s of the port. They
came to pass that way, through the sweetness of it, and this made a
coign of vantage for the men with trays who were very persecuting there.
Lindsay and Alicia stood together beside the roses, her hands were deep
in them, he perceived with pleasure that their glow was reflected in
her face. "No," she exclaimed with dainty aplomb to the man who sat
cross-legged in muslin draperies on the table. "These are certainly of
yesterday. There is no scent left in them--and look!" she held up the
bunch and shook it, a shower of pink petals and drops of water fell
upon the round of her arm above the wrist where the laces of her sleeve
slipped back. Lindsay had something like a poetic appreciation of her,
observing her put the bunch down tenderly as if she would not, if she
could help it, find fault with any rose. The dealer drew out another,
and handed it to her; a long-stemmed, wide-open, perfect thing, and it
was then that her glance of delight, wandering, fell upon Laura Filbert.
Lindsay looked instantly, curiously in the same direction, and Alicia
was aware that he also saw. There ensued a terse moment with a burden of
silence and the strangest misgivings, in which he may have imagined that
he had his part alone but which was the heavier for her because of
him. These two had seen the girl before only under circumstances that
suggested protection, that made excuse, on a platform receiving
the respect of attention, marching with her fellows under common
conventions, common orders. Here, alone, slipping in and out among the
crowd, she looked abandoned, the sight of her in her bare white feet
and the travesty of her dress was a wound. Her humility screamed its
violation, its debasement of her race; she woke the impulse to screen
her and hurry her away as if she were a woman walking in her sleep. She
had on her arm a sheaf of the War Cry. This was another indignity; she
offered them right and left, no one had a pice for her except one man, a
sailor, who refused the paper. When he rejoined his companions there was
a hoarse laugh, and the others turned their heads to look after her.

The flower-dealer eyed his customers with contemptuous speculation,
seeing what had claimed their eyes. There was nothing new, the "mem"
passed every day at this hour. She did no harm and no good. He, too,
looked at her as she came closer, offering her paper to Alladiah Khan,
a man impatient in his religion, who refused it, mumbling in