g the
earthquake days. "Only at the dentist's," she told herself, giggling
half hysterically behind closed lids.

And back of it all--back of the landlady's unconcealed dislike and
latest slap, back of the disintegration of a wardrobe that could not be
replaced, and the question as to whether her "job" had not become an
impossibility since to-day--and that job simply could not become an
impossibility: one had to live--back of all this was the dull hurt,
smothered and always coming again, that Bixler McFay had not taken the
trouble to look her up when his regiment came through on the way to
Manila.

"You may as well face that, too, while you're about it," Ikey observed
sarcastically. She opened her eyes with a snap and bit into the first
bun.

"The regiment was only here three days," a little voice inside of her
whispered fearfully.

"Three days!" Ikey's scorn was unbounded. "If he had cared, he could
have found you in three hours--and he always said he cared. It's a thing
you've got to live with. It's nothing so unusual. It happens every day.
Why can't you treat it like a poor relation?"

And her thoughts went back to Fort Leavenworth, and the gowns on gowns
she had worn, all burned up at the St. Francis last spring, with the
rest of her things, a week after she had reached the city; and Cousin
Mary, suave and elegant and impressive as her chaperon; and herself,
petted and made much of on all sides, and incidentally pointed out as
the richest girl on the field, and an orphan; and Bixler McFay,
handsome, brilliant, devoted, always on hand, always protesting----

A whimsical, sarcastic little smile curved her lips for a moment. The
earthquake had certainly made a difference. A vision of Cousin Mary
arose--not the suave and elegant chaperon of a wealthy young relative,
but a frightened, self-centered, middle-aged woman, who had taken the
earthquake as a personal affront put upon her by her young charge and
insisted on being the first consideration in no matter what environment
she found herself.

[Illustration: "'IT'S A DESPICABLE LETTER,' SHE TOLD HERSELF"]

Then came another vision. She recalled her parting with Bixler McFay in
the late winter, when she had left Leavenworth for the Coast, saying it
wasn't decent not to know anything about the place where all your income
came from, and he had left Leavenworth to rejoin his regiment in
Arizona. How his voice had trembled that morning as he bade her
good-bye, dec