and colorless, however.
Sheila dwelt painfully upon the sort of devastation she had wrought.
Girlie's face, and Dickie's, and Jim's. A grieving pressure squeezed her
heart; she lifted her chest with an effort on a stifled breath.

"God! Sheila," said Sylvester harshly. The car wobbled a little. "Ain't
you happy, girl?"

Sheila looked up at him. Her veil was wet against her cheeks.

"Last night," she said unevenly, "a man was going to kiss me on my
mouth and--and he changed his mind and kissed my hand instead. He left
a smear of blood on my fingers from where those--those other men had
struck his lips. I don't know why it f-frightens me so to think about
that. But it does."

She seemed to collapse before him into a little sobbing child.

"And every day when I wake up," she wailed, "I t-taste whiskey on my
tongue and I--I smell cigarette smoke in my hair. And I d-dream about men
looking at me--the way Jim looks. And I can't let myself think of Father
any more. He used to hold his chin up and walk along as if he looked
above every one and everything. I don't believe he'd ever seen a barmaid
or a drunken man--not really seen them, Mr. Hudson."

"Then he wasn't a real artist after all," Sylvester spoke slowly and
carefully. He was pale.

"He l-loved the stars," sobbed Sheila, her broken reserve had let out a
flood; "he told me to keep looking at the stars."

"Well, ma'am," Sylvester spoke again, "I never knowed the stars to turn
their backs on anything. Barmaids or drunks or kings--they all look about
alike to the stars, I reckon. Say, Sheila, maybe you haven't got the
pluck for real living. Maybe you're the kind of doll-baby girl that
craves sheltering. I reckon I made a big mistake."

Sheila moved slightly as though his speech had pricked her.

"It kind of didn't occur to me," went on Sylvester, "that you'd care a
whole lot about being ig-nored by Momma and Mr. and Mrs. Greely and
Girlie. Say, Girlie's got to take her chance same's anybody else. Why
don't you give Jim a jolt?"

Sheila at this began to laugh. She caught her breath. She laughed and
cried together.

Sylvester patted her shoulder. "Poor kid! You're all in. Late hours too
much for you, I reckon. Come on now--tell Pap everything. Ease off your
heart. It's wonderful what crying does for the nervous system. I laid out
on a prairie one night when I was about your age and just naturally
bawled. You'd 'a' thought I was a baby steer, hanged if you would