deprived of their own private seagoing craft, but buyers like herself,
shrewd, aggressive, wise and incredibly endowed with savoir faire.
Merely to watch one of them dealing with a deck steward was to know for
all time the superiority of mind over matter.

Most incongruously, it was Ella Monahan and Clarence Heyl who waved
good-by to her as her ship swung clear of the dock. Ella was in New
York on her monthly trip. Heyl had appeared at the hotel as Fanny was
adjusting her veil and casting a last rather wild look around the room.
Molly Brandeis had been the kind of woman who never misses a train or
overlooks a hairpin. Fanny's early training had proved invaluable more
than once in the last two years. Nevertheless, she was rather flustered,
for her, as the elevator took her down to the main floor. She told
herself it was not the contemplation of the voyage itself that thrilled
her. It was the fact that here was another step definitely marking her
progress. Heyl, looking incredibly limp, was leaning against a gaudy
marble pillar, his eyes on the downcoming elevators. Fanny saw him
just an instant before he saw her, and in that moment she found herself
wondering why this boy (she felt years older than he) should look so
fantastically out of place in this great, glittering, feverish hotel
lobby. Just a shy, rather swarthy Jewish boy, who wore the right kind of
clothes in the wrong manner--then Heyl saw her and came swiftly toward
her.

"Hello, Fan!"

"Hello, Clancy!" They had not seen each other in six months.

"Anybody else going down with you?"

"No. Ella Monahan had a last-minute business appointment, but she
promised to be at the dock, somehow, before the boat leaves. I'm going
to be grand, and taxi all the way."

"I've an open car, waiting."

"But I won't have it! I can't let you do that."

"Oh, yes you can. Don't take it so hard. That's the trouble with you
business women. You're killing the gallantry of a nation. Some day one
of you will get up and give me a seat in a subway----"

"I'll punish you for that, Clancy. If you want the Jane Austen thing
I'll accommodate. I'll drop my handkerchief, gloves, bag, flowers and
fur scarf at intervals of five minutes all the way downtown. Then you
may scramble around on the floor of the cab and feel like a knight."

Fanny had long ago ceased to try to define the charm of this man. She
always meant to be serenely dignified with him. She always ended by
feeling very yo