She shook her head.
"Not exactly. I am afraid I might as well be though. I said I didn't
ever want to see him again, but I didn't mean it. I shall want to see him
again by to-morrow. I always do no matter what he does. I always shall I
am afraid. It is like that with me. I'm sorry, Dicky. I ought to have
told you that before. I've been horrid not to, I know. Take me home now,
please. I'm tired--awfully tired."

Going home in the cab neither spoke until just as they were within a few
blocks of the Hostelry when Dick broke the silence.

"I am sorry all this had to happen to-night," he said. "Because, well, I
am going away tomorrow."

"Going away! Dick! Where?" It was horribly selfish of her, Tony knew;
but it didn't seem as if she could bear to have Dick go. It seemed as if
the only thing that was stable in her reeling life would be gone if he
went. If he went she would belong to Alan more and more. There would be
nothing to hold her back. She was afraid. She clung to Dick. He alone of
the whole city full of human beings was a symbol of Holiday Hill. With
him gone it seemed to her as if she would be hopelessly adrift on
perilous seas.

"To Mexico--Vera Cruz, I believe," he answered her question.

"Vera Cruz! Dick, you mustn't! It is awful down there now. Everybody says
so." He smiled a little at that.

"It is because it is more or less awful that they are sending me," he
said. "Journalism isn't much interested in placidity. A newspaper man has
to be where things are happening fast and plenty. If things are hot down
there so much the better. They will sizzle more in the copy."

"Dick! I can't have you go. I can't bear it." Tony's hand crept into
his. "Something dreadful might happen to you," she wailed.

He pressed her hand, grateful for her real trouble about him and for
her caring.

"Oh no, dear. Nothing dreadful will happen to me. You mustn't worry,"
he soothed.

"But I do. I shall. How can I help it? It is just as if Larry or Ted were
going. It scares me."

Dick drew away his hand suddenly.

"For heaven's sake, Tony, please don't tell me again that I'm just like
Larry and Ted to you. It is bad enough to know it without your rubbing it
in all the time. I can't stand it--not to-night."

"Dick!" Tony was startled, taken aback by his tone. Dick rarely let
himself go like that.

In a moment he was all contrition.

"Forgive me, Tony. I'm sorry I said that. I ought to be thankful you care
that much, and I am. It is dear of you and I do appreciate it."

"Oh me!" sighed Tony. "Everything I do or say is wrong. I wish I did care
the other way for you, Dicky dear. Truly I do. It would be so much nicer
and simpler than caring for Alan," she added naïvely.

"Life isn't fixed nice and simple, Tony. At least it never has
been for me."

"Oh, Dick! Everything has been horribly hard for you always, and I'm
making it harder. I don't want to, Dicky dear. You know I don't. It is
just that I can't help it."

"I know, Tony. You mustn't bother about me. I'm all right. Will you tell
me just one thing though? If you hadn't cared for Massey--no I won't put
it like that. If you had cared for me would my not having any name have
made any difference?"

"Of course it wouldn't have made any difference, Dicky. What does a name
matter? You are you and that is what I would care for--do care for. The
rest doesn't matter. Besides, you are making a name for yourself."

"I am doing it under your name--the one you gave me."

"I am proud to have it used that way. Why wouldn't I be? It is honored.
You have not only lived up to it as you promised Uncle Phil. You have
made it stand for something fine. Your stories are splendid. You are
going to be famous and I--Why, Dicky, just think, it will be my name you
will take on up to the stars. Oh, we're here," as the cab jolted to a
halt in front of the Hostelry.

The cabby flung open the door. Tony and Dick stepped out, went up the
steps. In a moment they were alone in the dimly lit hall.

"Tony, would you mind letting me kiss you just once as you would Larry or
Ted if one of them were going off on a long journey away from you?"

Dick's voice was humble, pleading. It touched Tony deeply, and sent the
quick tears welling up into her eyes as she raised her face to his.

For a moment he held her close, kissed her on the cheek and then
released her.

"Good-by, Tony. Thank you and God bless you," he said a little huskily as
he let her go.

"Good-by, Dick." And then impulsively Tony put up her lips and kissed
him, the first time he ever remembered a woman's lips touching his.

A second later the door closed upon him, shutting him out in the night.
He dismissed the cab driver and walked blindly off, not knowing or caring
in what direction he went. It was hours before he let himself into his
lodging house. It seemed as if he could have girdled the earth on the
strength of Tony Holiday's kiss. The next morning he was off for Mexico.




CHAPTER XXVI

THE KALEIDOSCOPE REVOLVES


Tony slept late next morning and when she did open her eyes they fell
upon a huge florist box by the door and a special delivery letter on top
of it. The maid had set the two in an hour ago and tiptoed away lest she
waken the weary little sleeper.

Tony got up and opened the box. Roses--dozens of them, worth the price of
a month's wages to many a worker in the city! Frail, exquisite,
shell-pink beauties, with gold at their hearts! Tony adored roses but she
almost hated these because it seemed to her Alan was bribing her
forgiveness by playing upon her worship of their beauty and fragrance.

