across the way! It--it was ironic. Was
there no place where a man could lose himself? He would have to move on
again, of course.

But that, it seemed, was just what he could not do. For:

"I want to ask you to do something, and I hope you'll be quite frank,"
said Sidney.

"Anything that I can do--"

"It's this. If you are comfortable, and--and like the room and all that,
I wish you'd stay." She hurried on: "If I could feel that mother had a
dependable person like you in the house, it would all be easier."

Dependable! That stung.

"But--forgive my asking; I'm really interested--can your mother manage?
You'll get practically no money during your training."

"I've thought of that. A friend of mine, Christine Lorenz, is going to
be married. Her people are wealthy, but she'll have nothing but what
Palmer makes. She'd like to have the parlor and the sitting room
behind. They wouldn't interfere with you at all," she added hastily.
"Christine's father would build a little balcony at the side for them, a
sort of porch, and they'd sit there in the evenings."

Behind Sidney's carefully practical tone the man read appeal. Never
before had he realized how narrow the girl's world had been. The Street,
with but one dimension, bounded it! In her perplexity, she was appealing
to him who was practically a stranger.

And he knew then that he must do the thing she asked. He, who had fled
so long, could roam no more. Here on the Street, with its menace just
across, he must live, that she might work. In his world, men had worked
that women might live in certain places, certain ways. This girl was
going out to earn her living, and he would stay to make it possible. But
no hint of all this was in his voice.

"I shall stay, of course," he said gravely. "I--this is the nearest
thing to home that I've known for a long time. I want you to know that."

So they moved their puppets about, Anna and Harriet, Christine and
her husband-to-be, Dr. Ed, even Tillie and the Rosenfelds; shifted and
placed them, and, planning, obeyed inevitable law.

"Christine shall come, then," said Sidney forsooth, "and we will throw
out a balcony."

So they planned, calmly ignorant that poor Christine's story and
Tillie's and Johnny Rosenfeld's and all the others' were already written
among the things that are, and the things that shall be hereafter.

"You are very good to me," said Sidney.

When she rose, K. Le Moyne sprang to his feet.

Anna had noti