, unable not to enjoy a little the boy's inarticulate
devotion, had indulged herself. With artistry that would have called
down from Hamilton even hotter sarcasm, she had let Perry glimpse her
soul; not the cheap and tawdry thing which unsympathetic persons were
likely to think it, but her real one, a little saddened, a little
forlorn!

"I wish I could get away from all this," she'd said, with appropriate
wistfulness. "I'm dead sick of it--sick of it all. I wish I could go
away--somewhere--anywhere where things are clean. Where there are
trees and growing grass--"

It was a very good speech. She knew it must be because she had heard a
high-priced leading lady utter it in a three-dollar-and-a-half Broadway
success.

And it proved effective uttered by Felicity. For it fooled Perry.
Fooled him badly just when he had begun to speculate a little
concerning her soul himself. Perry believed her. But then it is easy
for any woman to fool any man. Twice as easy when he wants so badly to
be fooled.

Perry cursed his lack of ready money. And then Dunham sent for him.
And he went, hiding his eagerness.

They held the conversation in Dunham's book-lined office. The books
were never used; the office saw strange usage. And the conference was
short.

"Ready to be a good boy?" Dunham asked.

Perry rose to leave.

"Sit down," said Dunham. "That was intended as a joke. My mistake."

But it angered him; angered him almost as much as it did to look upon
the boy's unsquandered youth.

"I've got something for you at last," he offered. "If you care to take
it."

"I'll listen," said Perry.

So Dunham drew readily upon invention.

"We've talked it over," he said. "Devereau and I and some of the other
boys. And we've decided that there's nothing in it for any of us as
the situation now stands. The title's too obscured. You claim it. So
does Montague. So we've decided to offer you a match with--"

"I've challenged Montague," Perry interrupted. "He paid no attention
to it."

"Not Montague," Dunham corrected silkily. "Holliday."

And instantly Perry knew what Dunham hoped to do.

"Why not Montague?" he asked.

"Why not Holliday?" countered Dunham, his voice silkier still.

And Perry couldn't very well say because Montague was a boxer first and
a fighter afterward. He couldn't say because he knew they considered
Holliday, young, wicked, punishing, even more certain to whip him. He
hesitated.

"But