. 
 You cannot suppose because I happened to be the wom- 
 an found with Mr. Stuyvesant, that I was I was 
 Oh, it is too ludicrous ! See here, Mr. Green" and 
 she evoked the puissant force of her flippancy, "I don't 
 profess to be a timid, blushing maiden. I don't say 
 that if I were violently in love with a man I should 
 covet investigation." (She thought that such an ap- 
 parently candid statement might militate in her favor 
 with the owl.) "But Arthur Stuyvesant, with a wife 
 and child a reputation that cries out in its nastiness 
 an actor to whom I have always been inimical read 
 my last article, Mr. Green you cannot no, you can- 
 not possibly credit it. You may pretend to do so, just 
 to get even with me, for I played you a trick, and I was 
 not loyal to the paper. I admit all this, Mr. Green, but 
 there were circumstances that you would be the first to 
 understand and appreciate, and which you may know 
 one of these days. I may be very beautiful" she
 
 302 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 grasped at the last straw of her frivolity "but I could 
 never be his." 
 
 Mr. Green was acutely nettled. Her allusion to the 
 trick she had played upon him, confronting him as it 
 did with the unseemly notion of his own gullibility, 
 angered him. It vexed him to believe that the study 
 of human nature in which he had indulged for so many 
 years, beneath the eyes of the blinking owls, had been 
 productive of a result so lamentable that a mere girl 
 had been able to bring him this chagrin. 
 
 "We will not argue the matter, Miss Sydenham," he 
 remarked. "All that you say is just. It is odious to 
 believe that this contemptible man with as you cor- 
 rectly suggest a reputation that cries out in its nasti- 
 ness, should have involved you in such a scandal. But 
 the fact remains, and I do not ask for any explanation, 
 for it would be insufficient, whatever it might be. I 
 am shocked not precisely on your account but on 
 that of the paper. It is an evil thing to discover that 
 the dramatic critic whom we have honored and adver- 
 tised, and whose somewhat outspoken work we have 
 defended on grounds that now appear to be grotesquely 
 illogical, has been proved to be absolutely unworthy. 
 You have supplied sharp-edged weapons to our ene- 
 mies, and at the same time you have completely dis- 
 abled your own usefulness." 
 
 Then Sallie, lacerated by the dull thrusts made so 
 deliberately at her position, felt that her usual modes 
 of procedure were indeed inadequate. A fury seized 
 her, as she watched the weaving of the net, the meshes 
 of which she had not clearly perceived before. Her 
 vaunted belief in the chivalry of men and their evi- 
 dent superiority to her own sex was slipping away. 
 
 "You insult me!" she cried haughtily. "Every
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 303 
 
 word you have uttered is a gross affront, and not war- 
 ranted by the fact that you sit there in some show of 
 feeble authority. I did not suppose that you would 
 take such a view of the matter, or I should never have 
 condescended to come here. It is wicked and it is in- 
 famous. You judge me as though I had come in from 
 the street, and you had not enjoyed ample opportuni- 
 ties for study. If, after our long acquaintance, you 
 can believe this loathsome thing then you can believe 
 anything. No wonder the paper is plunged in libel 
 suits" (he winced at this, for it was true), "no wonder 
 that even the public' rebels, if this is your way of doing 
 business. The word of a woman counts for something 
 surely. Look at me and see if you can detect any sign 
 of shame the shame that even the most abandoned 
 woman would feel if she had been discovered in such a 
 dilemma. Use your judgment, if you have any. Do 
 you suppose that I should have come here to brazenly 
 lie myself out of an odious position ? Not I. I should 
 remain with my lover, and upon him would rest the 
 burden of the thing. Reason the matter out for your- 
 self. Appearances may count for a good deal, but not 
 for everything." 
 
 She was beating her head against a stone wall, and 
 she knew it. Mr. Green was not an imaginative man, 
 and hard facts were the only commodities in which he 
 dealt. Long service in Owldom is not conducive to 
 the cultivation of imagination. Occasionally he used 
 theories when, he felt that he was not backed up by 
 realities; but he discarded the theories as soon as he 
 could conveniently do so, and never alluded to them. 
 Theory was the sickly procrastination of the really ig- 
 norant. It was rank agnosticism, and had no abiding 
 place in Mr. Green's lexicon.
 
 304 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 But he was not anxious for a "scene;" he did not 
 enjoy the spectacle of the open-mouthed reporters in- 
 haling this contest. 
 
 "Go on with your work!" he cried savagely to the 
 owls. "Attend to your business and leave me to mine." 
 Then he turned again to Miss Sydenham. "Of 
 course," he said quietly, "this is all very deplorable. 
 I am hurt at your expressions, which, however, are 
 perhaps to be expected. I do not profess to fathom the 
 object of your visit here. You do not deserve any 
 consolation. Still, it is my duty to tell you that this 
 painful incident closes. You are aware that Mr. Syl- 
 vester Jackson is a friend of mine, and that being the 
 case, he will make no report to Mrs. Stuyvesant. No," 
 he cried, lifting a restraining finger as she was about 
 to speak, "you had better hear me out. This detective 
 is under many obligations to me. He is very fond of 
 terrapin stew and of the good things that Mrs. Green 
 so thoroughly understands. I have already spoken to 
 him . . . and everything ends right here. You will 
 be saved the mortification of figuring publicly in a 
 lamentable scandal ; more important still, there will be 
 no public investigation of a matter in which this paper 
 would appear so unprofitably. I am proud to be able 
 to rescue my employers from this unsavory business. 
 Incidentally, Miss Sydenham, you reap the advan- 
 tages." 
 
 Sallie's face burned. Never for a single moment 
 had she contemplated this. The vital instinct of self- 
 preservation one of the keenest instincts within our 
 ken filled her with an impulse to tell the whole dis- 
 graceful story from beginning to end and right her- 
 self. She owed it to herself to do so. She was being 
 labelled "unclean," and she felt the edges of the label 
 moistly clinging to her personality. But another in-
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 305 
 
 stinct, just as keen, defeated her that of woman's love 
 for man. At this juncture her loyalty to Jack Childers 
 must not waver. She had brought events to their ter- 
 minus, and his honor and his happiness were safe. It 
 would be inane to upset the applecart as she had 
 brought it over ruts and through deepnesses to destina- 
 tion. It would be the ignominy of weakness. And 
 Mr. Green's last words rendered that destination even 
 more sure. The incident was closed. Still, had it been 
 left open, she knew that she could not have been 
 dragged into the revelation of a divorce court, for Mrs. 
 Stuyvesant, at any rate, understood the truth. But as 
 it was, the peaceful security of her position was un- 
 questionable. The heavy pall of guilt with which she 
 had covered herself would stay . . . where she had 
 placed it. It was detestably comforting. It was the 
 acme of good luck swathed in mother-tincture of 
 irony. 
 
 "Mr. Jackson is most accommodating," she said, in 
 sullen resignation. "It is truly a beautiful instance of 
 bribery and corruption." 
 
 "A newspaper rarely gets left," he retorted, with a 
 smile at her aimless remark 'the feeble result of a van- 
 quished woman's clamor for the last word. "The 
 ways of journalism are unfathomable. You may 
 thank your lucky stars, Miss Sydenham, that you are 
 able to hide beneath its respectable cloak." 
 
 "Am I to consider this as final?" she asked miser- 
 ably. 
 
 He shrugged his shoulders. "You are at liberty to 
 see Mr. Childers," he said. "Of course, I have already 
 done so. Still, under the circumstances, you may feel 
 no repugnance to such an interview. If I were you, 
 Miss Sydenham" and he felt that this was sheer per- 
 sonal kindness, quite unwarranted by the obliquity of
 
 306 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 the case, "I should go quietly home and think things 
 over. Then, if you still feel that discussion is possible, 
 I should see Mr. Childers." 
 
 She looked at him in mute marvel. He believed her 
 to be utterly and irreparably vile, but he could still talk 
 to her quite complacently. He had imagined that she 
 was something worse than the worst thing she had ever 
 imagined . . . yet he could still parley indifferently. 
 
 "I have no desire to avoid Mr. Childers," she said, 
 and her voice shook. "I am, at any rate, entitled to my 
 friends. Furthermore, Mr. Green, I have no fear that 
 Mr. Childers is so wretched a student of human nature 
 as you have proved yourself to be. Certainly I shall 
 see Mr. Childers." 
 
 He stood beside her. He had entered the room from 
 a door at the further end, and had listened to the last 
 words that she had uttered. His face was grave and 
 pale, and a singular embarrassment tongue-tied him 
 momentarily. 
 
 "May I talk to you, Mr. Childers?" she asked, look- 
 ing bravely at him, with no defiance, but some pathetic 
 resignation in her eyes. 
 
 He was the managing editor, urbane and courteous, 
 in an instant. 
 
 "Certainly, Miss Sydenham," he replied. "Come 
 into my office, where we shall be alone. I am sorry," 
 he added in a low voice, as they moved away, "that 
 you argued this horrible business with Mr. Green. 
 Why subject yourself to needless mortification? And 
 the office the entire staff seems to have been sitting 
 in judgment." 
 
 She did not answer, but followed him into his office. 
 Mr. Green quietly unfolded the paper that contained 
 his ham sandwich and proceeded to discuss it in an un- 
 ruffled way. It had been very provoking, of course,
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 307 
 
 and he resented the brazen indifference to decent opin- 
 ion that had permitted this girl to come to the office 
 and probe her wretched situation. It was unpardon- 
 able ; but she had never manifested any of the delicacy 
 of womanhood. All that she had written and that he 
 had applauded all her criticisms that he had gloated 
 over as "good stories" he now turned against her, as 
 evidence pointing unmistakably to a certain non-mo- 
 rality. He made the mistake, so picturesquely fre- 
 quent, of believing that the pen is the index of the 
 soul one of the most egregious errors of literary 
 judgment. Moreover, she wrote as she talked an- 
 other proof of her natural ribaldry. 
 
 The reporters heard the door of Mr. Childers' room 
 close. This was a disappointment, for it cut them off 
 from the last act just as they were vitally interested. 
 It was a case of "to be continued in our next" and 
 the door was shut upon our next. 
 
 Little Robinson put on his hat and overcoat, threw 
 aside his pen, took up the story that he had written an 
 important account of a ferry-boat collision, with loss 
 of life, and made for Mr-. Green's desk. 
 
 "She did not impress you," he said, between his 
 teeth. "You heard her story and you did not believe 
 her. Is that correct ?" 
 
 Mr. Green, slowly masticating his sandwich, gazed 
 upon the young reporter indolently. "I'm not a fool," 
 he said, with his mouth full. 
 
 "No," cried Robinson, indignantly, "you are not a 
 fool, but you are a cur and a coward !" He lifted his 
 hand, and, aiming a forceful blow at the cheek dis- 
 tended by the sandwich, struck the night city editor 
 across the face. Then, tearing up his story, he flung 
 the fragments of the paper upon the editorial desk. 
 
 There was a sudden rising in the office, the swift
 
 308 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 perception of a sensation that would live for at least 
 a week in Newspaper Row. But, before Mr. Green 
 could recover from his amaze he was, moreover, half 
 choked by his sandwich, impelled in the wrong direc- 
 tion Robinson had flung himself from the room and 
 had left Owldom forever.
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 S the door of Jack Childers' office closed upon 
 her, Sallie experienced her old-time sensa- 
 tion of relief and encouragement. The at- 
 mosphere soothed and calmed her nerves. It 
 acted upon her like a sedative, and for a moment she 
 could scarcely realize that anything calamitous had 
 occurred. How well she knew this peaceful little sanc- 
 tum ! Even the pattern of the carpet on the floor was 
 impressed upon her mind. Nothing had been dis- 
 turbed; here there was warmth, and quiet, and mental 
 relaxation. Even little Miss Poplets, at her type- 
 writer, was an agreeable fixture in the luxurious pla- 
 cidity of things. Of course of course little Miss Pop- 
 lets knew everything. In the mysterious recesses of 
 that demure little mind the secrets of the office were 
 stored, and ranged, and formulated. Nobody ever 
 dreamed of noticing the presence of Miss Poplets. 
 Even the editorial conference was waged regardless of 
 her existence. The little typewriter girl was sphinx- 
 like in her silence, and, not being "literary" or ambi- 
 tious, she had no sympathy with the feminine owls. 
 Often had they tried to lure her from her reserve, and 
 ally themselves with such a puissant source of knowl- 
 edge. But little Miss Poplets, dumbly amiable, resisted 
 their importunities. She was neither contemptuous 
 nor arrogant, but merely discreet and uninteresting. 
 She preferred to sit day by day and quietly worship 
 Jack Childers. Humorists who could make thou- 
 sands smile, but were unable to coax even the faintest 
 curve of amusement to the lips of this girl declared 
 that she said her prayers to Mr. Childers, and adored
 
 310 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 him on her knees. Sallie was never able to see the 
 lurking humor of these remarks. They touched her 
 sorely; she admired little Miss Poplets as Jack Child- 
 ers' sober reflection. 
 
 She was, therefore, surprised by a sense of shocking 
 novelty when he said quietly: "If you would prefer 
 Miss Poplets to leave us, please say so, Miss Sydenham. 
 Would you rather that we talked quite by ourselves? 
 It shall be as you wish." 
 
 He was as courteous and as deferential as ever ; but 
 but he called her "Miss Sydenham. She was "Sal- 
 lie" to him no more. This trivial change affected her 
 strangely with a sense of irreparable loss; it was the 
 first perturbing sign that struck her in the serene re- 
 pose of the room. She saw Miss Poplets arise meekly, 
 gather up her papers, and prepare, unquestioningly, to 
 leave them alone. And and she could not endure 
 the suggestion of the thing. She was not a criminal, 
 and she had not come to Jack Childers to defend her- 
 self. 
 
 "No, Mr. Childers," she said there was such a lump 
 in her throat! "let Miss Poplets stay, please. There 
 is no reason why she should go. I I am not ashamed 
 of myself, nor do I suppose for one moment that you 
 that you" how could she put it? "that you share 
 the evident opinion of Mr. Green." 
 
 Jack Childers sat down and passed his hand wearily 
 over his forehead. His smiles and his easy good na- 
 ture appeared to have left him. He was gravely dis- 
 concerted; in all their intercourse she could not recall 
 so drear a manifestation of discomfture on his part. 
 In the stress of her jeopardy, she felt sincerely sorry for 
 him; it was maddening to think that she she who 
 loved him had plunged him into this embarrassment, 
 and odd paradox for his own sake, too ! Little Miss
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 311 
 
 Poplets flashed a glance at her, and in this look Sallie 
 read resentment. The typewriter girl was also sorry 
 for Jack Childers. Whether Sallie were innocent or 
 guilty mattered little; she had perplexed her master. 
 And outside the owls blinked, and journalism fought 
 its tough, crude fight while two girls swathed the 
 editor in the warmth of devotion and solicitude. 
 
 "Why did you do this absurd, this unnecessary, this 
 wicked thing?" he asked presently, breaking a silence 
 that enveloped them in a sort of unyielding wool. "I 
 can't understand it. It was cruel cruel to yourself. 
 You had an enviable position; you were a privileged 
 character in the office; we all liked you, admired you, 
 gave you every opportunity. And you have ruined the 
 whole case. You have done the one unpardonable 
 thing that which men and women never forgive. It 
 is horrible. In all my journalistic experience I can 
 remember no such bitter disappointment." 
 
