one we've always used," he had said. And so the cocktails and the wines
and the food in many courses, the two waiters in evening clothes, and
the talk and the shrieks of mirth, were just as they must have been
before so many, many times in this room. Ethel sat affably rigid there.

And later at the piano Joe was not Ethel's husband. Nor was it her room
when they stripped up the rugs and began to dance, nor her photograph
their eyes kept seeking from time to time! She even thought she could
hear them whisper about the hostess who was dead!

And when very late they had departed, and last of all Joe had gone with
Fanny downstairs to put her in her taxi, Ethel, left alone in the room,
turned to her sister's photograph.

"I won't be like you," she tensely declared. "I won't live in your
home--with your husband--"

The picture smiled good-naturedly back

"All right," it seemed to answer, "then what do you expect to do?"

CHAPTER XIV

By the next day she had made up her mind to look for another apartment.
The move had several points in its favour. It would not only take her
away from this place where she felt the spell so strong; it would also
give her something to do. "And I need it, heaven knows!" she thought.
And besides it would provide an excuse for not seeing Amy's friends.
"I'll be worn out every evening," she decided with grim satisfaction.

She found Joe more than ready for the change. He himself had suggested
it, some weeks before, and Ethel made the most of that. "I've been
thinking over your idea of moving," she began one night. And in the
talk which followed, the intent little glances she threw at him made her
sure that in her husband's mind was a half conscious deep relief at the
idea of getting away from these rooms and their memories.

"Poor dear," she reflected tenderly, "what a place for a tired business
man--a home with two assorted wives waiting for him every night."

But when it came to looking about, to her surprise Ethel found it hard,
on her own account, to make the move. For with all its faults and
drawbacks, this was the place where she had struggled, groped and
dreamed, had married Joe and discovered him in hours she would never
forget, and here her baby had been born. The place had grown familiar.
Even the huge building, for all its appearance of being exactly like
every other on the street, had in some curious fashion taken on for
Ethel a special atmosphere of its own; and coming back