erly. It was unfortunate that out of
all the women in New York, Jerry should have fallen in love with the
first hypocrite that had come his way, a follower of strange gods,
cold, calculating, too selfish even to be sinful! Eheu! She was
getting on my nerves. Analysis--always analysis! I could not let her
be. She obsessed me as she had obsessed Jerry--a slender wisp of a
thing that I could have broken in my fingers and would still, I think,
unless reason returned.

I paid my bill and would have risen, but just at that moment through
the door beside my table entered, to my bewilderment, Jerry himself
and a girl. I was so amazed at seeing him in this place that I made no
sound or motion and watched the pair pass without seeing me and take a
table beyond a small palm tree just beside me, and when they were
seated my amazement grew again, for I saw that his companion was the
girl Una--Una Habberton who had called herself Smith. Their
appearance at this moment together found me at a loss to know what to
do. To get up and join them would interfere with a tete-a-tete which,
whatever its planning, I deemed most fortunate; to get up and leave
the room without being observed would have been impossible, for Jerry
faced the door. So I sat debating the matter, watching the face of the
girl and listening to the conversation, aware for a second time that I
was playing the part of eavesdropper upon these two and now without
justification. And yet no qualm of conscience troubled me. Brazen she
may have seemed at Horsham Manor, but here in New York in her sober
suit and hat she seemed to have lost something of her raffish
demeanor, and there was a wholesomeness about her, a frankness in her
smile, which was distinctly refreshing.

It was not until several days later that I heard from Jerry how they
had happened to meet. It seems that after leaving Ballard's apartment
Jerry had gone home, attired himself in his old suit and made his way
to meet Flynn, with whom he had an appointment to go down to
Finnegan's saloon to attend to some final details of his match with
Clancy. This business finished, the party came out upon the street,
Jerry, Flynn, Finnegan (in his shirt sleeves) and Clancy's manager,
Terry Riley. In the midst of a brogue of farewells Jerry fairly bumped
into the girl. He took off his hat and apologized, finding himself
looking with surprise straight into Una's face. She started back and
would have gone on, but Jerry caught h