a countess or
something--it was all one to Tessie--and what do you think? She had
kissed them all on both cheeks! Seems that's the way they did in France.

The morning after the receipt of this letter the girls at the watch
factory might have remarked her pallor had they not been so occupied
with a new and more absorbing topic.

"Tess, did you hear about Angie Hatton?"

"What about her?"

"She's going to France. It's in the Milwaukee paper, all about her being
Chippewa's fairest daughter, and a picture of the house, and her being
the belle of the Fox River Valley, and she's giving up her palatial home
and all to go to work in a Y.M.C.A. canteen for her country and bleeding
France."

"Ya-as she is!" sneered Tessie, and a dull red flush, so deep as to be
painful, swept over her face from throat to brow. "Ya-as she is, the
doll-faced simp! Why, say, she never wiped up a floor in her life, or
baked a cake, or stood on them feet of hers. She couldn't cut up a loaf
of bread decent. Bleedin' France! Ha! That's rich, that is." She thrust
her chin out brutally, and her eyes narrowed to slits. "She's goin' over
there after that fella of hers. She's chasin' him. It's now or never,
and she knows it and she's scared, same's the rest of us. On'y we got to
set home and make the best of it. Or take what's left." She turned her
head slowly to where Nap Ballou stood over a table at the far end of the
room. She laughed a grim, unlovely little laugh. "I guess when you can't
go after what you want, like Angie, why, you gotta take second choice."

All that day, at the bench, she was the reckless, insolent, audacious
Tessie of six months ago. Nap Ballou was always standing over her,
pretending to inspect some bit of work or other, his shoulder brushing
hers. She laughed up at him so that her face was not more than two
inches from his. He flushed, but she did not. She laughed a reckless
little laugh.

"Thanks for helpin' teach me my trade, Mr. Ballou. 'Course I only been
at it over three years now, so I ain't got the hang of it yet."

He straightened up slowly, and as he did so he rested a hand on her
shoulder for a brief moment. She did not shrug it off.

* * * * *

That night, after supper, Tessie put on her hat and strolled down to
Park Avenue. It wasn't for the walk. Tessie had never been told to
exercise systematically for her body's good, or her mind's. She went in
a spirit of unwholesome, brood