 He spoke slowly and in clear, pellucid sincerity. 
 Were his words those of the managing editor, or of the 
 man? She wondered, as she sat there bowed with 
 shame, at her own innocence. And a sense of the 
 dank injustice of it all arose within her. She was self- 
 pilloried for his sake, and he did not appreciate it. But 
 the pillory played a blithe game of ping-pong between 
 herself and Ivy Hampton. Later it would be driven 
 home to Miss Hampton. She must wait and suffer. 
 
 "You will understand later on," she dared to say 
 for she had earned the right to such a feeble luxury of 
 expression. "In the meantime, you know oh, of 
 course you know the deception of the appearance. 
 Think of it, Mr. Childers. Picture the position I was 
 in and how grotesque it really was." 
 
 He winced, but looked at her searchingly, and 
 seemed to penetrate her subliminal depths.
 
 312 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 "That is not the point," he said severely. "What- 
 ever the reasons that prompted your appearance at Mr. 
 Stuyvesant's rooms, the fact remains that you were 
 found there, and that the circumstances and the sur- 
 roundings were damning in the eyes of the world." 
 
 "I don't care about the world !" she cried fiercely 
 and little Miss Poplets quaked. "As long as you be- 
 lieve in me, and will continue to do so, what do I mind ? 
 Nothing. And you do believe in me, Mr. Childers, of 
 course. The whole thing is so perfectly ridiculous " 
 
 He held up his hand. "Yes," he said quickly. "But 
 you do not understand, Miss Sydenham. It is marvel- 
 lous that a girl so keen, so alert, with such an orderly 
 mind as you possess, should fail to perceive the real 
 gravity of your action. Personally I agree with you 
 that the supposition of the world headed by Mr. 
 Green is ridiculous. You could never be guilty of 
 such foolish misconduct; your sense of humor would 
 be your saving grace ; the pettiness, the squalor of the 
 thing would deter you. You would " 
 
 "Stop, Mr. Childers," she commanded. "Is that all ? 
 Are those the only reasons you can find for your belief 
 in my innocence? What of my morality? What of 
 my sentiment? Do you think I am devoid of these? 
 Do you suppose because I have written lightly and 
 that you have laughed at my unconventional expres- 
 sions that I have no moral sense? Apart from the 
 ludicrous side of this supposition, do you believe that 
 nothing but a sense of humor would have saved me? 
 Do you consider that I retain my virtue in this matter 
 simply because it would have been foolish and serious 
 unfunny to have lost it?" 
 
 She rose and faced him, her eyes flashing. She had 
 discarded her pitiful ruse of make-up, and she stood be- 
 fore him an ordinary girl, the weapons with which she
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 313 
 
 had compelled the inexorable attention of journalism 
 cast aside. All her flippancy, all the characteristics 
 that she had worn so flamboyantly as the livery of Owl- 
 dom or of her conception of the part had vanished. 
 He saw that she was pretty, earnest, real and perhaps 
 he had seen all this before in dim, sub-conscious reve- 
 lation. Perhaps, unconsciously, his soul had read hers. 
 
 "I have not allowed my personal sentiments to weigh 
 in this matter," he replied uncomfortably. "If the 
 question were one that could be settled between us 
 between you and me, Sallie" (thank goodness for the 
 "Sallie," she thought) "I should dismiss it imme- 
 diately. But it is not. You have placed yourself in 
 a position from which all my beliefs and convictions 
 would be powerless to rescue you. You know the 
 world, and you have given it a knife to use against 
 yourself. It is a miserable business, and it is not mere- 
 ly for 'business' reasons because you were valuable 
 to the newspaper that I regret it." 
 
 "But," she cried for she had but one objective 
 point, "you have not answered me. You do not think 
 me immoral. You do not believe that even suppos- 
 ing I had been in love with Arthur Stuyvesant I could 
 have sunk to such a level. You have always called me 
 a jolly good fellow, but still still, in your soul you 
 looked upon me as a woman and not as a bad woman. 
 Tell me that, and do not lie. If you have really ever 
 thought or if you think now that it was not beyond 
 me to give myself in this way to a man, tell me, Mr. 
 Childers. When you called me a jolly good fellow did 
 you mean that my real sex, with modesty and shame 
 and virtue, was extinct?" 
 
 Her anxiety was so real in its far-reaching, unfet- 
 tered reality, that little Miss Poplets instantly gave her 
 a share of the wide allegiance that had been exclusively
 
 314 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 Jack Childers'. She waited breathlessly for him to 
 speak; the clicking of the type-writer ceased. Little 
 Miss Poplets' nimble fingers were stayed in a paralysis 
 of expectancy. 
 
 Jack Childers was confronted with a problem that he 
 had not contemplated. He had not felt called upon 
 to appraise the stability of Sallie Sydenham's virtue. 
 He had known as he said that he had known that in 
 this case some weird kaleidoscopic twist of the proba- 
 bilities had been dead against her, and that her good 
 sense, her conviviality, even her rampant Bohemianism, 
 would have rendered this smug and sordid liaison 
 wholly impossible. Nor for a solitary moment had he 
 doubted her innocence. But he had not asked himself 
 whether his conviction covered a faith in the rigidity 
 of her virtue, or in the fixedness of conscientious femi- 
 nine scruples. He had never attempted to consider her 
 in any other light than that of the insistent "jolly good 
 fellow." He felt sure yes, he was quite certain that 
 her sex had never counted for anything in his super- 
 ficial estimate of her many admirable qualities. 
 
 It had never occurred to him, or he believed that it 
 had never occurred to him (for Jack Childers utilized 
 but one stratum of entity, and that lay on the top) to 
 regard her from the point of view of sex. Of course 
 he supposed the fact that she was a woman had lent 
 a certain piquancy to the bizarre fact of their daily in- 
 tercourse. Nothing more. There were no subtleties 
 in Sallie Sydenham. And so ... he heard her query 
 and he answered it frankly. 
 
 "I have never asked myself such questions, Sallie," 
 he said. "You see there was no reason to do so. And 
 when I heard this miserable story, of course I knew 
 that you were the victim of circumstances. I did not 
 go into the subtleties of the matter I had not time it
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 315 
 
 has only just happened. The point was, not whether 
 you would or could have been guilty . . . but merely 
 that you had given the world a cue to believe that you 
 were." 
 
 This was plausible . . . but he had not answered her 
 question, and she would force him to answer it ; 
 and if he told her that his faith in her virtue was non- 
 existent or if he expressed the contrary opinion in 
 courteous uncertainty and evident lack of conviction 
 then then she would be revenged. She would hurl 
 at him the words: "Well, it was Ivy Hampton, your 
 cousin, in this particular case. You can reason about 
 me, but you can be quite certain of her." Yes, she 
 would do it. Because if he told her what she dreaded 
 to hear that he had no certain belief in her purity 
 she would hate him in swift metamorphosis. All that 
 she had done she would undo. She would paralyze 
 him with the truth. 
 
 But Jack Childers, as her question sank into his soul, 
 knew. He realized then, and he imagined it was for 
 the first time, that this girl, light in her expressions, 
 loose in her superficial outfit, loud in her bark, was 
 staunch in her virtue. He looked into her eyes, and 
 was amazed at the depths of truth in them. 
 
 "Do you think I could have been guilty?" She 
 would have his answer. He could not dilly-dally her 
 away from it. She was on trial before her managing 
 editor, but she would rout out the man. 
 
 And he quickly responded in sheer, certain tones : 
 "No. I do not think it. I believe in you, Sallie, and 
 you must forgive my professional words. After all, 
 we have been something more than business associates 
 you and I. We have been friends. You have a 
 right to probe me. As a man, I do not believe that
 
 316 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 you could have done this . . . because you are a 
 right-minded, chaste woman." 
 
 Little Miss Poplets, moved from her habitual atti- 
 tude of devotional acquiescence, could not repress her 
 satisfaction; nor did she attempt to do so. She mur- 
 mured : "It is true ; yes, it is true," and then subsided 
 meekly. It was the first time that she had ever made 
 manifest a separate intelligence. Jack Childers was 
 amazed. Sallie, in her tingle of emotion, realized the 
 unusual. , 
 
 "I am so glad," Sallie said presently. "And now 
 nothing matters. The entire office may chatter and 
 condemn me and I shall not complain. It is, of course, 
 what the entire office will do I readily perceive that 
 by the attitude of Mr. Green if the story should leak 
 out." 
 
 "If it should leak out!" he cried. "It has done so. 
 Unfortunately, when little Robinson made his report 
 to Mr. Green, Miss Eisenstein was with the night city 
 editor. I need not say any more; had the story been 
 advertised on the dead walls of the city it could scarcely 
 have been more surely advertised. I am sorry, deeply 
 grieved, Sallie. We might have managed to hush it 
 up, but now " 
 
 "But now," she repeated, and she smiled rather 
 wanly, because although she should have revelled in 
 her martyrdom, and carried the matter to its bitter end 
 unflinchingly, she could not do it "but now it is all 
 up, isn't it, Mr. Childers? Sallie Sydenham is retired 
 for the present, and any allusion to her tarnished name 
 will be tabooed." 
 
 He was lost in pained thought. He had spoken 
 the truth when he announced the fact that never in all 
 his journalistic career had he known such a bitter dis- 
 appointment.
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 317 
 
 "Don't you think," he said presently, "that you could 
 tell me as a friend still, and not as a managing editor 
 what were the reasons that led you to Arthur Stuyve- 
 sant's rooms." 
 
 She might have expected this, for it was completely 
 relevant. But it took her by surprise and gave her 
 another pang. " There was a reason," she said 
 evasively, "but I cannot tell you what it was to-day. 
 Some day, perhaps " 
 
 Some day, perhaps ! The soothing recollection of 
 Arthur Stuyvesant rushed to her aid. Something 
 would happen, and her release would come. She had 
 infinite faith in the actor's words, although he had 
 proved himself to be despicable in all directions. 
 
 "I will wait," he said patiently. "I presume, from 
 your manner, that I should understand your reasons." 
 
 She nearly laughed. If he would understand her 
 reasons ! Yes, they would be very patent. He would 
 understand her reasons . . . and perhaps other things. 
 But what did it signify? One of these days he 
 might even realize that she loved him ; that no woman 
 would run her neck into such a noose for any other 
 cause but the all-powerful one. However, she would 
 no longer be there, in daily intercourse with him. It 
 would not matter. Spartan endurance is very spec- 
 tacular, but the woman who loves need experience no 
 shrinking horror if the object of her devotion be able to 
 sound her depths. In plays in novels a secret car- 
 ried to the grave is a worthy notion. But Sallie was 
 so wretchedly human, so plaintively real ! 
 
 She replied to his last words with a half smile. "Yes, 
 you would understand," she said. She wondered what 
 his sensations would be. Of course, he would admire 
 her loyalty, and think splendid things of her sacrifice. 
 But . . . but ... he would probably say "Poor girl !"
 
 318 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 and feel distinctly sorry for her. The knowledge of 
 Ivy's shame would for a time overshadow all thoughts ; 
 but he would recover from that. He was not irretriev- 
 ably in love with his cousin, and he would probably 
 grow accustomed to the rupture of the matrimonial 
 scheme. And when the new outlook had been firmly 
 established . . . then, then what would he think of 
 her? Perhaps he would laugh at the discovery that 
 his "jolly good fellow" had sailed under false colors ; 
 that throughout their long Bohemian communion she 
 had been madly in love with him. And as this idea 
 flashed into her mind she grew hot and cold by turns. 
 The sky even now was murky with unsolvable clouds. 
 The sun her sun would it never shine again? 
 
 "And now, Mr. Childers," she said she rose with 
 beating heart and throbbing pulse, for the end had 
 come "I won't ask you what I had better do. There 
 is nothing more. Please allow me to 'tender my res- 
 ignation,' as the defaulting employe remarks when he 
 has been found out. Permit me to get ahead of you, 
 and to go before I am kicked out," she added inele- 
 gantly. 
 
 He picked up a penholder and bit it to a pulp. He 
 tried to readjust his position as managing editor, which 
 had skulked behind the weakness of the man. 
 
 "You put it bluntly, Sallie," he said. "Curse it all ! 
 What an infernal shame it is. No," impatiently. "I 
 can't imagine any conceivable reason that you could 
 have had for this folly. It is devilish. It is a great 
 loss to the paper. I " 
 
 "Thank you," Sallie murmured in a low voice, and 
 her eyes were moist. "You are kind, and I appreciate 
 it ; but things are as they are, and I see that departure 
 is the only thing left." 
 
 "Yes," he retorted viciously. "Yes, of course you
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 319 
 
 must not stay. This is a hard world, and there is one 
 thing beyond the hope of possible salvation. It is the 
 thing that you have seemed to do. I must let you 
 go. Under the circumstances, it seems cruel and 
 odious. Had you been really guilty ... it would have 
 been easier. It would not have been so ... so pain- 
 ful." 
 
 "Don't say that!" she cried aghast (and she heard 
 little Miss Poplets murmur, "Oh, no!"). "If I had 
 been guilty, your duty as Jack Childers, managing ed- 
 itor, would have been simplified. But then you would 
 have despised and hated me. Wouldn't you? 
 Wouldn't you, Mr. Childers?" 
 
 The same question had returned. She was tired of 
 this emotional analysis, and she could see that it hurt 
 him. Still, she had suffered, and was suffering, more 
 than mere hurt, and she would not spare him this 
 really trivial distress. 
 
 "You are a strange girl, Sallie," he said gloomily. 
 "You will persist in unearthing me as a man, when the 
 serious question is a professional one. But but I am 
 glad, old girl, to know that this dark and unfathomable 
 cloud is only a cloud. I shall always remember the 
 good times we have had together our jolly old rides 
 uptown and ... it is consoling to know that nothing 
 has really happened. Yes yes it would have been 
 hateful if you had actually been what for some mys- 
 terious cause you have allowed yourself to appear. I 
 I won't speak as managing editor again. You are 
 going, and I will only tell you since it is all you care 
 to know how awfully cut up I am as your friend." 
 
 Miss Poplets rose and took her hat and coat from 
 their peg. She put them on furtively, and then, with 
 a quiet "good-night," she went softly out and closed 
 the door. They scarcely noticed her action, and the
 
 320 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 shutting of the door sounded loud and strangely sug- 
 gestive of finality. 
 
 "Good-bye," said Sallie, suddenly. "I must be off. 
 It is late." 
 
 He motioned her back. "Stop!" He cleared his 
 throat. "You have made me sink the managing ed- 
 itor to suit your own views. And now I must keep 
 him down, to accommodate my own notion. What are 
 you going to do ? How are you going to live ? Have 
 you any money?" 
 
 She shrank from these questions, that she had not 
 foreseen. But she could not squelch him as her friend 
 when she had been so persistently evoking the shades 
 of their comradeship. 
 
 "I shall fall on my feet," she said softly. "I am not 
 afraid ... I am horribly healthy." 
 
 "You must let me lend you some money," he as- 
 serted, "and and you can pay me back later. Don't 
 argue, please. Do you think I don't know this busi- 
 ness of journalism, and how a sudden lay-off from 
 work for a day, perhaps is a thing impossible ? Yes, 
 you must let me help you. Otherwise, I shall believe 
 that you never credited my friendship with any staying 
 power." 
 
