sake
of the child, you would have gone on with it."

"Oh, I told myself all that," answered the girl. "Was going to devote my
life to it. Did for nearly two years. Till I got sick of living like a
nun: never getting a bit of excitement. You see, I've got the poison in
me. Or, maybe, it had always been there."

"What's become of it?" asked Joan. "The child?"

"Mother's got it," answered the girl. "Seemed best for the poor little
beggar. I'm supposed to be dead, and my husband gone abroad." She gave
a short, dry laugh. "Mother brings him up to see me once a year. They've
got quite fond of him."

"What are you doing now?" asked Joan, in a low tone.

"Oh, you needn't look so scared," laughed the girl, "I haven't come down
to that." Her voice had changed. It had a note of shrillness. In some
indescribable way she had grown coarse. "I'm a kept woman," she
explained. "What else is any woman?"

She reached for her jacket; and the waiter sprang forward and helped her
on with it, prolonging the business needlessly. She wished him "Good
evening" in a tone of distant hauteur, and led the way to the door.
Outside the street was dim and silent. Joan held out her hand.

"No hope of happy endings," she said with a forced laugh. "Couldn't
marry him I suppose?"

"He has asked me," answered the girl with a swagger. "Not sure that it
would suit me now. They're not so nice to you when they've got you fixed
up. So long."

She turned abruptly and walked rapidly away. Joan moved instinctively in
the opposite direction, and after a few minutes found herself in a broad
well-lighted thoroughfare. A newsboy was shouting his wares.

"'Orrible murder of a woman. Shockin' details. Speshul," repeating it
over and over again in a hoarse, expressionless monotone.

He was selling the papers like hot cakes; the purchasers too eager to
even wait for their change. She wondered, with a little lump in her
throat, how many would have stopped to buy had he been calling instead:
"Discovery of new sonnet by Shakespeare. Extra special."

Through swinging doors, she caught glimpses of foul interiors, crowded
with men and women released from their toil, taking their evening
pleasure. From coloured posters outside the great theatres and music
halls, vulgarity and lewdness leered at her, side by side with
announcements that the house was full. From every roaring corner,
scintillating lights flared forth the merits of this p