So Sara Juke found new courage with the day, and in the subbasement of
the Titanic Store, the morning following, her laughter was ready enough.
But when the midday hour arrived she slipped into her jacket, past the
importunities of Hattie Krakow, and out into the sun-lashed noonday
swarm of Sixth Avenue.

Down one block--two, three; then a sudden pause before a narrow
store-front liberally placarded with invitatory signs to the public, and
with a red cross blazoning above the doorway. And Sara Juke, whose heart
was full of fear, faltered, entered.

The same thin file passed round the room, halting, sauntering, like
grim visitors in a grim gallery. At a front desk a sleek young interne,
tiptilted in a swivel chair, read a pink sheet through horn-rimmed
glasses.

Toward the rear the young man whose skin was the wind-lashed pink sorted
pamphlets and circulars in tall, even piles on his desk.

Round and round the gallery walked Sara Juke; twice she read over the
list of symptoms printed in inch-high type; her heart lay within her as
though icy dead, and her eyes would blur over with tears. Once, when she
passed the rear desk, the young man paused in his stacking and regarded
her with a warming glance of recognition.

"Hello!" he said. "You back?"

"Yes." Her voice was the thin cry of quail.

"You must like our little picture-gallery, eh?"

"Oh! Oh!" She caught at the edge of his desk, and tears lay heavy in her
eyes.

"Eh?"

"Yes; I--I like it. I wanna buy it for my yacht." Her ghastly simulacrum
of a jest died in her throat; and he said, quickly, a big blush
suffusing his face:

"I was only fooling, missy. You 'ain't got the scare, have you?"

"The scare?"

"Yes; the bug? You ain't afraid you've ate the germ, are you?"

"I--I dun'no'."

"Pshaw! There's a lot of 'em comes in here more scared than hurt, missy.
Never throw a scare till you've had a examination. For all you know, you
got hay fever, eh! Hay fever!" And he laughed as though to salve his
words.

"I--I got all them things on the red-printed list, I tell you. I--I got
'em all, night-sweats and all. I--I got 'em."

"Sure you got 'em, missy; but that don't need to mean nothing much."

"I got 'em, I tell you."

"Losing weight?"

"Feel."

He inserted two fingers in her waistband. "Huh!"

"You a doctor?"

He performed a great flourish. "I ain't in the profesh, missy. I'm only
chief clerk and bottle-washer round here; but--"

"Where is