 This was just . . . and she knew it. But nothing 
 nothing would induce her to accept such aid. She 
 did not want him to pity her, and she would not permit 
 him to dole out dollars to her. It would be too de- 
 grading. 
 
 "If I ever need anything," she said hastily, "I will 
 ask you yes, I will. At present I am perfectly com- 
 fortable. I have been drawing a large salary and I 
 can live for some time. It is very kind of you . . . 
 but ... I need nothing." 
 
 "Honestly?"
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 321 
 
 "Honestly," she replied, with a lie that she deemed 
 justifiable. 
 
 "And and when affairs are straightened out," he 
 went on, "as they will be, for you have said so you 
 will come back? You must. We cannot get along 
 without you. It will be a dull and lifeless paper, and 
 the drama the poor old drama will go to the dogs. 
 You will come back, Sallie, of course ?" 
 
 She nodded, for she could not trust herself to speak. 
 But she knew in her soul that this was the end, the final 
 moment of her association with Owldom. Never again 
 would she return to it, or join the severed ends of her 
 career. It was her last day, and this certain knowledge 
 was driven like a nail into her heart. Perhaps he knew 
 it, too, but thought that dissimulation was wiser. 
 
 "Shall we ride uptown together to-night?" he 
 asked, but he did not look at her. "I shall be ready in 
 half an hour." 
 
 "Not to-night," she answered. "I I must go now. 
 Good-night. Good-bye." 
 
 She made a brave effort, as he took her hand, to save 
 the situation from a drenching flow that she felt to be 
 imminent. It was an almost superhuman effort but 
 she achieved it. He held her hand for a long time, and 
 this long, unusual contact thrilled her. It was new 
 to her ... a sort of splendid revelation that, for a 
 second, she thought was worth the winning through all 
 these long and troublous paths. 
 
 "I shall hear of you?" he said interrogatively, as he 
 loosened his clasp upon her fingers. Again she nodded. 
 Then she left him suddenly, and opening the door, 
 passed out. Her courage waned, her strength drooped, 
 and she stopped on the stairs to give way to irrepressi- 
 ble grief. It was inevitable. How could she leave 
 Owldom dear old Owldom, with its joys and its sor-
 
 322 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 rows, its mirth and its chagrin, its hopes and its dis- 
 appointments, its humiliations and its ambitions, its fa- 
 tigues and its recuperations forever? 
 
 Nevermore! Nevermore! Nevermore! The word 
 rang in her ears loud and irrevocable. Her last ap- 
 pearance ! And she was playing it alone. Not a foot- 
 step but her own clanked on the stone stairs. Nobody 
 saw her write the "finis" to her journalistic chapter. 
 On the very last step of all she stood for a second, then 
 then it was all over. 
 
 She ploughed her way across City Hall Park without 
 looking back. She shrank from the stony gaze of Ben 
 Franklin and of Greeley, cold sentinels though they 
 were. Her emancipation from Owldom's thrall was 
 complete.
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 |VIL news rides post, while good news halts." 
 The feminine owls flapped their wings and 
 shrieked as Miss Sydenham's story spread 
 through the office like a forest fire. The 
 flames were started by Rita Eisenstein, who, sensa- 
 tional and rampant, realized the importance of her 
 mission and neglected none of the details of the his- 
 tory. Never before had she known the alluring lux- 
 ury of watching an excited group hanging upon her 
 every word, ravenously pouncing upon the crumbs that 
 she threw, and with eyes wide, hopes alert, minds re- 
 ceptive, crying, "More ! More !" She flung the sorry 
 matter at them, deftly saving up tit-bits for the most 
 effective moments, dramatically nurturing an eblouis- 
 sant finale, zealously guarding against the corrosive 
 influence of anti-climax ; in a word, making the most 
 of an exceptional opportunity in an ecstasy of spite, 
 vindictiveness, and malevolent gossip. 
 
 It was a proud moment in Miss Eisenstein's life. 
 "Foule byrd that fyleth his owne nest," she threw 
 down the reputation of the poor little twitterer that 
 she hated so malignantly, and the others swooped 
 upon it, pecked at it, and tore it to pieces. Dark, glow- 
 ering birds, their carrion instincts let loose by an occa- 
 sion wide open and obvious, all the savagery of jeal- 
 ousy, offended pride, affected contempt suddenly re- 
 leased, they tore at the white, healthy stretches that 
 still remained in the poor feeble thing called "good 
 name," and blackened them miasmatically. 
 
 No rosy hopes crowned with the luminous laurels 
 of realization could have brought a tenser joy to palpi-
 
 324 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 tant bosoms than did the history of Sallie's martyr- 
 dom to the breasts of the feminine owls. They had a 
 solemn, portentous conference, in which the veriest de- 
 tails were investigated, the curtains all drawn up, and 
 searchlights turned into the obscurity of corners. 
 Where novelists write asterisks, and playwrights pose 
 suggestive interrogations, the ladies of Owldom 
 prowled and paraded, nostrils all a-flare, heads proudly 
 erect, imaginations peeled for receptivity. 
 
 Rochefoucauld, in an eczema of maxims, might have 
 gleaned a few more from this richly fertile field. The 
 resignation with which the owls bore the misfortunes 
 of their sister might have startled him. But it was not 
 until the affair had been threshed out in all its bearings, 
 that the beautiful, pallid spirit of resignation hovered. 
 Before that, no attempt was made to conceal wild in- 
 stincts of delight. These women forgot to pose before 
 one another in the prescribed garbs of their affectation. 
 They stood, naked and unashamed, in the sheer, undi- 
 luted daylight. It was not until later that they pro- 
 ceeded to array themselves in the character costumes 
 they wore so picturesquely. They had forgotten their 
 respective roles . . . they had slipped from the parts 
 that they played to the realities that they were. And 
 gradually they pulled themselves together, recalled 
 their relative postures, and, recovered from the panic 
 of joy that had torn the rags from their backs, they 
 were themselves again, in all their placid, purring 
 hypocrisy. 
 
 "It will be a great blow to the paper," said Anastasia 
 Atwood, who had come to the office in a black gown 
 and a mourning brooch, in sorrow for virtue lost for- 
 ever. "The terrible weapon that this woman note, 
 Amelia, that I still call her a woman has placed in 
 the hands of our enemies may stab the life from us.
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 325 
 
 Harry, this morning, suggested that I resign, as al- 
 though the cause of evil has been removed, the stigma 
 remains. But I told him my poor, cherishing Harry 
 that now, in the hour of its need, I will not desert my 
 paper. Nay. I will stand by it in this, its direst tribu- 
 lation. 'Twould be cowardly to fly now when the 
 signals of distress are hoisted. I forced Harry to 
 agree with me. Painful though it be, repulsive though 
 this atmosphere of carnal taint may prove ... I shall 
 stay. I shall struggle against my impulse, battle with 
 my fierce desire for solitude and peace . . . and re- 
 main !" 
 
 Lamp-Post Lucy, in glossy Wellingtons, able to 
 plough through mire of a more than metaphorical kind, 
 laughed. "I wish I'd thought of that, Anatasia," she 
 said her equanimity had soon returned, like chickens, 
 to roost. "It is clever, and if I were you, I should 
 write it. They will raise your salary, and, although 
 you don't need sordid inducements of that sort, still, it 
 would be handy to have in the house. Personally, I 
 shall try and overcome my horror at these events. I 
 shall endeavor to cultivate pity for the poor, aban- 
 doned wretch of a girl. I shall try to believe it will 
 be hard, of course that such things might, in un- 
 guarded moments, have happened to any of us " 
 
 "Stay!" cried Mrs. Amelia Amberg Hutchinson, 
 majestically bringing a corrugated hand violently into 
 contact with her desk. "Pause, Lucy, in your sweep- 
 ing charity. You will try to believe that such things 
 might have happened to any of us ? To me ? You dare 
 suggest to me ? You would intimate that I have mo- 
 ments, so strangely unguarded, that my reputation 
 could imperil itself, and my fair name waver? Do not 
 say it. Never say it. You mean well, and your senti- 
 ment is a pretty one like Mrs. Atwood's. But do not
 
 326 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 impugn the chastity of your associates in your pardon- 
 able desire to advertise yourself. Do not profess to be- 
 lieve that which could never be. I have always been 
 considered an impregnable rock even in my younger 
 days," she added, reluctantly, for it seemed rather silly 
 to allude to them, "and now I refuse to be included in 
 a category such as that you so readily mention." 
 
 Their equanimity was certainly restored, for they 
 could now turn upon each other, facon Kilkenny, and 
 bicker exuberantly. 
 
 "Atkinson Smith wanted to discuss the matter with 
 me, this morning," said Happy Hippy, who exhaled a 
 more than usually stimulating odor of stewed violets. 
 "Positively, he imagined that I could really talk the 
 matter over. So I said to him, 'My dear man, I have 
 never objected to commenting upon the written ribal- 
 dry of this er creature, but I cannot bring myself 
 to er an analysis of her real misdemeanors with 
 you, at any rate. You see," she added, with a laugh, 
 "it's no good allowing men to think that we even under- 
 stand such iniquities. Of course, we understand them 
 but I never believe in permitting the other sex to 
 know it." 
 
 Happy Hippy smoothed down her figure, that seemed 
 to be growing restive, and coaxed back a hip from its 
 apparent travels round her anatomy. Satisfied virtue 
 was expressed in her face. As a matter of fact, Happy 
 Hippy was a diplomat, and the dangerous topic pro- 
 jected by poor Sallie had been used very effectively by 
 her. For she knew that men, once turned to such dis- 
 cussions with women, unbent marvellously. It had 
 been a source of great pleasure to Happy Hippy. 
 
 "If Miss Sydenham had only possessed a mother!" 
 sighed Mamie Munson, always willing to drag in her 
 own obese, black-alpaca parent. "We should be more
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 327 
 
 charitable," she went on, "in view of the fact that she 
 is alone in the world. That is what mommer said. At 
 first she wanted me to resign, as she thought that such 
 influences in an office were dangerous. She cried bit- 
 terly for at least two hours, and I had hard work to 
 keep her from coming here and begging Mr. Childers 
 to release me. But I prevailed upon her at last to let 
 me remain. In time, I suppose, we shall forget these 
 dreadful events. Time heals all wounds," she added 
 epigrammatically, with copy-book fervor. And, after 
 all, what epigrams of Montaigne, Chincholle, or Vau- 
 venargues give as much solid satisfaction to the illiter- 
 ate as ... the copy-book ? 
 
 Miss Eva Higgins was writing an interview with 
 the mother of a girl who had been accused of murder- 
 ing her lover in one of the squalid "Raines law" hotels 
 of the city. She had already composed a splendid arti- 
 cle, in which this mother a stout, uneducated Irish- 
 woman, named O'Flaherty had said pathetic things, 
 full of the philosophy of Diderot and the inspired 
 poetry of Shakespeare. In reality, Miss Higgins had 
 discovered that Mrs. O'Flaherty was singularly ad- 
 dicted to incoherent utterances, beginning with "Be- 
 gorrah!" But of what use is the feminine owl, if it 
 be not to idealize, to beautify, and to educate? Miss 
 Higgins was an adept. But she was not inclined to 
 view the "Sydenham case," as she called it, with leni- 
 ent eyes. 
 
 "I have no doubt," she said, pausing she had just 
 made Mother O'Flaherty say, "One should let the 
 world feed when it is hungry, and on the food for 
 which it craves" "I have no doubt but that this Syd- 
 enham woman might have been discovered in her 
 crimes long ago. I, for one, don't believe that Arthur 
 Stuyvesant was the first. One reaches a man of that
 
 328 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 sort" with a laugh "by easy stages. For all that 
 we know to the contrary, we have been inhaling this 
 horrible atmosphere for months, and Miss Sydenham's 
 decollete style has been due to the most obviously 
 decollete habits. That is my opinion." 
 
 "Miss Higgins is right," declared Mrs. Amelia Am- 
 berg Hutchinson. "The mask has been torn off in 
 time. The creature is bad to the core, and if this 
 particular discovery had not taken place, goodness 
 knows what might not have happened. Let us be 
 thankful. Hard and cruel though this blow may be, 
 it is undoubtedly a wise Providence that has ordered 
 it." 
 
 Happy Hippy was suddenly convulsed with laugh- 
 ter. "The funniest thing I have ever seen," she said, 
 tinkling, "is Mr. Childers' face. It is like the quint- 
 essence of half a dozen well-selected funerals. I just 
 mentioned her name to him, and he flew into such a 
 rage that I beat a retreat. And that silly little Poplets 
 girl she makes me sick fired up and looked as 
 though she were going to have a fit. No doubt he 
 feels it acutely. He used to ride uptown with her at 
 night. Ha! ha! They've been seen a dozen times 
 crossing City Hall Park. And now how foolish he 
 must feel and just engaged, too!" 
 
 Anastasia Atwood, dark in her mourning robes, 
 drew a deep breath. She remembered a certain dinner 
 at Mouquin's, when Miss Sydenham, seated with the 
 managing editor, had dared to invite her to join them 
 at their table. Perhaps Sallie had never imagined how 
 thoroughly the most insignificant favor might be 
 turned to her disadvantage. But Anastasia had a good 
 memory. 
 
 "Not for the world," she remarked, "would I utter a 
 word derogatory to Mr. Childers. Men are merely
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 329 
 
 thoughtless. They lack psychic intuition. What Mrs. 
 Hapgood says is true, however. They have been seen 
 together, and I have seen them positively dining. 
 And," sinking her voice to a whisper, "unless I am 
 very much mistaken, there was wine on the table. Oh" 
 arranging her hands spectacularly "why why is 
 it that we are tried so sorely that we have no pre- 
 monitions no foreshadowings ? I could weep as I 
 think of Mr. Childers, now engaged to a beautiful, 
 pure and unsophisticated maiden, hampered by such 
 recollections. For never never no matter what hap- 
 pens can he forget that he dined and talked in con- 
 spicuous tete-a-tete with this woman to whom chastity 
 is nothing. In the years to come, when little children 
 are gathered round his knee, his vision of this dreadful 
 thing will confront him. He will see her, branded in 
 scarlet a blot upon the sanctity of his home before 
 his mental eyes." 
 
 Mamie Munson tittered. She thought it rather rude 
 of Anastasia to even imagine Mr. Childers with chil- 
 dren, when he was merely engaged. But she deemed 
 it wise to say nothing, as each of the owls, in pictur- 
 esque hysteria, might pounce upon and unmask her. 
 For they knew her heart, as they knew their own. 
 Each was fully aware that the other was playing a part 
 in a comedy with a "strong" situation. 
 
 Lamp-Post Lucy was stamping majestically about 
 the room, her Wellingtons sounding like the muffled 
 tread of troops. She could have laughed aloud at An- 
 astasia Atwood, and at another time, perhaps, would 
 gladly have done so. But she was afraid of her sisters, 
 as they were afraid of her. The one thing they all 
 dreaded was to be accused of sour grapes. They had 
 all been singularly free from temptation for obvious 
 and other reasons and they were lugubriously anxi-
 
 330 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 cms to conceal from one another a fact that each knew. 
 They were playing like cats with a mouse . . . the 
 mouse being the situation. 
 
