ave
looked into Jean's soul, he would have seen that it was seared with the
fresh memory of iron bars and high walls and her dad who never saw any
roses; and that the contrast between their beauty and the terrible
barrenness that surrounded him was like a blow in her face.

Dewitt himself sensed that something was wrong with her. She was not
her natural self, and he knew it, though his acquaintance with her was
a matter of hours only. Part of his business it was to study people,
to read them; he read Jean now, in a general way. Not being a
clairvoyant, he of course had no inkling of the very real troubles that
filled her mind, though the effect of those troubles he saw quite
plainly. He watched her quietly for a day, and then he applied the
best remedy he knew.

"You've just finished a long, hard piece of work," he said in his
crisp, matter-of-fact way, on the second morning after her arrival.
"There is going to be a delay here while we shape things up for the
winter, and it is my custom to keep my people in the very best
condition to work right up to the standard. So you are all going to
have a two-weeks vacation, Jean-of-the-Lazy-A. At full salary, of
course; and to put you yourself into the true holiday spirit, I'm going
to raise your salary to a hundred and seventy-five a week. I consider
you worth it," he added, with a quieting gesture of uplifted hand, "or
you may be sure I wouldn't pay it.

"Get some nice old lady to chaperone you, and go and play. The ocean
is good; get somewhere on the beach. Or go to Catalina and play there.
Or stay here, and go to the movies. Go and see 'Jean, of the Lazy A,'
and watch how the audience lives with her on the screen. Go up and talk
to the wife. She told me to bring you up for dinner. You go climb
into my machine, and tell Bob to take you to the house now. Run along,
Jean of the Lazy A! This is an order from your chief."

Jean wanted to cry. She held the roses, that she almost hated for
their very beauty and fragrance, close pressed in her arms, while she
went away toward the machine. Dewitt looked after her, thought she
meant to obey him, and turned to greet a great man of the town who had
been waiting for five minutes to speak to him.

Jean did not climb into the purple car and tell Bob to drive her to
"the house." She walked past it without even noticing that it stood
there, an aristocrat among the other machines parked behind the great
studio that looked