estaurant.

"See here--that's fine," he exclaimed abruptly.

Lily rose from her seat with a deprecating laugh. "Oh, no--it's merely a
bore," she asserted, gathering together the ends of her feather scarf.

Rosedale remained seated, too intent on his thoughts to notice her
movement. "Miss Lily, if you want any backing--I like pluck----" broke
from him disconnectedly.

"Thank you." She held out her hand. "Your tea has given me a tremendous
backing. I feel equal to anything now."

Her gesture seemed to show a definite intention of dismissal, but her
companion had tossed a bill to the waiter, and was slipping his short
arms into his expensive overcoat.

"Wait a minute--you've got to let me walk home with you," he said.

Lily uttered no protest, and when he had paused to make sure of his
change they emerged from the hotel and crossed Sixth Avenue again. As she
led the way westward past a long line of areas which, through the
distortion of their paintless rails, revealed with increasing candour the
DISJECTA MEMBRA of bygone dinners, Lily felt that Rosedale was taking
contemptuous note of the neighbourhood; and before the doorstep at which
she finally paused he looked up with an air of incredulous disgust.

"This isn't the place? Some one told me you were living with Miss Farish."

"No: I am boarding here. I have lived too long on my friends."

He continued to scan the blistered brown stone front, the windows draped
with discoloured lace, and the Pompeian decoration of the muddy
vestibule; then he looked back at her face and said with a visible
effort: "You'll let me come and see you some day?"

She smiled, recognizing the heroism of the offer to the point of being
frankly touched by it. "Thank you--I shall be very glad," she made
answer, in the first sincere words she had ever spoken to him.

That evening in her own room Miss Bart--who had fled early from the heavy
fumes of the basement dinner-table--sat musing upon the impulse which had
led her to unbosom herself to Rosedale. Beneath it she discovered an
increasing sense of loneliness--a dread of returning to the solitude of
her room, while she could be anywhere else, or in any company but her
own. Circumstances, of late, had combined to cut her off more and more
from her few remaining friends. On Carry Fisher's part the withdrawal was
perhaps not quite involuntary. Having made her final effort on Lily's
behalf, and landed her safely in Mme. Regina's work-roo