 "I shall pray for that poor, deluded little Robinson 
 boy," said Mrs. Amelia Amberg Hutchinson pres- 
 ently. "On my knees I shall ask Divine interference 
 for him." (Amelia couldn't possibly have seen her 
 knees for years, but she liked to talk of them.) "Silly 
 boy ! It is truly wonderful what the influence of one 
 bad woman can do! Here is this youth for he is 
 really a youth who might be" (she was going to say 
 "my son," but was rather tired of insulting herself, so 
 changed it to) "Anastasia's son. Yes, Anastasia, you 
 can't deny it. He can't be a day over two-and-twenty. 
 There is this youth, assaulting his city editor, and actu- 
 ally resigning his position, for the sake of this aban- 
 doned girl. It is deplorable. I shall certainly pray for 
 him. It is the least I can do. Grace is what he 
 needs." 
 
 "As for his being my son," sullenly remarked the 
 poetess, "I must say that I don't thank you for the 
 supposition, Amelia. Really, I fail to see its signifi- 
 cance. Little Robinson is, as you say, at least two- 
 and-twenty. I have been married ten years. You 
 seem to intimate that for twelve years I was on a level 
 with Miss Sydenham, and that Harry was a fool. 
 These personalities are very distressing, and I will not 
 allow them. Nobody has the right to make such in- 
 sinuations. I simply " 
 
 "Break away," cried Lamp-Post Lucy, elegantly. 
 "Break away. It seems to me that the pros and cons 
 of this case are limitless, and we are running round 
 and round without arriving anywhere. I vote that we 
 pray for everybody concerned Mr. Childers, Mr. 
 Stuyvesant, little Robinson, and Miss Sydenham, her-
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 331 
 
 self. We shall be so busy that we sha'n't have time for 
 ourselves. But we don't need it. We " 
 
 "Stay!" Again the corrugated hand of Mrs. Ame- 
 lia Amberg Hutchinson was brought into violent con- 
 tact with her desk. "Lucy is flippant, and the occa- 
 sion calls for no frivolity. I had no intention of af- 
 fronting you, Anastasia. I should have known" 
 spitefully "that you were childless. A marriage late 
 in life is convenient, but not usually prolific, as I fre- 
 quently tell my correspondents when they enclose 
 stamps for reply. Accept my apology, Anastasia. I 
 should have known better. Little Robinson might 
 have been my own son, and I am not ashamed to admit 
 it. I hope the confession satisfies you. In the mean- 
 time, let us be peaceful. Do not let it be said that we 
 have waxed fractious over so drear an episode as this. 
 Rather let the world see us tranquilly resigned hope- 
 ful for the future brave, cheerful." 
 
 "If you had mixed in society as I have done," said 
 Miss Eisenstein, who had been silent, sucking in sweet 
 draughts of the turbulent mixture that she had brewed, 
 "you would not let yourselves go on in this plebeian 
 way. It is assuredly a very nasty affair, but in the very 
 highest society, people look upon it all as a sort of joke. 
 It would be infra dig. to moralize, and philosophize, 
 and fall upon one's knees as Amelia contemplates do- 
 ing. One discusses the situation one deplores it 
 and ta-ta. It is finished. Next." 
 
 The society writer in the Division Street hat laughed 
 gracefully and shrugged her shoulders. She would 
 have been bitterly disappointed if her tale-bearing had 
 resulted in nothing more than the effect she outlined. 
 She had fully, contemplated the splendid enormity of 
 the event .that she narrated. She had greedily inhaled 
 the atmospheric disturbance that she had aroused.
 
 332 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 Still, she felt bound to play her part, and she flattered 
 herself that she was never lacking. 
 
 Later in the day Mr. Atkinson Smith "dropped in" 
 in his accustomed manner. Perhaps he thought that a 
 breezy discussion of the Sydenham case with the femi- 
 nine owls might prove titillant. But he was disap- 
 pointed. The sanctum had re-established itself. The 
 nest had been carefully tidied and settled. The 
 rumpled plumage of the owls had been ostentatiously 
 smoothed. His overtures were disregarded. He was 
 quite prepared to listen to outbreaks of outraged virtue, 
 which are soothing to certain men. 
 
 He found Amelia Amberg Hutchinson, chastely ar- 
 rayed in her happy-wife-and-mother look, answering 
 correspondents sweetly and anxiously removing gal- 
 axies of freckles, veritable torrents of pimples, armies 
 of blackheads from confiding, communicative faces. 
 Mum was Amelia as far as Miss Sydenham was con- 
 cerned. To his deftly managed probing she replied 
 with a smile and an expression of charity. Atkinson 
 Smith was chagrined. 
 
 Anastasia Atwood, in the throes of composition, was 
 equally taciturn. She coaxed a stagnant tear to lurk 
 in an eye, as she looked up at him, but he could not in- 
 duce her to talk, and he clamored to hear her. In 
 vain did he emit "maxims" which, at another time, 
 would have provoked retort even if she failed to un- 
 derstand them. Anastasia wrapped herself in a cloak 
 of silence and declined to emerge therefrom. 
 
 In despair he turned to Happy Hippy, who had 
 never been known to fail in any emergency. But she 
 was primed for him. Had they been alone, the flood- 
 gates of her eloquence might have been opened. He 
 would have received at least two Rolands for his 
 Oliver. But in the presence of the feminine owls
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 333 
 
 Happy Hippy thought it politic to be a perfect lady. 
 Atkinson Smith fancied, just once, that he saw her 
 wink, as he alluded to the scene that met the eye of 
 Detective Sylvester Jackson ; but he was not sure of it. 
 At any rate, she declined to be drawn out, and Atkin- 
 son Smith reserved her for future reference. 
 
 Miss Munson coquettishly cast down her eyes, and 
 kept them down. In vain did he speak of girls with 
 mothers, knowing her specialty and nobody could 
 avoid knowing it. Miss Munson for once kept mom- 
 mer carefully tucked away in the recesses of her heart. 
 She even managed to blush once or twice, a feat that 
 she was rarely able to accomplish, but which she at- 
 tained by thinking persistently of the asterisks of the 
 situation. She felt very pleased with herself. She 
 was the only feminine owl that had blushed, and she 
 hoped that the fact had impressed itself upon Atkinson 
 Smith's receptive mind. 
 
 Lamp-Post Lucy, who had never yet appealed to 
 him, was unsuccessfully approached. She sat, with 
 her legs crossed, swinging a Wellington and smiling 
 agreeably. But she was mute on the subject of Sallie 
 Sydenham. She felt bound to follow the leader. In 
 union there was strength and all that sort of thing. 
 Whatever she might think of this unusual policy of 
 silence, she felt that it was her duty to live up to it. 
 Moreover, nothing could have blackened poor Sallie 
 more completely than this heavy lethargy. It was hard 
 for Lamp-Post Lucy to resist a few pregnant aphor- 
 isms, but she succeeded. Atkinson Smith made no 
 effort to talk to Eva Higgins, who was too serious to 
 be amusing. 
 
 He left the feminine owls, completely abashed. This 
 feeling gave way to one of resentment. 
 
 "Silly old cats !" he thought to himself. "What are
 
 334 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 they for, if not to entertain us?" And he resolved to 
 give them a wide berth for the future ... in fact, to 
 punish them. He had accustomed himself to a daily 
 visit, from which he derived much amusement. They 
 were as good as a farce, and they gave him steady, un- 
 flagging satisfaction. He enjoyed the comedy that 
 exuded from their pores, and he was not prepared for 
 this sudden access of repressive prudery, which he 
 knew full well was in reality displayed for his benefit. 
 
 And so bad news rode post and news baited, and 
 feminine Owldom knew the keenest joy. The sin- 
 ister silence of Mr. Childers was easxperating, and 
 the sudden development of little Poplets from a meek 
 nonentity to a full-fledged virago astounded them. 
 But everything was arranged to suit their own concep- 
 tion of the case. Mr. Childers' attitude was due to 
 self-reproach, remorse, the qualms of conscience, the 
 knowledge that he had been gulled and deceived. Lit- 
 tle Poplets was taking advantage of this state to dis- 
 play herself in her true colors. 
 
 And gradually the veil of silence fell upon the of- 
 fice, and its tireless routine was re-established. It 
 was surprisingly dull without Sallie. A fruitful topic 
 of conversation had been removed. Half the occupa- 
 tion of feminine Owldom was gone. No longer could 
 they discuss the ribaldry of her writing, or the aban- 
 doned, perverted views of life that she took. No more 
 were they able to gossip of her appearance, her make- 
 up, her demeanor, her unwomanliness, her flightiness. 
 The days seemed lank and long. Amelia Amberg 
 Hutchinson dared to find her correspondents inoppor- 
 tune and provoking ; Anastasia Atwood lost a favorite 
 pose, and was overpowered with the stern prose of her 
 poetry; Happy Hippy, whose allurements had been 
 frequently brought to a head by the fillip given to her
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 335 
 
 persiflage by Sallie Sydenham, grew dull and despond- 
 ent; Eva Higgins found the moods of her sisters try- 
 ing and fatal to her inspiration ; Lamp-Post Lucy real- 
 ized the disastrous somnolence of the office, and could 
 have found it in her heart to wish that somebody else 
 would go wrong; Mamie Munsoh alluded less fre- 
 quently to her parent, for now the office was so atro- 
 ciously virtuous that even a mother's influence was un- 
 necessary; even Rita Eisenstein felt the appalling 
 change. 
 
 The machinery of a fatiguing, daily routine had lost 
 its pleasant lubrication the one spot that rendered 
 friction impossible. The withdrawal of Sallie Syden- 
 ham was a bitter blow to the feminine owls bitter and 
 unacknowledged. The most irritating thing about it 
 was that the interest in it sagged so gloomily. Prowl 
 around the subject as they would, and as they did, its 
 vitality was gradually impaired. The finest sensation 
 in the world has death written largely upon its very 
 face. The skill of malevolence and the attitude of un- 
 charity cannot keep it alive. It is doomed from the 
 start. All the efforts of Mrs. Amelia Amberg Hutch- 
 inson and like Mrs. Dombey, she made 'em all the 
 coy suggestiveness of Anastasia Atwood and the jour- 
 nalistic sisterhood were of no avail. They could not 
 keep the sap in the miserable story of poor Sallie's 
 downfall. It was soon an oft and very oft-told tale. 
 Even the boys who "ran" the elevator, the woman who 
 scrubbed the floors, the youths who carried the copy, 
 grew weary of it. New rumors, novel twists, other 
 view-points were introduced like the last sad resorts of 
 consulting physicians. All failed. 
 
 In the happy little sanctum there was peace and 
 slumbrous calm that knew no breezy, tonicy awaken- 
 ing. And the feminine owls loathed it all. They
 
 336 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 bickered, and they struggled with this demoralizing 
 quiet that threatened to be endless. Anchored solidly 
 in the helplessness of their own virtue, they saw be- 
 fore them the sad vista of the unruffled and the un- 
 eventful. Not one of them would be "lured to her 
 ruin." They were all horribly certain of it. Gibraltar 
 was no less stable than Amelia Amberg Hutchinson, 
 Anastasia Atwood, Lamp-Post Lucy, Happy Hippy, 
 Eva Higgins, Mamie Munson and Rita Eisenstein. 
 
 Sallie Sydenham was fully avenged. They missed 
 her footstep on the stair . . . bless you !
 
 D 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 O every owl at some sad, unexpected moment 
 comes the drear sensation of finality. Wheels 
 that have revolved in quick, incessant cir- 
 cuits stop suddenly, and the blithe, insouciant 
 owl is confronted with dire possibilities. Lulled by a 
 fiendish sense of security for money flows in regu- 
 larly, and woes that beset the votaries of commerce are 
 almost unknown the habitants of Newspaper Row 
 go blindly to their fate. One nest fails them . . . 
 there are others. It is only when the crisis looms up, 
 immense, morose, and portentous, that the irony of the 
 thing appeals. 
 
 Gay improvidence has achieved its work. The owl 
 has not foreseen the "rainy day." There are few econ- 
 omies, and rare provisions. A single day's skirmish 
 missed is a serious affair; an idle week is a calamity; 
 leisure, further enforced, and a stark procession of ills 
 and wants passes promiscuously. Those who have had 
 no time to make money, but merely long and wasteful 
 years in which to earn it, realize the vanity and cruelty 
 of it all. 
 
 "The destiny," as Henry Watterson has said, "that 
 began in the love of letters and adventure is to end 
 only in victory or the poorhouse." And he gilds the 
 haunts of Newspaper Row with all the glamour of an 
 old-time Bohemia. He apostrophizes poetically "the 
 working boys on the force, the silent singers of the 
 press, who begin at fifteen, to be no longer efficient at 
 fifty, unless along the route they have secured some 
 safe retreat, or quiet corner, where they may work out
 
 338 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 their dependency until the final summons that equalizes 
 us all comes to take them hence." 
 
 And these "silent singers" struggle along, perfectly 
 satisfied, achieving their weekly pittance, and . . . 
 preparing to achieve another. The contemplation of 
 logical possibilities is not at all in their line. Quand il 
 n'y en a plus, il y en a toufours. It is the motto of 
 Newspaperdom. Blinking in owl-like sagacity, they 
 see the necessary finish of all ... but themselves! 
 Pungent stories of fates to which their own are kin 
 flow from their pens. Their eyes are turned outward 
 . . . never inward. And the time comes stealthily, 
 inevitably, when journalism, with its mighty pumps, 
 has drawn from them all their vital juices; when noth- 
 ing but a dry and pulpless rind remains brains weary, 
 bodies fatigued, a long apprenticeship unavailing, an 
 unworldly worldiness unable to cope with material cer- 
 tainties and the gaunt hand of lank impecuniosity 
 is stretched menacingly out. Younger blood, meth- 
 ods "up-to-date," new-time procedures, cry out at them 
 with mocking insistence. The "powers that be" have 
 changed, and wot nothing of long and faithful service. 
 And they slink away from all that has known them, to 
 go ... the Lord knows where. Men of lost oppor- 
 tunities ! Sad perversions of nerve and grit ! 
 
 Sallie Sydenham sat with Lettie one morning in her 
 little dining-room and suddenly for the first time it 
 occurred to her that her exchequer was void. Her 
 martyrdom was undoubtedly very worthy and all that 
 sort of thing. She had done heroic deeds in the name 
 of love and loyalty two admirable emotions that are 
 not at all nourishing, and have never yet been known to 
 pay the grocer. And now the question arose it is a 
 question filled with eternal yeast and always rises as 
 to what to do. She must live, and so must Lettie
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 339 
 
 there was even Rosina to be considered and the fu- 
 ture, whatever it might have in store, must be faced. 
 A contented mind may, in theory, be most appetizing; 
 but a loaf of bread, even with mental agitation, is, as 
 a rule, more practical. 
 
 The idea of flitting to another nest was of course 
 intolerable. Each owl is branded, and Sallie knew that 
 her story was labelled all over the "fourth estate." 
 Possibly the brilliancy of her work and the fame that it 
 had brought to her would count for a great deal. But 
 the notion was distasteful to her. It seemed to her 
 like the disloyalty of loyalty. In fact, such a course 
 would be repugnant to her. Her expenses had been 
 large. Lettie had been a drain upon her. She had 
 lived perhaps a trifle too regardlessly. Rosina had 
 been a luxury that she might have dispensed with. She 
 had frittered away her money, reckless of everything, 
 and now, well ... it was a problem. Owls cannot 
 cope with problems except in theory. They can write 
 about them very plausibly, and reduce them to the irre- 
 sistible form of diagram. They cannot apply them to 
 their own uses. 
 
