le, even if he had known of them,--he had not been on
the lookout for anything of that sort. Nor would he, of course, have
gone into the fact that Tootles loved him quite as much as he loved
Joan,--he knew nothing of that. But he would have said much of the joy
that turned cold at the sight of Joan's face when she saw Tootles lying
on the sofa in his den, of her rush to get away, of the short, sharp
scene which followed her unexpected visit, and of his having driven
Tootles back to town the following morning at her urgent request,--a
curious, quiet Tootles with the marks of a sleepless night on her face.
Also he would have said something of his wild despair at having been
just ten minutes too late to find Joan at the house in East Sixty-fifth
Street, of his futile attempts to discover where she had gone, and of
the ghastly, mystifying days back in the country, waiting and wondering
and writing letters that he never posted,--utterly unaware of the
emotion which had prompted Joan to walk into his den that night, but
quite certain of the impression that she had taken away with her.

It was with a sense of extraordinary isolation that Martin walked down
Fifth Avenue. Two good things had, however, come out of his talk with
Howard Oldershaw. One was the certainty of this man's friendship. The
other the knowledge of the place at which Joan was staying. This last
fact made him all the more anxious to get down to the cottage. Devon
was only a short drive from Easthampton, and that meant the possibility
of seeing and speaking to Joan. Good God, if only she could understand
a little of what she meant to him, and how he craved and pined for her.

The dressmaker on the street floor of the rabbit warren had gone out of
business. Failed probably, poor thing. Tootles had once said that the
only people she ever saw in the shop were pressing creditors. A colored
woman of bulbous proportions and stertorous breathing was giving a
catlick to the dirty stairway. A smell of garlic and onions met Martin
on his way to the rooms of Tootles' friend, and on the first landing he
drew back to let two men pass down who looked like movie actors. They
wore violet ties and tight-fitting jackets with trench belts and short
trousers that should have been worn by their younger brothers. The
actor on the next floor, unshaven and obviously just out of bed, was
cooking breakfast in his cubby-hole. He wore the upper part of his
pajamas and a pair of incredibly