ickie had drawn a big breath. "You--you"--he seemed
to swallow an epithet--"you'll let that girl go into your filthy saloon
and make money for you by her--by her prettiness and her--her
ignorance--"

"Say, Dickie," his father had drawled, "you goin' to run for the
legislature? Such a lot of classy words!" But anger and alarm were
rising in him.

"You've fetched her away out here," went on Dickie, "and kinder got her
cornered and you've talked a lot of slush to her and you've--"

Here Girlie came to the rescue.

"Well, anyway, she's a willing victim, Dickie," Girlie had said.

Dickie had flashed her one look. "Is she? I'll see about that.
Where's Sheila?"

And then, there was Sheila's memory. Dickie had come upon her in a
confusion of boxes, her little trunk half-unpacked, its treasures
scattered over the chairs and floor. Sheila had lifted to him from where
she knelt a glowing and excited face. "Oh, Dickie," she had said, her
relief at the escape from Mrs. Hudson pouring music into her voice, "have
you heard?"

He had sat down on one of the plush chairs of "the suite" as though he
felt weak. Then he had got up and had walked to and fro while she
described her dream, the beauty of her chosen mission, the glory of the
saloon whose high priestess she had become. And Dickie had listened with
the bitter and disillusioned and tender face of a father hearing the
prattle of a beloved child.

"You honest think all that, Sheila?" he had asked her patiently.

She had started again, standing now to face him and beginning to be angry
at his look. This boy whom she had lifted up to be her friend!

"Say," Dickie had drawled, "Poppa's some guardian!" He had advanced upon
her as though he wanted to shake her. "You gotta give it right up,
Sheila," he had said sternly. "Sooner than immediately. It's not to go
through. Say, girl, you don't know much about bars." He had drawn a
picture for her, drawing partly upon experience, partly upon his
imagination, the gift of vivid metaphor descending upon him. He used
words that bit into her memory. Sheila had listened and then she had put
her hands over her ears. He pulled them down. He went on. Sheila's Irish
blood had boiled up into her brain. She stormed back at him.

"It's you, it's your use of The Aura that has been its only shame,
Dickie," was the last of all the things she had said.

At which, Dickie standing very still, had answered, "If you go there and
stand behind the bar