 Little Robinson, now a constant visitor at Sallie's 
 apartment and Sallie saw with keenest joy certain lit- 
 tle surreptitious signs denoting a comradeship between 
 Lettie and the impulsive ex-reporter had obtained 
 lucrative employment in a law office. He was full of 
 schemes for Sallie, and could talk by the hour of 
 plans that would raise her to millionairedom. But it 
 was the "meantime" that worried. Sallie felt that 
 rents and things would have to be paid before she was 
 a millionairess. There were grocers, and butchers, and 
 prosaic things like light, that must be airily toyed with. 
 Of course, these trifles would be ludicrous when she 
 stood on a Vanderbiltian pinnacle. But in the mean-
 
 340 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 time. ... It is the "meantime" that is the curse of 
 life. The future is generally beautiful, especially to 
 owls. It usually takes on a luminous aspect. If only 
 the "meantime" could be successfully bridged . . . 
 
 He was a nice, honest little boy that foolish Rob- 
 inson and she grew to like him more than ever. His 
 high spirits were infectious, and they cheered her. In 
 his eyes she was perfection. With all the fervor of his 
 youth he was devoted to her. And Lettie her faint 
 reflection a dear link by which, perhaps, he might 
 later achieve a cherished proximity, charmed him. 
 They might have been so cosy that young three 
 Sallie with the past to feed on, the others recklessly 
 stretching forth to an outlined future ! But the "mean- 
 time" cropped up. It was the mote in the sunbeam; 
 it usually is. What to do, and how to do it? 
 
 Fortunately, the difficulty was solved in due course 
 by the appearance of Charlie Covington. Sallie had 
 forgotten him or she thought that she had for she 
 felt that she had repaid his devotion with ingratitude, 
 and she had vigorously tried to forget that night ! He 
 was an "old friend," as she had told him, and old 
 friends cannot accommodate themselves to new condi- 
 tions. They judge by their previous knowledge. 
 Strangers, as Doudan says, take us for reasonable be- 
 ings. Sallie fought down an impulse to evoke the aid 
 of Charlie Covington. And so she forgot him or 
 thought that she did so. 
 
 He had aged, and he was more serious than usual. 
 Time was dealing very rudely with him, and she looked 
 at him remorsefully as he came, for the first time, to 
 her little home. She was sorely oppressed, and a pre- 
 sentiment that the horrible affair was to be dug up and 
 discussed all over again made her tremble. Until 
 events took place those that Arthur Stuyvesant had
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 341 
 
 vaguely indicated she had resolved to give no abid- 
 ing place in her mind to any single aspect of her drama. 
 When she saw Charlie Covington before her the horrid 
 panorama began to move vividly. But the young man 
 knew her too well; his fine, sensitive nature was too 
 keenly attuned to sanction the brusquerie of the mere 
 intruder. 
 
 "I have been thinking," he said as they sat at the lit- 
 tle dining-room table, "that you will want something 
 to do, Sallie. And it has occurred to me that I can 
 provide it. Could you write stories wild, woolly love 
 affairs, full of the conventional sentiment that shop- 
 girls and factory hands adore? You know the kind 
 of thing I mean stories that always end happily, with 
 lots of marriage bells stories in which the heroine 
 is perpetually beautiful, and the hero invariably a six- 
 footer, with lithe, clean-cut limbs, blue eyes, and curly 
 hair? And, of course, a villain. Do you think you 
 could do this?" 
 
 For a moment she could not speak, for she was un- 
 able to lure herself to a consideration of his practical 
 suggestion. She was contemplating the events that 
 had passed and marvelling at his unselfishness. For she 
 knew that there was much he should hear that he 
 had a right to hear and yet he did not ask. This was 
 surely friendship in the very essence of its altruism. 
 What had she done to deserve such a wealth of disin- 
 terested devotion? Her eyes grew dim, and . . . she 
 averted her face. She could not look at him. He was 
 so pale ; he seemed so ill, and yet he could think of her 
 welfare, and only of that. All that had passed . . . 
 had passed. She appreciated Charlie Covington at 
 last. 
 
 "I think," he continued, noting her strange silence, 
 "that if you 'tried you could write these stories. It
 
 342 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 would be such a very good thing, and I could get you 
 steady and uninterrupted employment. It is fatiguing, 
 but it pays well, and once you have got into the groove 
 well, Sallie, there are many worse things than put- 
 ting slushy stories together. Of course of course, 
 there will be no glory in it." 
 
 Her eyes shone. She could not quite succeed in 
 thinking of herself; her admiration for this most dis- 
 interested friendship was the chief sensation she knew. 
 But he was waiting and she must speak. 
 
 "I do not want glory," she said, rather unsteadily. 
 "I I should like to make a living. What you offer, 
 Charlie, is noble. It is the very thing that I should 
 have chosen. After a little practice, I have no doubt 
 but that I shall be able to develop into a family story- 
 writer. At any rate, I am deeply grateful to you for 
 the opportunity. I was just beginning to wonder what 
 I should do. Lettie is here with me I must intro- 
 duce you, Charlie and I am anxious to keep up this 
 little place ; naturally, I should so hate to give it up." 
 
 They were silent. Her eyes were riveted upon his 
 white face, with its care-streaks. He was a young 
 old man; years of lonely bachelorhood stared at him 
 rudely. Fate should have dealt differently with him, 
 she reflected. This warm, kindly, scrupulous nature, 
 so responsive to all the higher, nobler instincts, should 
 have been delicately cherished. Poor Charlie! He 
 lived in his dinner coat . . . at his club. And this 
 was anomalous. He was designed for a home and the 
 comfortable pleasures of domesticity. It grieved her 
 to think of all this. And he had asked her to be his 
 wife ! It was surely a great honor, in spite of its ar- 
 dent impossibility. 
 
 The silence grew oppressive, and she made up her 
 mind there and then to speak on the one topic that she
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 343 
 
 dreaded. She owed Charlie Covington just that much. 
 His friendship was unfailing and even if he had 
 spoiled it all by shearing away the platonics, her deep 
 sense of obligation to him cried out for satisfaction. 
 
 "Were you surprised?" she asked quietly, and she 
 felt that there was no need to say more. The divining 
 rod of his devotion to her would guess her meaning. 
 
 "No," he replied, and he lapsed into silence. But he 
 felt interrogation points in the air ; he realized that she 
 was willing to talk ; he knew that she even desired the 
 ventilation of the sickly subject, and he succumbed. 
 
 "Since you wish it," he continued, responding to her 
 swift telepathy the mental attitude that he felt, al- 
 though no physical expression of it had taken place 
 
 "since you wish it, I will tell you, Sallie, that I guessed 
 all. After I left you that evening when when I was 
 foolish enough to suppose that you could care for me 
 sufficiently to become my wife the thing was sud- 
 denly revealed to me. Don't you believe in intuition ? 
 I do. In my case the truth was flashed upon me. They 
 call it putting two and two together as though 
 it were all a vulgar question of arithmetic. I don't 
 think I added or subtracted anything. I simply real- 
 ized for the first time you don't mind my saying it 
 that you loved Jack Childers." 
 
 She did not flinch. After all ... what did it mat- 
 ter? She nodded in proud assent, for she could not 
 bring herself to the banal expression of conventional 
 femininity. She should have said "Oh, don't!" or 
 something equally deprecatory ... but she didn't. 
 
 "I had not contemplated that possibility before," he 
 resumed, "and I was a fool. Jack is such a lovable 
 fellow . . . any woman would be justified in adoring 
 him. I saw it all ... the frequent communication 
 . . . your rides uptown ... his eager championship
 
 344 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 of everything you did . . . your silent devotion to his 
 whims and his opinions " 
 
 "But," she cried suddenly, "you are intimating that 
 he loves me. That . . . that is absurd." 
 
 He held up his hand in warning, but he smiled at 
 her impulsiveness. "I think I know you both," he 
 said. "I I love you both. Your heart, dear old 
 girl, has been revealed to me. May I not also under- 
 stand his? He does not know ... he has no idea of 
 his sentiments toward you. You were a jolly good 
 fellow, as far as he was concerned, eh, Sallie? Dear 
 old Jack!" 
 
 And then she did say "Oh, don't !" But it was not 
 a banal expression of conventional femininity; it was 
 wrung from her in the exquisite torture that he in- 
 flicted. As she listened to him her breath came quick- 
 ly. His apparent clairvoyance amazed her. 
 
 "When I heard this hateful story," he went on, "and 
 saw the horror of the position in which you had placed 
 yourself, everything was made clear. First of all, I 
 remembered the night of the reception . . . when Ivy 
 Hampton was seen in communion with Arthur Stuyve- 
 sant. At the time I thought this extremely odd, but 
 I forgot it. For it might have been just a trivial inci- 
 dent. It was susceptible to plausible explanation. 
 And next . . . there was that unprecedented demand 
 of yours for a cruel assignment. This was all neatly 
 dovetailed in my mind though I cannot call it putting 
 two and two together and I understood. You had 
 been there to warn them, and had been caught in the 
 act. I am right?" 
 
 He had spoken very slowly, and his deliberate words 
 rang out clearly and astoundingly. To Sallie it was 
 marvellous. It was as though he had read her mind. 
 She looked at him in awe, as though he had been in 
 communication with discarnate intelligence.
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 345 
 
 "You are right," she said; "and it was poor little 
 Mrs. Stuyvesant who gave me the opportunity to warn 
 them. I had told her all, Charlie," she added, anxious 
 to "confess" what seemed to her at that moment to be 
 an act of disloyalty. For she had confessed to a stran- 
 ger what this disinterested friend had been obliged 
 to guess. 
 
 "But if Mrs. Stuyvesant knew everything?" he 
 asked, suddenly puzzled, "if you had told her the 
 truth, then even if Detective Jackson had declared to 
 her that he had discovered you in Stuyvesant's room 
 she would have understood ? Why did you go to such 
 very extremes of martyrdom? Was it not needless?" 
 
 "I could do nothing else," she answered, submitting 
 to his catechism. "The divorce case was really dis- 
 carded. It had not occurred to me to imagine that 
 Mr. Green would think . . . what he thought. He 
 regarded me as guilty . . . the affair was noised 
 through the office. I was in a disastrous position. If 
 I had told Mr. Childers the truth, he would have had to 
 explain it all to Mr. Green and the office. I know 
 he would have done it, and would have branded his 
 own flesh and blood. But that is not what I wanted, 
 Charlie. I had gone so far, and I had no intention of 
 receding. The truth will be known Arthur Stuy- 
 vesant has sworn it, and on this occasion I believe him. 
 All that I care for, therefore, is ... that I averted 
 scandal, and that Jack Childers will never marry Ivy." 
 
 She unlocked a desk and took from it the letter she 
 had received from the actor. From it she read the 
 words that had consoled her when, with her whole 
 soul, she had prayed for assistance. "Of course, you 
 will feel it your duty," she read, "to break the en- 
 gagement between Ivy and Mr. Childers. That will 
 be even harder for you than the difficult task you have
 
 346 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 already undertaken and carried through. And so I 
 write these lines to you, Miss Sydenham, to tell you. 
 that the engagement will be broken, and that you 
 can leave the matter to us. I swear to you solemnly, 
 by all that I have ever held holy (and there have been 
 a few things, Miss Sydenham; there are still one or 
 two) that Ivy and Mr. Childers will never be married. 
 Rest quite assured of that. You can leave Mr Child- 
 ers in tranquillity for the present. You need not be 
 the bearer of news that you would loathe to impart. 
 Only be satisfied, and convinced that you have nothing 
 further to do. You can also believe that we are actu- 
 ated solely by our own interests." 
 
 It did her good to re-read these lines. Again she 
 felt their promising import. They refreshed her and 
 revived her spirits. 
 
 "I think I understand," Charlie Covington said. "In 
 fact, I feel quite sure that I see the denouement. But, 
 Sallie, when it occurs you will go back to Newspaper 
 Row, and" viciously "confront those who have ac- 
 cused you." 
 
 She shuddered. "Never!" she cried. "Never! 
 As long as there is a floor to scrub in New York, or 
 or" with a smile "or stories of thin heroines and 
 doughty heroes to write, I shall remain outside of 
 Newspaper Row. I could not face them. I could never 
 forget . . . what they thought. I shall miss it, I 
 know. After all, it is inspiring, isn't it, Charlie ? We 
 think we hate the excitement, and worry, and disap- 
 pointment all the dear old turmoil and the promiscu- 
 ous intercourse of journalism. But we don't. I 
 < I long for it now. Oh, for a theatre, and a trudge 
 through City Hall Park to the office to see the jolly old 
 boys, and to drink in the noise and the electricity of it 
 all. But . . but it is all over. I shall be redeemed
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 347 
 
 in some way you can guess the way; I can't. But 
 I could not go back to journalism, and I could not bear 
 to see Jack Childers when he knows." 
 
 "You are right," he said presently. He wondered 
 why oh, strange inconsistency! he had contem- 
 plated her return ; for had he not longed to drag her 
 from it all? Had he not told himself, when he asked 
 her to be his wife, that he was partly actuated by the 
 desire to remove her from the dreary surroundings 
 of Newspaper Row? "You are right, Sallie," he re- 
 peated, "and" with an emotion that he could not re- 
 press "you are a heroine." 
 
 But she felt that she must trample down any mush- 
 room growth of pathos. She dreaded it, for it would 
 take so little to weaken her attitude. In a few min- 
 utes, if she were not careful, she would be weeping on 
 his shoulder. And he might shed a tear. ... In real 
 life men often shed tears. It is disgraceful in books 
 and plays, inevitable in actual experience. . . . She 
 could not tolerate the mere possibility of an emotional 
 duet. 
 
 "Don't call me a heroine." she said flippantly poor 
 old wraith of her former easy moods! "It is such a 
 nasty thing to say. I daresay you think I'm like the 
 beautiful girls in plays, who could avert five acts of 
 misery by speaking one little harmless word. I hope 
 I'm not in that class. I was not driven out into the 
 snow-storm and the night by any such absurdity. Do 
 you really think I was, Charlie? If I could have 
 avoided all this I would have done it. I was awfully 
 cowardly, and several times I seriously thought of 
 giving the whole snap away. Even after I had spoken 
 to Mr. Green, I could not bring myself to march out of 
 the office like a heroine. I had to see Mr. Childers, if 
 you please. And I will confess isn't it awfully un-
 
 348 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 heroinely, Charlie? that in my soul I hoped he 
 would beg me to stay and find some way out of it. 
 And then I should have stayed. Of course, I see now 
 that it was impossible. I might certainly have given 
 Jack Mr. Childers an opportunity to be a hero, by 
 allowing him to tell the world that I was innocent, and 
 that his affianced wife was the culprit. But I was too 
 er selfish to give him that chance. I wanted all 
 that was a-coming to me, don't you see, Charlie?" 
 
 "But as long as it has got to come out later, why 
 should you have piled on the agony?" he asked, vacil- 
 lating again. 
 
 "Precisely," she answered, "because I was not a 
 heroine. I couldn't bear to tell him myself. Perhaps 
 he would have hated me for it. You see" and she 
 steadied her voice with an effort "I wanted to appear 
 in a picturesque light later. I haven't been writing 
 dramatic criticism all this time without acquiring an 
 eye for dramatic effect. I want a halo, even though I 
 don't deserve it. In reality, I am quite feeble and 
 silly. I have tried to make things as easy for myself 
 as I could all the way through this wretched affair. 
 Call me anything you like, Charlie, but not a heroine. 
 There is only one thing in this world worse than a hero- 
 ine, and it is a lady." 
 
