room of a
neighboring goldsmith, and on the other side into a sunshiny workroom
filled with swirling black wheels and flying belts among which the
workmen kept up a dialogue in a foreign tongue. The latter place was
near enough for a good-looking young man to attempt a flirtation with
Bessie, in such moments as he was not carefully watching what seemed to
be a clumsy mass of wax on the end of a wooden handle. All the long
forenoon he kept up his manoeuvers, watching his ugly bludgeon as if it
were the very apple of his eye; carrying it to the window one moment and
examining it under the microscope; then carrying it back to his wheel
and beginning all over again. Late in the afternoon he came to the
window for the hundredth time, and brandishing the bludgeon so that the
sunshine fell directly upon it, held it aloft for us to admire the great
glittering gem that now sparkled deep-bedded in the ugly wax.

"I gif you dat if you marry me!" cried the diamond-cutter, striking a
dramatic attitude for Bessie's benefit.

Thus one, two days passed swiftly, and we had learned to make
jewel-cases with tolerable rapidity. We had a half-hour for luncheon,
during which Bessie, Eunice, and I went off by ourselves to the rear of
the shop, where we ate our sandwiches in silence and gazed out upon the
forest of masts that filled the East River lying below.

On the fourth day Eunice and I ate luncheon alone. Bessie did not come
that morning, nor send any excuse. Her absence gave me an opportunity,
in this half-hour's respite from work, to get better acquainted with my
silent and mysterious fellow-boarder; anything more than a most meager
acquaintance was impossible at the place where we lived. Like the
majority of semi-charitable institutions, the "home" was conducted on
the theory that the only safety to morals, as well as to pocket-books,
was espionage and isolation.

"It's awful up there, isn't it?" she remarked suddenly after we had
discussed every possible cause for Bessie's absence.

"Yes, isn't it?" I replied, somewhat surprised, for this was the first
time the girl had ever expressed any opinion about anything, so fearful
did she seem of betraying herself.

"I suppose you often wonder what brought me there that night?" she went
on. "You've told me your story, and you don't know anything at all about
mine. You must often wonder, though you are too considerate to ask. But
I'm going to tell you now without asking. It was to keep