tter of the street. To
him it was a pleasant sound, and here it was subdued and remote
enough. Her face was like that of some one maddened by noise.

"You don't smell anything fresh"--her chest lifted--"you don't get
air. I can't breathe. Everything presses in." She opened her eyes,
bright and desperate. "What am I doing here, Mr. Morena?"

He had put down his cup quietly, for he was really half-afraid of her.
"Why did you come, Jane?"

"Because I was afraid of some one. I was running away, Mr. Morena.
There's some one that mustn't ever find me now, and to run away from
him--that was the business of my life. And it kept my heart full of
him and the dread of his coming. You see, that was my happiness. I
hoped he was taking after me so's I could run away." She laughed
apologetically. "Does that sound crazy to you?"

"No. I think I understand. And here?"

"He'll never come here. He'll never find me. It's been four years. And
I'm so changed. This"--she gave herself a downward look--"this isn't
the 'gel' he wants.... Probably by now he's given me up. Maybe he's
found another. Everything that's bad and hateful can find me out here.
Bad things can find you out and try to clutch after you anywheres. But
when something wild and clean comes hunting for you, something out of
the big lonely places--why, it would be scared to follow into this
city."

"You're lonely, Jane. I've told you a hundred times that you ought to
make friends for yourself."

"Oh, I don't care for that. I don't want friends, not many friends.
These acting people, they're not real folks. I don't savvy their ways
and they don't savvy mine. They always end by disliking me because I'm
queer and different from them. You have been my friend, and your
wife--that is, she used to be." Suddenly Jane became more her usual
self and spoke with childlike wistfulness. "She doesn't come to see me
any more, Mr. Morena. And I could love her. She's so like a little
girl with those round eyes--" Jane held up two circles made by
forefingers and thumbs to represent Betty's round eyes. "Oh, dear!"
she said; "isn't she awfully winning? Seems as if you must be taking
care of her. She's so small and fine."

Jasper laughed with some bitterness.

"She doesn't like me now," sighed Jane, but the feelings Betty had
hurt were connected with a later development so that they turned her
mood and brought her to a more normal dejection. She was no longer a
caged beast, she had temporar