next she knew, the pressure of his lips yet warm on hers, she was in
a group of jostling young fellows, none of whom seemed to take the
slightest notice of her. Several had their coats off and their shirt
sleeves rolled up. They entered the hall from the rear, still keeping
the casual formation of the group, and moved slowly up a side aisle.

It was a crowded, ill-lighted hall, barn-like in its proportions, and the
smoke-laden air gave a peculiar distortion to everything. She felt as
though she would stifle. There were shrill cries of boys selling
programmes and soda water, and there was a great bass rumble of masculine
voices. She heard a voice offering ten to six on Joe Fleming. The
utterance was monotonous--hopeless, it seemed to her, and she felt a
quick thrill. It was her Joe against whom everybody was to bet.

And she felt other thrills. Her blood was touched, as by fire, with
romance, adventure--the unknown, the mysterious, the terrible--as she
penetrated this haunt of men where women came not. And there were other
thrills. It was the only time in her life she had dared the rash thing.
For the first time she was overstepping the bounds laid down by that
harshest of tyrants, the Mrs. Grundy of the working class. She felt
fear, and for herself, though the moment before she had been thinking
only of Joe.

Before she knew it, the front of the hall had been reached, and she had
gone up half a dozen steps into a small dressing-room. This was crowded
to suffocation--by men who played the Game, she concluded, in one
capacity or another. And here she lost Joe. But before the real
personal fright could soundly clutch her, one of the young fellows said
gruffly, "Come along with me, you," and as she wedged out at his heels
she noticed that another one of the escort was following her.

They came upon a sort of stage, which accommodated three rows of men; and
she caught her first glimpse of the squared ring. She was on a level
with it, and so near that she could have reached out and touched its
ropes. She noticed that it was covered with padded canvas. Beyond the
ring, and on either side, as in a fog, she could see the crowded house.

The dressing-room she had left abutted upon one corner of the ring.
Squeezing her way after her guide through the seated men, she crossed the
end of the hall and entered a similar dressing-room at the other corner
of the ring.

"Now don't make a noise, and stay here till I c