 Charlie Covington saw through the transparency of 
 her elaborate frivolity. He knew that there was no 
 flaw in the work that she had done. She could not 
 have acted differently with any consistency. Evert 
 though Detective Sylvester Jackson's mission had been 
 robbed of all significance by Mrs. Stuyvesant herself, 
 the position could not have been explained to the office 
 without complete ventilation of the entire uncanny skel- 
 eton. Its bones would have creaked ; its joints would 
 have talked ; its ossification would have been utter reve-
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 349 
 
 lation. He looked at the girl whom he would so gladly 
 have crushed to his heart . . . and he resolved to 
 stand by her and to "see her through." 
 
 "Jack Childers has gone to San Francisco," he said 
 suddenly, "and he will be away for a couple of months." 
 
 "Then I won't regret Newspaper Row," she de- 
 clared, with a gleam in her eyes ; "at least, not until he 
 returns. I can't imagine the office without him." 
 
 "Perhaps," Mr. Covington remarked, "he cannot im- 
 agine the office without you. I would not tell him so 
 for the world, because he would not believe me. But" 
 with a smile "it is possible. I'm a fool very often, 
 Sallie, and I've rarely been known to see through brick 
 walls. But well, you know I'm so so fond of you 
 both that I feel as though I were suddenly possessed 
 of .new faculties. Don't you think that in certain sit- 
 uations of life unrecognized powers are born within 
 us?" 
 
 "Dear old friend," she cried gratefully, and . . . she 
 wished she could kiss him. She always had an exas- 
 perating desire a most absurd and unconventional 
 longing to kiss her cherished friends. She had ex- 
 perienced it in the case of little Robinson. It was very 
 horrid, of course, because kisses are looked upon by the 
 world as incongruous in platonic positions. But are 
 they? . . . Perhaps we shall never know, because no- 
 body would dare to admit Sallie Sydenham's apparent 
 abnormality. She held herself back with an effort the 
 instant she realized that her impulse intended to lead 
 her towards Charlie Covington's ruby lips. And he 
 would be so shocked . . . for he was at heart most 
 conventional. Perhaps it was just as well for Char- 
 lie Covington's sake that she refrained. She vaguely 
 felt that she was "not like other girls" and also not by 
 Rosa Nouchette Carey. Still, she would have liked to
 
 350 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 kiss him and call him a "dear." Had it not been for 
 the memory of the night when he had revealed himself, 
 she would have yielded to her desire. Fortunately 
 she recalled that luckless attitude of his ... in time. 
 And yet she was so acutely grateful to him! The 
 sweet possibility at which he hinted meant so much 
 to her, and she was tempted to believe in those new- 
 born faculties to which he had alluded. He would 
 not have spoken ... as he had spoken . . . unless he 
 were sincerely convinced. And if it were true! Yet 
 in her selfishness she could not think of the pain that 
 he must feel, or realize the fathomless depths of a de- 
 votion that allied her so willingly to another. But 
 perhaps Sallie was unable to seriously estimate the 
 avowed affection of Charlie Covington. He had told 
 her that he loved her, but she had not attached a wide 
 importance to the statement. She felt that she was 
 neither dangerously beautiful, nor alarmingly alluring. 
 
 "Once," he said he could not resist it "you were 
 not inclined to call old friends 'dear.' You thought 
 otherwise. Do you remember, Sallie?" 
 
 "Yes," she replied, in quick self-reproach, "I re- 
 member; and I deserve to be flayed for what I said, 
 Charlie. You are an old friend and a dear old friend 
 and I thank you from the bottom of my heart, and 
 I wish oh, how I wish ! I could prove to you how 
 much I appreciate it all." 
 
 He had not meant to call forth this painful ebullition 
 of gratitude ; nor was he conscious of the pathos of the 
 losing game that he was playing so carefully. He felt 
 sorry that he had reminded her of that one fractious 
 mood that, at the time, had pained him so deeply. He 
 rose to go. 
 
 "I'm off, Sallie," he said, "and I shall tell Eglinton 
 that you will undertake the work. If you can send in
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 351 
 
 about ten thousand words a week from to-day, he will 
 forward you a check at once. In the meantime, I am 
 quite sure that if you need it, he will advance the 
 money." 
 
 "Or you will," she murmured. "It is not necessary, 
 Charlie. I can wait a week nicely. I won't pretend 
 to you, old friend you see, I'm rubbing it in with the 
 'old friend' that I have a nest-egg in the shape of a 
 bank book, but I can worry along very well for a week. 
 And if I find I can't, I'll let you know. There now! 
 I will, honestly. And please don't go yet. Stay and 
 see Lettie. She has gone to a dramatic morning at 
 the Waldorf. I thought it would do her good to get 
 a little drama also a whiff of morning." 
 
 He took his hat. He had no fervid desire to meet 
 Lettie, just at present. 
 
 "Isn't it lovely?" she cried joyously. "Lettie is get- 
 ting quite fond of little Robinson, and he seems to be 
 very much smitten. Oh, Charlie, I wish it would come 
 true! Lettie is perfectly useless for anything but 
 getting married. She is not very strong! And I'm 
 developing into such a matchmaker ! I'm always pop- 
 ping out of the room, and leaving them alone. And at 
 night I pretend that I'm dying to hear Tennyson read 
 aloud. Between ourselves quite between ourselves, 
 Charlie I loathe poetry. I never can see where it 
 comes in. But Robinson reads it charmingly, and Let- 
 tie is most enthusiastic. If I read it to her, she would 
 be asleep in two minutes. But he rolls out Tennyson 
 insinuatingly, and keeps her awake. It is most amus- 
 ing, and I enjoy it all immensely. Of course, it 
 is like my luck to be cut off from theatre tickets. . . . 
 But there are other things. At present I'm trying to 
 make him believe that Lettie is a splendid cook and 
 housewife. Rosina is making all sorts of dainties from
 
 352 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 the Delmonico cook-book. And I lie. I tell him that 
 Lettie made them." 
 
 She had forgotten herself, and though he had his 
 hat in his hand, ready to go, he felt that it did her good 
 to talk. He was in no hurry. 
 
 "In reality," she went on, "Lettie can't cook an egg. 
 As for boiling potatoes she simply hasn't an idea on 
 the subject. Isn't it strange? And yet she clamors 
 to be married. I suppose it's rather horrid to say of 
 one's sister that she clamors for marriage. But she 
 does, Charlie. Nothing really appeals to a man so 
 much as housewifedom, does it? So I force Lettie to 
 make beds, and dust things, and she is too screamingly 
 funny. She wept yesterday because the quilt wouldn't 
 stay tucked down. She thinks sweeping indecent and 
 unnecessary." 
 
 "And don't you, Sallie ?" he asked. 
 
 "I did," she replied, with a sigh. "But I'm chang- 
 ing. I can see a good many mistakes that I have 
 made. I'll tell you something, Charlie. Swear you 
 won't laugh. If you laugh, I'm done for, and I shall 
 hate you. See, I've left off my my war paint." 
 
 She held up her face, clear, white, and thin, for his 
 inspection. He had noticed a difference, but his mas- 
 culine perception had not been able to explain it. He 
 looked embarrassed, in spite of himself as he had 
 done so often in the old days when Sallie insisted upon 
 saying things that were usually left unsaid. He felt 
 that he should have been immensely pleased, but, odd- 
 ly enough, he experienced no sense of satisfaction. He 
 had grown accustomed to a particular kind of Sallie, 
 and could not be overwhelmingly radiant at the alter- 
 ation. But he said haltingly that he was glad, be- 
 cause it was the correct thing to say. 
 
 "Wait till you read my love stories," she said mis-
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 353 
 
 chievously. "Only wait, and I think they will exceed 
 your fondest expectations." 
 
 "But" his voice was mistrustful "you don't in- 
 tend to do anything dreadful, Sallie? No problems, 
 please, and no no improper situations and and no 
 decollete language." 
 
 "My poor old reputation!" she cried, and she felt 
 saddened. "Can I never shed it? Though I discard 
 war paint, must I still forever be doomed to the style 
 that made me? Yes, it made me, Charlie, and you 
 must admit it. But don't be afraid. It is all over. 
 I sha'n't disgrace you and I mean to succeed in the new 
 line that you have offered to me. I think I seriously 
 think I shall be Sarah in future. Nobody could 
 ever accuse a Sarah of frivolity." 
 
 But when he had gone she locked herself in her room 
 and cried steadily for two hours. Everything was so 
 horribly vacant, and she missed Owldom terribly. 
 Later in the day she rode down to City Hall Park 
 and stood there, and looked at everything . . . that 
 she had abandoned. Her only consolation lay in the 
 fact that if the nest no longer sheltered her, it at any 
 rate temporarily was debarred from enclosing Jack 
 Childers.
 
 D 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 HE task of manufacturing "romance" for kitch- 
 en minds was at first extremely discourag- 
 ing, and it was some time before Sallie Syd- 
 enham managed to win the approval of Mr. 
 Eglinton. She could not quite realize the strength of 
 the conventions that assign the high-falutin' "style" to 
 the low-salutin' intellect. Her first story was returned, 
 because she had insisted upon alluding to "legs" in- 
 stead of to "limbs," and was improper enough to 
 speak of "going to bed" instead of "retiring." Fur- 
 thermore, she had not realized the fact that in the lit- 
 erature of fastidious servant-girls heroines were never 
 permitted to "undress" . . . they merely "disrobed." 
 
 "I might also remark," wrote Mr. Eglinton, "that 
 you are too realistic when you picture your heroine eat- 
 ing. If you could arrange to make her toy with a few 
 hothouse grapes it would be preferable. You must 
 remember that you are writing for cooks, and that to 
 entertain them you must steer as far away from sordid 
 reality as you can. Thus, when you daringly describe 
 a meal, you are recalling their daily life to them. They 
 are anxious to forget it." 
 
 Sallie began to loathe these heroines all cast in one 
 mould. She saw them, with their atrociously small 
 waists, their bouncing hips, and their violet eyes, and 
 they irritated her. Mr. Eglinton begged her to model 
 her "creations" upon those of "The Duchess," Rosa 
 Nouchette Carey, and of course the eternal, the in- 
 fernal author of "Dora Thorne." So she made her 
 heroines governesses, because tradition demanded it. 
 They were always singularly beautiful, but she was
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 355 
 
 not allowed, by her cast-iron rules, to clothe them nat- 
 tily. They wore simple alpaca gowns, and for even- 
 ing decoration a solitary red rose was placed in their 
 hair, or a ribbon around their neck. And yet they al- 
 ways scintillated! In a crowded room, with titled 
 beauties all aglow with Tiffany diamonds and Paquin 
 gowns, the simple alpaca and the red rose went straight 
 to the hero's heart. 
 
 Once or twice Sallie rebelled but it was useless. 
 It was impossible for her to believe that human beings 
 could be interested in these ladies. Even when they 
 wept, they never suffered from red noses, like ordinary 
 women. They were rescued by the hero from boats 
 that capsized, but they emerged from the vasty depths 
 looking more exquisite than ever. Under circum- 
 stances that would render a Venus hideous, these stere- 
 otyped heroines never budged from their Gibraltar-like 
 loveliness. They passed sleepless nights it was their 
 favorite occupation but they appeared at the break- 
 fast-table next morning, tired, yet still maddeningly 
 beautiful. They grew thin upon unrequited love, but 
 their figure remained svelte and lost not a curve. 
 
 But it was their immaculate goodness that tried Sal- 
 lie most acutely. She longed oh, how she longed ! 
 to make them go wrong . . . occasionally . . . just 
 for a treat ... for a little outing, as it were. Mr. 
 Eglinton was adamant. They might totter on the 
 brink, they might frivol on the verge as long as pos- 
 sible, but ... she must pull them back. They must 
 never lose the sympathy of their strange, convention- 
 hungry public. It was in vain that Sallie implored a 
 privilege or two. Might she substitute a typewriter 
 for a governess? Could the heroine die at the end? 
 Oh, please . . . please ! The editor brought her back 
 with a vicious tug to an appreciation of a situation that
 
 356 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 never varied. It appalled her at first, and she felt that 
 she should never succeed. 
 
 And the heroes! They were fully as detestable as 
 the girls they loved. They never seemed to have any- 
 thing to do for a living. They passed their lives gaz- 
 ing into violet eyes, and flouting the Guineveres and 
 Ermyntrudes in the Tiffany diamonds and the Paquin 
 frocks. Their wildest aspirations never went beyond 
 the girl in the alpaca gown especially when the blood- 
 red rose nestled in her hair at night. They were al- 
 ways six-footers nothing else would do. Five-foot- 
 eleven would have been reckless novelty. She was 
 allowed to intimate that they had "lived" before they 
 met the heroine, but was not permitted to say how, 
 when, or where. Sallie pored over the pages of the 
 Family Herald, which Mr. Eglinton had recommended 
 to her, and marvelled at the eternal, unyielding same- 
 ness. And she acquired certain prescribed expres- 
 sions that amused her immensely. She found that the 
 heroines could be "mutinous" and "riantes;" that they 
 might pout and make "moues" and she found that 
 whenever they ran away from the "ladies" who em- 
 ployed them it was etiquette for them to "go out into 
 the night." Even if a broad noonday sun had just 
 claimed attention, they "went out into the night." It 
 was all so gorgeously cut and dried. 
 
 It occurred to Miss Sydenham that feminine story- 
 tellers were very much like the little girl who had a 
 little curl. When they were good, they were very, 
 very good, and when they were bad, they were horrid. 
 She was unable to bridge the gulf that separated "the 
 author of 'Dora Thome' " from Marie Corelli, or to 
 leap across the chasm dividing "The Duchess" from 
 Sarah Grand. 
 
 Gradually, however, ske acquired the knack of artis-
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 357 
 
 tically cutting out these "tailor-made" romances. It 
 was a shock to her when she received a letter from Mr. 
 Eglinton congratulating her upon her work. Her 
 stories were far better, he wrote, than those of her 
 predecessor. Sallie wondered what this predecessor 
 could possibly have done. And very soon it all came 
 quite easily to her. She was able to talk to the grocer 
 or the butcher in the very midst of an eloquent out- 
 break on the part of her heroine. She succeeded in 
 plying the hero with a choice series of gusty adjectives 
 while Rosina brushed her hair. She could watch pota- 
 toes cooking while she described the appearance of 
 the heroine at Lady Tomnoddy's dance, and once she 
 made a pie while the hero was proposing on his knees ! 
 She left him there, to ascertain that the oven was not 
 "too quick." She called her girls Gladys, Hyacinth, 
 or Jacqueline the manuscript would have been re- 
 turned by special messenger if she had dared to ven- 
 ture a Jane, Mary, or Susan. Her men ranged from 
 Reginald to Archibald John, Jack, and Jim being vici- 
 ously vetoed. 
 
