cated her. She leaned back in her seat luxuriously.

"This is life," she murmured. "I never grasped the meaning of the word
until within the last few months, but now I begin to understand. To work
mightily when one works, to abandon one's self completely when one
rests--that is the secret of life."

The man in the shadow shifted his position, and, looking up, Florence
found his eyes upon her. "Do you really believe that?" he asked.

"I do, most certainly."

Sidwell lit a fresh cigar, and for a moment the light of the burning
match showed his face clearly. He seemed about to say more; but he did
not, and Florence too was silent. In the pause that followed, the great
express elevator stopped softly at the roof floor. The gate opened with
a musical click, and a woman and a man stepped out. Both were
immaculately dressed, both had the unmistakable air of belonging to the
leisure class. They spied the place Florence and Sidwell had left
vacant, and leisurely made their way to it. A waiter appeared, a coin
changed hands, an order was given. The man drew out a cigarette case
that flashed in colors from the nearby arc-light. Smilingly the woman
held a match, and a moment later wreath after wreath of curling blue
smoke floated above them into the night.

Florence Baker watched the scene with a strange fascination. She was
conscious of having at some time visited a play wherein a similar action
had taken place. She had thought it merely a creation of the writer's
imagination at the time, but in her present broadened experience she
knew better. It was real,--real as the air she breathed. She simply had
not known the meaning of life then; she was merely existing. Now she
knew!

The waiter returned, bearing something in a cooler. There were a few
swift motions, a pop distinctly heard above the drone of the orchestra.
The man tossed aside his cigarette and leaned forward. Two glasses with
slender stems, each containing a liquid that effervesced and sparkled,
one in the man's hand, one in the woman's, met midway of the board. The
empty glasses returned to the table.

Many other seekers of pleasure were about, but Florence had no eyes for
them. This pair alone, so indifferent to their surroundings, so
thoroughly a part of them, perfectly fulfilled her newly formed
conception. They had solved this puzzle of existence, solved it so
completely that she wondered it could ever have appealed to her as a
puzzle at all. Again the formu