fellow of
you. Say, goin' into that bar is like goin' into church and havin' a
jim-dandy time when you get there--which is something the churches
haven't got round to offerin' yet to my way of thinkin'. Now. I want to
ask you, Miss Sheila, if you've got red blood in your veins and a love of
adventure and a wish to see that real entertaining show we call
'life'--and mighty few females ever get a glimpse of it--and if you've
acquired a feeling of gratitude for Pap and if you've got any real
religion, or any ambition to play a part, if you're a real woman that
wants to be an in-spire-ation to men, well, ma'am, I ask you, could you
turn down a chance like that?"

He stood away a pace and put his question with a lifted forefinger.

Sheila's eyes were caught and held by his. Again her mind seemed to be
fastened to his will. And the blood ran quickly in her veins. Her heart
beat. She was excited, stirred. He had seen through her shell unerringly
as no one else in all her life had seen. He had mysteriously guessed that
she had the dangerous gift of adventure, that under the shyness and
uncertainty of inexperience there was no fear in her, that she was one of
those that would rather play with fire than warm herself before it.
Sheila stood there, discovered and betrayed. He had played upon her as
upon a flexible young reed: that stop, her ambition, this, her
romanticism, that, her vanity, the fourth, her gratitude, the fifth, her
idealism, the sixth, her recklessness. And there was this added urge--she
must stay here and drudge under the lash of "Momma's" tongue or she must
accept this strange, this unimaginable offer. Again she opened her eyes
wider and wider. The pupils swallowed up the misty gray. Her lips parted.

"I'll do it," she said, narrowed her eyes and shut her mouth tight. With
such a look she might have thrown a fateful toss of dice.

Sylvester caught her hands, pressed them up to his chest.

"It's a promise, girl?"

"Yes."

"God bless you!"

He let her go. He walked on air. He threw open the door.

There on the threshold--stood "Momma."

"I kind of see," she drawled, "why Sheila don't take no interest
in dancin'!"

"You're wrong," said Sheila very clearly. "I have been persuaded. I am
going to the dance."

Sylvester laughed aloud. "One for you, Momma!" he said. "Come on down,
old girl, while Miss Sheila gets into her party dress. Say, Aura, aren't
you goin' to give me a dance to-night?"

His wife l