m Judson Flack's, without the
same heart in the adventure. She recalled now that on that day she had
felt young, daring, equal to anything that fate might send; now she
felt curiously old and experienced. All her illusions had been dished
up to her at once and been blown away as by a hurricane. The little
mermaid who had loved the prince and failed to win his love in return
could have nothing more to look forward to.

She was drifting, drifting, when suddenly from the shadow of a flight
of broad steps a man stalked out and confronted her. He confronted her
with such evident intention that she stopped. Not till she stopped
could she see that he was a policeman in his summer uniform.

"Where you goin', sister?"

"I ain't goin' nowheres."

She fell back on the old form of speech as on another tongue.

"Where you come from then?"

Feeling now that she had gone to the bad, or was at the beginning of
that process, she made a reply that would seem probable. "I come from
a fella I've been--I've been livin' with."

"Gee!" The tone was of deepest pity. "Darned sorry to hear you're in
that box, a nice girl like you."

"I ain't such a nice girl as you might think."

"Gee! Anyone can see you're a nice girl, just from the way you walk."

Letty was astounded. Was the way you walked part of Steptoe's "trick
to it?" In the hope of getting information she said, still in the
secondary tongue: "What's the matter with the way I walk?"

"There's nothin' the matter with it. That's the trouble. Anyone can
see that you're not a girl that's used to bein' on the street at this
hour of the night. Ain't you goin' _anywheres_?"

Fear of the police-station suddenly made her faint. If she wasn't
going _anywheres_ he might arrest her. She bethought her of Steptoe's
scrawled address. "Yes, I'm goin' there."

As he stepped under the arc-light to read it she saw that he was a
fatherly man, on the distant outskirts of youth, who might well have a
family of growing boys and girls.

"That's a long ways from here," he said, handing the scrap of paper
back to her. "Why don't you take the subway? At this time of night
there's a train every quarter of an hour."

"I ain't got no bones. I'm footin' it."

"Footin' it all the way to Red Point? You? Gee!"

Once more Letty felt that about her there was something which put her
out of the key of her adventure.

"Well, what's there against _me_ footin' it?"

"There's nothin' against you footin' it