 Sallie could not bear to read her stories when they 
 appeared in type. It was then that they seemed most 
 naked and unashamed. Her only interest lay in the 
 remuneration always a bad sign and that was suffi- 
 ciently large and satisfactory. She kept the wolf far 
 far away from her door, and she realized that she 
 had found a trade that paid. For it was a trade, with 
 a vengeance ! Her returns were, in fact, more ample 
 than those she had speared in Newspaper Row . . . 
 but, how she missed Owldom ! She was deeply grate- 
 ful for the livelihood that Charlie Covington had 
 opened for her; but how dull, how empty, how unin- 
 spiring it was, compared with the incessant excitement, 
 the exuberant doubts, the effervescent intercourse, and
 
 358 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 that strange, delightful feeling of being "in it," always 
 inseparable from journalism. She had lived . . . now 
 she merely vegetated. 
 
 This constant communion with heroines who never 
 had a freckle or a mole or even a dear little secluded, 
 unpretentious wart warped her mind. She felt nar- 
 rowed by the eternal association with men who never 
 put their feet on the table and who talked poetry at 
 breakfast time over a boiled egg! It was demoraliz- 
 ing. And she knew in her heart of hearts that this 
 special brand of kitchen literature was in reality more 
 subtly immoral and more inwardly sensual than the 
 most violent eruptions of authors credited with "calling 
 a spade a spade." These cooks' novels were de- 
 grading in all that they implied to those who were 
 foolish enough to think about them. However, it was 
 safe to infer that nobody thought about them. 
 
 The childless matrons in Sallie's house, now that she 
 lived a life of seeming respectability, with a sister, 
 evinced an inclination to call upon her. Sallie nipped 
 it in the bud, much to Rosina's chagrin, and after sub- 
 mitting to one rigid catechism that caused her to ex- 
 perience the agonies of cross-examination, she closed 
 the door to the solicitous ladies. They put her on the 
 defensive, and she had nothing that she could defend 
 as far as they were concerned. 
 
 She sought the society of poor little Mrs. Stuyve- 
 sant, impelled by the sense of obligation that she felt. 
 She lavished candies and toys upon the actor's child, 
 and made an effort to cheer the lonely life of the dis- 
 carded wife. And it was from Mrs. Stuyvesant that 
 she learned the fateful, portentous news for which she 
 had waited so eagerly. Arthur Stuyvesant was as 
 good as his word. He solved the intricate problem 
 in his own way which was apparently the only way,
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 359 
 
 in spite of the severe blow that it dealt to the proprie- 
 ties. 
 
 Sallie was aghast at the news which was confirmed 
 later by Charlie Covington. Arthur Stuyvesant had 
 gone to London, and had taken Ivy Hampton with him. 
 He had shaken the dust of America from his feet for- 
 ever, and had resolved to try a country where pri- 
 vate scandals were not ventilated, and where the actor, 
 when he had finished acting, passed unnoticed in the 
 crowd. His departure was noted in all the papers, but 
 Miss Hampton's name was unmentioned. He inti- 
 mated, in an interview, that they were waiting for him 
 in London. And Sallie knew that his punishment had 
 come, and that it would be dire. One London engage- 
 ment would end him, and then ... an abortive, fa- 
 tiguing, uneventful, fruitless round of the provinces. 
 Men like Arthur Stuyvesant, as she knew, could not 
 live without the notoriety of the American stage. They 
 might profess to despise it when it took on unpleas- 
 ant twists and relentless curves but it was the breath 
 of their life. They might look upon the silent "glory" 
 of Europe as a relief but the relief would be only too 
 temporary. No Tantalus would be tried as sorely as 
 Arthur Stuyvesant,' reared in the vif, chatty atmo- 
 sphere of New York, and condemned forever to the 
 shadows and the innocuous muteness of London. Ex- 
 ceptional merit only could save him, and he had none of 
 it. Certainly most certainly Arthur Stuyvesant 
 would not "live happily ever afterwards." 
 
 For the sake of his wife, whom she grew to love, 
 Sallie tried to feel vindictive and relentless. But she 
 could not quite succeed. He had solved a hopeless 
 problem . . . and Ivy Hampton had quietly disap- 
 peared. Sallie knew that Jack Childers had never 
 loved her. Better this stealthy departure than the in-
 
 360 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 cessant threat of a hideous scandal a veritable Damo- 
 clesian sword. 
 
 She thought pitifully of poor old Mrs. Hampton, 
 looking insolently through the gold lorgnettes and see- 
 ing nothing. She pictured the lonely woman con- 
 fronted with this domestic disaster, and she wondered 
 . . . wondered . . . what Jack Childers would do. 
 The girl with the silver-gold hair and the Priscilla-like 
 demeanor had gone, never to return, and Sallie fore- 
 saw the end probably the conventional, dismal end of 
 unbridled woman hope gone, love vanished, ties sev- 
 ered solitude and despair. There were other possi- 
 bilities; but Sallie could not guess at them. She was 
 unsophisticated in her sophistication. Her world was, 
 after all, extremely limited. 
 
 She lay, wakeful and alert, through what are inaptly 
 called "the silent watches of the night." The irony of 
 the phrase! "Silent watches" when the pulses are 
 doing double duty, when the sensations of the cor- 
 poreal husk may be deadened, but the spiritual facul- 
 ties beat a wild tattoo! "Silent watches" when the 
 sub-conscious self emerges and prowls, and visions 
 blaze before the undimmed eyes of the awakened spirit ! 
 
 A fierce desire to see Jack Childers possessed her. 
 This horrible thing that had happened would sorely af- 
 flict him. The blow to his family pride, all merely per- 
 sonal sentiments being eliminated, would be severe, 
 and perhaps irreparable. If she could but see him! 
 If he would only come to her ! She reckoned out the 
 time what o'clock it was in San Francisco, and she 
 imagined that he had, perhaps, just retired for the 
 night. (As a family story paper contributor, she did 
 not dare think of him as "going to bed.") 
 
 Then she rose and prayed as she had once prayed 
 before and poured out her soul in longing. She could
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 361 
 
 feel the power of her strenuous will oozing from her 
 brain. It went forth in gusts . . . and she believed 
 that he would know that she was there . . . trying to 
 reach him. When she had finished praying, she silent- 
 ly concentrated her mental energies, those infinite po- 
 tencies of which men still know little and care less ! 
 
 And through the ether strange electric waves were 
 flashed, from the mind of the sender to the mind of the 
 receiver, without the agency of the recognized organs 
 of sense. She sat there, scarcely conscious, her head 
 bent, her eyes closed, her attitude limp and sagged, 
 while her will sought the mind of Jack Childers far 
 away in San Francisco, at the other side of the vast 
 American continent, and tried subtly to impress it. 
 
 And of what happened ... in the years to come 
 . . . Jack Childers never spoke. Like most men, he 
 dreaded the sneers of a material world that, with easy 
 vehemence, applauds the marvels of Marconi and buys 
 stock in "wireless" only to dub the far greater won- 
 ders of the human brain unscientific, visionary, and 
 "superstitious."' The intolerant spirit that burned 
 "witches" in the Middle Ages lives to-day, and of what 
 occurred to Jack Childers that night in San Francisco 
 he did not dare to tell. The explanation would have 
 been so readily vouchsafed. It was a pipe-dream ! It 
 was hallucination! It was . . . anything that could 
 be amiably dismissed as unsubstantial. 
 
 For in his room at the hotel in the Californian city, 
 as he lay in his bed, and before he had slept, he saw 
 Sallie on her knees plainly, clearly, and unmistak- 
 ably. Her head was bent, her eyes closed, her attitude 
 limp and sagged ; but if ever he had felt certain of any- 
 thing in his life, it was of the fact that at that moment 
 she was calling. What she desired, why she longed 
 for him these were problems that he could not an-
 
 362 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 swer. But there in the darkness of his room he 
 saw her, luminous and radiant, and he knew that she 
 needed him. It was so real, so veridical, that he 
 jumped from his bed and approached the spot that the 
 vision had occupied. It faded as he came up to it. 
 
 Jack Childers was a most matter-of-fact person, and 
 he "never took any stock" (his favorite expression) in 
 the fantastic or the psychical. The workings of a too 
 exuberant imagination he invariably ascribed to a dis- 
 ordered digestion. He had often said that Sweden- 
 borg lived before the days of little liver pills. He had 
 uttered ribald, smoking-room jokes on the subject of 
 Joan of Arc. And now ... he was obliged to be- 
 lieve the apparent evidence of his own apparent senses. 
 This was no dream ; this was no hallucination ; this 
 was no unreliable imagining. He could not sleep, but 
 tossed and thought, and repose would not come until 
 he had definitely and irrevocably made up his mind 
 to leave San Francisco by the first train for New York. 
 
 He had not been thinking of Sallie Sydenham before 
 going to bed. While she had been in his thoughts fre- 
 quently far too frequently since his arrival in Cali- 
 fornia, he had pondered that night over other and less 
 agreeable subjects. He had been involved in news- 
 paper work, which had threatened to chain him there 
 for at least another month. The swift rush of her 
 mind reached his. Space counted for nothing. 
 Through the spiritual realm her longing propelled it- 
 self, until it harbored in that room of the distant hotel. 
 
 Even to himself, nexfmorning, Jack Childers scoffed 
 at the strange, resistless fact. But he packed his port- 
 manteau, arranged his valises, paid his hotel bill, and, 
 consigning his journalistic duties to futurity, started 
 on the homeward journey. Reared in materialism, 
 he could not bring himself to credit that to which sci-
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 363 
 
 ence gives the cold shudder, because it is not labelled 
 Edison or Tesla. He gave himself up unthinkingly, 
 unquestioningly to the potent impulse that he disdained 
 to explain. He realized his consuming desire to reach 
 New York and Sallie Sydenham. He would go 
 straight to her house, because she wanted him. And 
 as the day progressed, and the midnight telepathic ex- 
 perience was further distanced, he simply knew that 
 he craved for Sallie, and was going to New York to 
 gratify that craving. He realized then, as he had real- 
 ized before, that Owldom had been very dull and 
 opaque without her, and he confided to himself in a 
 burst of self-confidence what he had never dared to 
 admit before that he had left New York to live down 
 the void that her absence had caused. He forgot the 
 vision in the little room of the hotel, or if he remem- 
 bered it well, the lobster salad of which he had par- 
 taken at supper had been expressly forbidden him by 
 Mrs. Hampton's own pet doctor. But he reached New 
 York, and he reached Sallie. Those were, after all, 
 the main points. 
 
 The potency of the force that had taken possession 
 of him in San Francisco remained with him until he 
 reached Sallie's house, to which he went directly upon 
 arrival. It was there when he rang her bell; it was 
 buoyant when Rosina admitted him to the tiny parlor, 
 at an unseemly hour of the morning. Then . . . and 
 then only, it left him. And he marvelled at himself. 
 A hesitant sense of helplessness seized him. Why had 
 he rushed to Sallie, when such a proceeding was emi- 
 nently incorrect, if not improper? Duty surely indi- 
 cated a path that led to Ivy Hampton. Decency 
 pure, unsequestered decency should have taken him 
 to Mrs. Hampton and Central Park West. Yet here 
 he was, for no conceivable reason, in the midst of
 
 364 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 Sallie Sydenham's goods and chattels. What should 
 he say to her? How explain himself? What would 
 she think? What could she think? 
 
 Rosina, fruitily mysterious, repaired to Sallie's room, 
 awoke her, and presented Jack Childers' card after 
 having carefully studied it en route with unsatisfac- 
 tory results. And Rosina was even more astonished 
 when she saw the sudden radiance in Sallie's eyes. 
 Her amaze reached its climax when Miss Sydenham 
 hopped out of bed, and, throwing her arms around 
 Rosina, almost strangled her in an embrace as she mur- 
 mured, "I'm so glad. I'm so glad." 
 
 It was an unseemly hour, most assuredly the hour 
 at which none but the heroines of Sallie's Sarah Jane 
 romances could possibly appear at their best. The 
 morning limitations of even the loveliest woman are 
 but too surely defined. Sallie was not one of the love- 
 liest women, by any means; and she was fully aware 
 that, at her morning kipper, she was not dangerously at- 
 tractive. Her heroines would, of course, at this young 
 age of the day, have been found in the garden, pluck- 
 ing roses, and tripping, in Parisian bottines, over the 
 dewy grass and lawn. They would have owned fair, 
 bloom-flecked cheeks and an adorable negligee. Guine- 
 vere, while her breakfast was cooking, invariably 
 quoted Shelley and Keats when Archibald found her 
 gathering blossoms in the sweet old garden by the 
 river. Alas ! Sallie looked through her window, and 
 saw a "backyard." There were "pulley-lines" and 
 vistas of unconcealed lingerie. It was not poetic. She 
 felt inclined to repine. 
 
 She did not throw open her wardrobe and select a 
 delicate crepe-de-Chine morning-gown, as Ermyntrude 
 had done in her last story. Rosina helped her to hang 
 on a "rainy day" skirt, and to fasten a simple cache-
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 365 
 
 mire blouse . . . and she was ready. It should have 
 been different, but ... it wasn't. And she sorely 
 needed a cup of tea and just one piece of toast ... in 
 the absence of rose-leaves and dew-drops. 
 
 Jack Childers, when she joined him oddly embar- 
 rassed, unusually subdued thought that she looked 
 paler and thinner ; the frankness of her expression was 
 lacking; the jolly good-fellowship of her demeanor 
 was no longer evidential. He was utterly at a loss 
 what to say, for his sense of surprise at finding himself 
 there was constantly increasing. 
 
 "I I am not quite sure why I came, Sallie," he said. 
 "It is an unwarranted intrusion on my part. I I 
 seem to have imagined" with an uneasy laugh "that 
 that you wanted me." 
 
 She, too, was momentarily unable to pierce the thick 
 confusion of her mood. But her woman's instinct 
 came to her rescue, and she tried to put him at his ease, 
 and to lurk in the shadow of the confidence that she 
 exuded. 
 
 "I did," she said simply; "and ... I do. But we 
 will have breakfast. You have just returned from 
 San Francisco . . . you must be fagged. I am so 
 glad that you came here first." 
 
 He had not told her that this was the case. But he 
 manifested no surprise, for it all seemed quite natural. 
 They went into the dining-room and sat down to 
 breakfast alone. Lettie was still asleep, for the morn- 
 ing was still ridiculously young. It seemed like the 
 middle of the night. 
 
 "I had no right to come here," he said presently. 
 "It was a detestable thing to do. I should have gone 
 home ... to my aunt ... to Ivy. There is no ex- 
 cuse for it ... I cannot quite understand it. You 
 would be justified in ordering me out. But you are
 
 3 66 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 charming and hospitable, and instead of reproaches, I 
 get . . . bacon and eggs." 
 
 He tried to talk lightly ; to reassume the flippant 
 spirit of mere comradeship that had been the raison 
 d'etre of most of their previous intercourse. Sallie 
 understood everything. She realized why he was 
 there. He had responded to her summons. Her grati- 
 tude was immense. A splendid sense of security, in 
 the certainty of having tested a truth more beautiful, 
 more rational, more convincing than old "religious" 
 forms over which the world has fought, lulled her into 
 happiness. For the rest of her life she would believe 
 . . . because she knew. Faith was pretty, but cer- 
 tainty was more substantial. Her ethereality had 
 spoken across a continent to his. Her message had 
 carried. Why should their material entities feel em- 
 barrassment ? 
 
