rutiny of his blue eyes on my naked
face--your face is so unprotected with the eyes closed; like a fort
whose battery is withdrawn. But I was tired--it tires you when you
care. A year ago, Mag, this sort of thing--the risk, the nearness to
danger, the chances one way or the other--would have intoxicated me. I
used to feel as though I was dancing on a volcano and daring it to
explode. The more twistings and turnings there were to the labyrinth,
the greater glory it was to get out. Maggie darlin', you have before
you a mournful spectacle--the degeneration of Nancy Olden. It isn't
that she's lost courage. It's only that she used to be able to think of
only one thing, and now--What do you suppose it is, Mag? If you know,
don't you dare to tell me.

When we got to the flat Obermuller was already there. At the door I
pulled out my key and opened it with a flourish.

"Won't you come in, gentlemen, and spend the evening?" I asked.

They followed me in. First to the parlor. The two fellows threw off
their coats and searched that through and through--not a drawer did
they miss, not a bit of furniture did they fail to move. Obermuller
and I sat there guying them as they pried about in their shirt-sleeves.
That Trust business has taken the life out of him of late. All their
tricks, all their squeezings, their cheatings, their bossing and
bragging and bullying have got on to his nerves till he looks like a
chained bear getting a drubbing. And he swears that they're in a
conspiracy to freeze him and a few others like him out; he believes
there's actually a paper in existence that would prove it. But this
affair of the purse seemed to excite him till he behaved like a bad
school-boy.

And I? Well, Nance Olden was never far behind at the Cruelty when
there was anything going on. We trailed after them, and when they'd
finished with the bedrooms--yours and mine--I asked the big fellow to
come into the kitchen with Mr. O. and me, while the blue-eyed
detective tackled the dining-room, and I'd get up a lunch for us all.

Mag, you should have seen Fred Obermuller with a big apron on him,
dressing the salad while I was making sandwiches. The Cruelty taught
me how to cook, even if it did teach me other things. You wouldn't
have believed that the Trust had got him by the throat, and was choking
the last breath out of him. You wouldn't have believed that our
salaries hadn't been paid for three weeks, that our houses were