 "I feel that I am an awful cad," he went on, as she 
 was silent, "and you, above all others, will despise me. 
 I have a confession to make. I'm engaged to Ivy I 
 know but but I can't help it. When you left the 
 office, Sallie, I had no idea not the faintest suspicion 
 of an idea how the land lay. I had always thought 
 of you as such a jolly good fellow you remember? 
 But when you had gone ... it is dishonorable of me 
 to talk like this ... I knew the truth. And I went 
 to San Francisco, just to try and forget you. Now 
 now," he exclaimed, "turn me out, if you like, and I'll 
 go. I deserve it. I'm a beast." 
 
 Sallie sat very still, with a raging sense of revolu- 
 tionary joy in her bosom. Life had never seemed so 
 beautiful to her as it did at that moment. The gayety 
 of heart that she had known so little of late returned to 
 her. Her good old sense of humor came back with a 
 slap-bang. She sat there, looking like an early morn-
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 367 
 
 ing fright, and he was saying these exquisite things to 
 her, with a rasher of bacon and a demoralized egg in 
 front of him. She felt slightly hysterical. Her moods 
 met, and eddied. 
 
 ''Say something, Sallie," he went on in low tones. 
 "For Heaven's sake, tell me that you do not loathe me. 
 I never really loved Ivy. You know that. It was a 
 peaceful, unruffled sort of cousinly affection, and I 
 thought that it would do nicely. Since then ... I 
 have been to San Francisco. Help me out, dear old 
 girl. I can never marry her now . . . and what shall 
 I do? Isn't it hopeless? Isn't it hateful? I have 
 always prided myself upon doing the correct thing . . . 
 correctly." 
 
 And then she spoke, tenderly, and with needless care 
 to conceal the tumult of joy that raged within her. 
 
 "You will never marry Ivy," she said. "Your your 
 cousin has has gone. She was never worthy of 
 you. She deceived you." 
 
 She told him all, and tried hopeless task though she 
 felt it to be to soften the shock that she dealt to his 
 family pride. But what bliss to realize that family 
 pride was the only thing she had to cope with ! 
 
 If he had loved Ivy, then the heartlessness of her 
 duty would have appalled her. Jack Childers was 
 aghast. He staggered beneath the incredible revela- 
 tion. The ground seemed to recede beneath his feet. 
 
 Anything else he could have believed . . . and 
 credulity would have been easy. In his chivalry he 
 scorned to dwell for an instant upon all that this release 
 would mean to him. He saw only the blow to his own 
 kith and kin the tarnish and the blemish. 
 
 Sallie hovered about him, femininely solicitous al- 
 most maternal. Her love for him was spiritualized as 
 she tended him in this moment of his tribulation.
 
 368 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 He hurled question after question at her, and she gave 
 him the entire unvarnished truth. She concealed noth- 
 ing, for, not being a conventional heroine, she saw no 
 good and sufficient reason why she should disguise 
 from him any detail of the work she had done. 
 
 Moreover, it would have been impossible. He was 
 hungry to hear all, clamorous for every corner of the 
 history. The assignment for which she had craved 
 her moods grown serious the clouded brilliancy of 
 her work and the last episode of all, when, with repu- 
 tation besmirched, she had suffered for him and for 
 the girl to whom he was betrothed everything was 
 explained. He tortured himself. For the first time 
 in his life the edged teeth of remorse sank into his 
 conscience. 
 
 He turned to her with a look in his eyes that 
 she had never seen there before . . . that she had 
 never imagined possible in the case of easy-going, 
 worldly wise Jack Childers. She had stirred him to 
 his depths. 
 
 Suddenly he caught her in his arms and held her 
 there, strained, while the full force of her splendid de- 
 votion was utterly realized. Neither spoke. It was 
 the one supreme moment of their lives. 
 
 It was Sallie who recalled him to earth, pushing 
 aside the "reluctant maidenhood" that should have 
 claimed her at such a moment. 
 
 "I am afraid," she said, with a proud smile, "that I 
 always loved you, Jack. Yes from the very first I 
 loved you. It used to hurt me so much when you 
 called me a a jolly good fellow, and when you seemed 
 to look upon me as just a wheel in the machinery of 
 Newspaper Row. I did not acknowledge the truth to 
 myself at least, I tried not to do so." 
 
 He released his hold upon her, somewhat unwilling-
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 369 
 
 ly, as though he were half afraid that she would run 
 away. And Sallie smiled happily, for it seemed to her 
 that men were never afraid of losing a woman until 
 the woman was afraid of being lost! 
 
 "You have had a hard time of it, little girl," he said, 
 remorsefully. 
 
 "No," she declared, "I have had good friends. If it 
 had not been for dear- old Charlie Covington " 
 
 "I used to think," he interrupted, "that Charlie was 
 in love with you." 
 
 She was silent for a moment. Loyalty forbade her 
 to tell even Jack of that one troubled episode in her 
 intercourse with their mutual friend. It should be 
 locked forever in her own breast. And she knew that 
 none would rejoice so unselfishly in the radiancy of 
 the future that was opening up to her as this self-same 
 altruistic Charlie. 
 
 "It was through Charlie," she went on later, "that 
 I have tided the storm. It was he, Mr. Jack Childers, 
 who gave me the means to indulge in those little lux- 
 uries" pointing to the bacon and eggs "that I no- 
 tice you have left." 
 
 "You appealed to him for help?" he cried savagely. 
 "And you would not ask me ?" 
 
 She was delighted at the humanity of his vicious ut- 
 terance, and she said primly : "He was a friend, an old 
 friend, and you . . . were not. Besides, even from 
 Charlie, I could only accept the means of helping my- 
 self. I've been writing beautiful love stories, Jack, 
 and making lots of money. I'm quite independent 
 now. I need no assistance." 
 
 For two sensible people journalists, too, if you 
 please owls, by Jove ! this man and this woman fell 
 into a pool of foolish, driveling dialogue, the parallel 
 of which would be only too easy to imagine. But a
 
 370 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 sober pen need not chronicle it. It would be quite un- 
 necessary. Jack Childers unbent so completely that 
 Newspaper Row would have had a fit if it could have 
 been present. And Sallie, a girl who should have 
 known so much better, with her fine sense of humor 
 that could so readily "guy" all that sort of thing, be- 
 haved in a manner that can simply be described as ut- 
 terly trivial and completely Brooklyn! 
 
 Whole rows of asterisks columns of "stars" ex- 
 clamatory, inter jectional notes ad lib. could alone battle 
 with the thorough puerility of what followed. It is, 
 perhaps, rather cruel not to present Sallie and Jack in 
 this ever-pleasant kingdom of tootsy-wootsydom. 
 Still, Miss Sydenham has posed throughout this story 
 as a trifle unusual, and Mr. Childers was an editor and 
 a labor-employing person. Why, just before they say 
 farewell, should they be belittled, by an effort to ex- 
 hibit them as merely the most ordinary, human, and 
 unbudging team of every-day lovers? It shall not be 
 done. It would be too easy. Let us resist the tempta- 
 tion. 
 
 She was in his arms . . . again . . . and he ... 
 was telling her what every reader can guess, but what 
 every lover is bound to emphasize. Love in its most 
 persuasive form took them and held them . . . and 
 nothing else mattered. 
 
 "Tell me about the office, Jack," she said, a few days 
 later, when Lettie, and little Robinson, and even Ro- 
 sina had all grown accustomed to basking in the rays 
 of her happiness ; "I'm simply dying to know the latest 
 news of dear old Newspaper Row." 
 
 He laughed, for he understood her sentiments.
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 371 
 
 "There is not much to tell," he declared. ''Green 
 has gone. He has bought a little newspaper in Penn- 
 sylvania, and has retired to the wilds to write interest- 
 ing paragraphs about the loss of Widow Jones' cow, 
 and to grow expansive over the new coat of paint that 
 Farmer Higgins has applied to his barn. It is simple, 
 but not wildly exciting." 
 
 "And the journalist-esses?" she queried raven- 
 ously. 
 
 "You mean the terrible Sallie Sydenham?" malici- 
 ously. 
 
 "No," she answered softly. "Terrible Sallie has 
 removed to the idle ranks of the non-supporting, or she 
 has every intention of doing so when she is asked " 
 
 "By Jove!" he cried suddenly; "I have taken it all 
 for granted. Fool ! Idiot ! Sallie, of course you will 
 oh, you couldn't refuse hang my short-sighted- 
 ness " 
 
 "Go on," she said demurely. "Tell me about the 
 journalist-esses, and don't worry about terrible Sallie. 
 She is perfectly satisfied " 
 
 "But you will marry me, Sallie?" he asked, in anx- 
 iety as stupid, as illogical, as utterly without ground 
 as any man could possibly fish up from the most pellu- 
 cid situation. 
 
 "Since you insist " she replied frivolously. "Yes 
 thank you. And even if you don't insist, you dear, 
 silly, old lovely thing yes also thank you. Now, 
 go on with the journalist-esses." 
 
 But there was further need of asterisks, columns of 
 "stars," exclamatory, interjectional notes. Enough of 
 them were, in fact, needed to cause a famine in the 
 best-regulated printing establishment in town. Why 
 consume valuable space ? 
 
 "Amelia Amberg Hutchinson," he said presently,
 
 372 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 "seems to have grown suddenly old and fractious. 
 She has just started a new department called 'How to 
 Remain Young.' She might have added, 'By One Who 
 Doesn't Know,' but she has no sense of humor. She is 
 rather a useless encumbrance, but we must keep her. 
 I am glad that she retired from the world of freckles 
 and hair-restorers." 
 
 "And Anastasia Atwood?" 
 
 "Oh, Anastasia," he replied, with a laugh, "has had 
 a sore affliction. Harry has run away for good this 
 time and nobody knows where. He wrote her a let- 
 ter, in which he said sweet, devotional things. He wor- 
 shipped her, but preferred to worship at a distance. 
 He sold out his interest in the slot machines and ske- 
 daddled. Anastasia is now grinding out poetry in 
 grim despair, and varying it with pretty prose articles 
 on domestic topics. Her latest was called 'How to 
 keep husbands at home.' She spoke very feelingly 
 as one no longer owning a husband." 
 
 "Poor thing," said Sallie, with new magnanimity, 
 born of her sheer, unadulterated happiness. "And 
 Happy Hippy?" 
 
 "Gone!" cried Jack, lugubriously. "Gone. Mrs. 
 Hapgood has retired to the bourne of matrimony, im- 
 pelled thither that sounds nice by the elevator boy. 
 Really, rather a catch for her, Sallie. He was a very 
 nice boy, and quite well-to-do. He told her at least, 
 so the office says that while he had been engaged in 
 the elevatorial pursuit of uplifting her body, she had 
 uplifted his soul. Quite neat, eh ? We all clubbed to- 
 gether and gave them a silver tea-set, with angels fly- 
 ing all over it. It was a good idea, don't you think, 
 to wean his thoughts from hydraulic pressure to the 
 simple fluttering of angels' wings? Of the others, 
 there is little to say. Eva Higgins wrote a charming
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 373 
 
 interview the other day with Prince Henry of Prussia. 
 She made him remark 'Ach!' and 'Du Liebe' all the 
 time, and he gave himself away splendidly. I expect 
 the Kaiser will be very much upset about it. Oh 1" he 
 exclaimed suddenly, "I mustn't forget a choice item 
 concerning Rita Eisenstein. It will appeal to you." 
 
 "Tell it !" she cried, for she still loathed Rita. With 
 all her newly found beatitude she was still unable to 
 think charitably of the woman who had smeared her 
 reputation in Owldom. 
 
 "We have discharged Rita," he said. "A strange 
 thing happened. Vanderbilt dismissed his cook, and 
 immediately after, Miss Eisenstein's precious society 
 revelations ceased. It appears that this high-bred 
 young woman, who Christian-names Fifth Avenue 
 through its length and breadth, obtained all her news 
 in Vanderbilt's kitchen. It was there that she sat night 
 and day. The chef was sweet on her. He induced 
 the servants to chatter, to retail in the kitchen all the 
 gossip that they heard at table, before Miss Eisenstein, 
 who made use of it in the paper. It was in this way 
 that Rita filled her column. Vanderbilt discovered the 
 trick, was furious, discharged the chef, shot the fair 
 Rita from the basement door, warned his friends 
 came down to the office, and there was the mischief to 
 pay. We should have kept Miss Eisenstein for, after 
 all, what she did was in our imaginary interests, but 
 with the departure of cook, her sole source of news was 
 cut off. She was hopeless. She had placed all her 
 eggs in one basket. Not an acquaintance in society 
 did she own. The basket toppled. Bang ! Poor Rita 
 was done for." 
 
 Sallie was obliged to laugh, as she remembered the 
 airs and graces of the lady who wore Division Street 
 hats. She tried to feel sorry, but could not succeed.
 
 374 A Girl Who Wrote 
 
 After all, Miss Eisenstein deserved her fate, and while 
 punishment is not invariably dealt out in this world, 
 still, occasionally, this happens . . . and is applauded. 
 
 "What else can I tell you?" he continued. "Lamp- 
 Post Lucy is still to the good, quite as charming as 
 ever, and still administering balm to the wounded 
 hearts of the East Side. Mamie Munson has lost her 
 mother that useful mother but is not downed. She 
 has secured an aunt to chaperone her, and to tender her 
 beautiful advice on needful occasions." 
 
 "Dear old Newspaper Row !" said Sallie, with an in- 
 audible sigh. "It is good to hear of it, even now, 
 Jack." 
 
 "Aunt Hampton is broken-hearted," he declared, re- 
 verting to a more serious subject. "I have never seen 
 a woman more utterly crushed. All her pride seems 
 to have crumbled. You will see her, Sallie ? . . . Yes, 
 I hope you will. You need not be afraid of her. I 
 have told her everything, and she is grateful to you, 
 poor soul ! But she believes that Ivy will return some 
 day. Aunt owns a house in Florida, and she is going 
 there to settle, because because she thinks that when 
 Ivy comes back she will prefer to be as far away from 
 her old haunts as possible." 
 
 "Let her believe it, Jack," said Sallie, softly. "Who 
 knows? More impossible things have happened. But 
 Ivy your cousin is safe. Mrs. Stuyvesant will do 
 nothing further. She will take no steps in the direc- 
 tion of publicity. It is all settled. It is all beauti- 
 ful !" she added rapturously. 
 
 "Except the one fact," he murmured sadly, "that 
 there are still a few people in the office who think 
 that you that you " 
 
 She put her hands on his lips. "Who think that I'm 
 not a perfect lady," she exclaimed gayly, finishing his
 
 A Girl Who Wrote 375 
 
 sentence. "But I am, Jack. I know I am, and you 
 well, you think you know it. Who cares for the rest ?" 
 
 "Sallie," he said (there was nearly, but not quite, a 
 further drain upon the asterisks), "I read the other 
 day that one of the old Jewish rabbis said, 'Descend a 
 step in choosing thy wife; ascend a step in choosing 
 thy friend.' These words were written in the days 
 when women were deemed inferior. To-day it is all 
 changed. I need not bother about the selection of my 
 friends, but I know oh, how surely I know ! that I 
 am ascending a whole staircase, winding my way up 
 to a pinnacle, in choosing ... in choosing . . ." 
 
 "Your wife?" she asked gladly, revelling in the 
 sweet flattery of his words. 
 
 "My wife," he answered quietly, savoring the ineffa- 
 ble poetry of the exquisite possession. 
 
 (THE END.)
 
 Brockman's Maverick 
 
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