Still kneeling by the flowers she glanced at the clock. Ten-thirty! Dick
was already miles away on his hateful journey, had gone sad and hopeless
because she loved Alan Massey. Why did it have to be so? Why was love so
perverse and unreasonable a thing? Alan was not worthy to touch Dick's
hand, though in his arrogance he affected to despise the other. But it
was Alan she loved, not Dick. There must be something wrong with her,
dreadfully wrong that it should be so. After last night there could be no
doubt of that.

She sat down on the floor, opened Alan's letter, despised herself for
letting its author's spell creep over her anew with every word. It was an
abject plea for mercy, for forgiveness, for restoration to favor. It had
been a devil of jealousy that had possessed him, he had not known what
he was doing. Surely she must know that he would not willingly harm or
hurt or anger her in any way. He loved her too much. Carson had behaved
like a man. Alan would apologize to him if the other man would accept the
apology. It was Tony really who had driven him mad by being so much
kinder to the other than to himself. She must realize what he was, not
drive him too far.

"I am sending you roses," he ended. "Please don't throw them away as you
did the others. Keep them and let them plead for me. And don't ah Tony,
don't ever, ever say again what you said last night, that you never
wanted to see me again! You don't mean it, I know. But don't say it. It
kills me to hear you. If you throw me over I'll blow my brains out as
sure as I am a living man this moment. But you won't, you cannot, Tony
dearest. You will forgive me, stand by me, rotten as I am. You are mine.
You love me. You won't push me down to Hell."

It was a cowardly letter Tony thought, a letter calculated to frighten
her, bring her to subjection again as well as to gratify the writer's own
Byronic instinct for pose. He had behaved badly. He acknowledged it but
claimed forgiveness on the grounds of love, his love for her which had
been goaded to mad jealousy by her thoughtless unkindness, her love for
him which would not desert him no matter what he did.

But pose or not, Tony was obliged to admit there was some truth in it
all. Perhaps it was all true-too true. Even if he did not resort to the
pistol as he threatened he would find other means of slaying his soul if
not his body if she forsook him now. She could not do it. As he said she
loved him too well. She had gone too far in the path to turn back now.

Ah why, why had she let it go so far? Why had she not listened to Dick,
to Uncle Phil, to Carlotta, even to Miss Lottie? They had all told her
there was no happiness for her in loving Alan Massey. She knew it herself
better than any of them could possibly know it. And yet she had to go on,
for his sake, for her own because she loved him.

By this time she was no longer angry or resentful. She was just
sorry--sorry for Alan--sorry for herself. She knew just as she had known
all along that last night's incident would not really make any
difference. It would be put away in time with all the other things she
had to forgive. She had eaten her pomegranate seeds. She could not escape
the dark kingdom. She did not wish to.

Later came violets from Dick which she put in a vase on her desk beside
Uncle Phil's picture. But it was the fragrance and color of Alan's roses
that filled the room, and presently she sat down and wrote her
ill-behaved lover a sweet, forgiving little note. She was sorry if she
had been unkind. She had not meant to be. As for what happened it was too
late to worry about it now. They had best forget it, if they could. He
couldn't very well apologize to Dick in person because he was already on
his way to Mexico. There was no need of any penance. Of course she
forgave him, knew he had not meant to hurt her, though he had horribly.
If he cared to do so he might take her to dinner tomorrow
night--somewhere where they could dance. And in conclusion she was always
his, Tony Holiday.

Both Dick and Alan were driven out of her mind later that day by the
delightful and exciting interview over the tea table with Carol Clay.
Miss Clay was a charming hostess, drew the girl out without appearing to
do so, got her to talk naturally about many things, her life with her
father at army barracks, and with her uncle on her beloved Hill, of her
friends and brothers, her college life, of books and plays. Plays took
them to the Killarney Rose and once more Miss Clay expressed her pleasure
in the girl's rendering of one of her own favorite roles.

"You acted as if you had been playing Rose all your life," she added
with a smile.

"Maybe I have," said Tony. "Rose is--a good deal like me. Maybe that is
why I loved playing her so."

"I shouldn't wonder. You are a real little actress, my dear. I wonder if
you are ready to pay the price of it. It is bitterly hard work and it
means giving up half the things women care for."

The speaker's lovely eyes shadowed a little. Tony wondered what
Carol Clay had given up, was giving up for her art to bring that
look into them.

"I am not afraid. I am willing to work. I love it. And I--I am willing to
give up a good deal."

"Lovers?" smiled Miss Clay.

"Must I? I thought actresses always had lovers, at least worshipers.
Can't I keep the lovers, Miss Clay?" There was a flash of mischief in
Tony's eyes as she asked the important question.

"Better stick to worshipers. Lovers are risky. Husbands--fatal."

Tony laughed outright at that.

"I am willing to postpone the fatality," she murmured.

"I am glad to hear it for I lured you here to take you into a deep-laid
plot. I suppose you did not suspect that it was Max Hempel who sent me to
see you play Rose?"

"Mr. Hempel? I thought he had forgotten me."

"He never forgets any one in whom he is interested. He has had his eye
on you ever since he saw you play Rosalind. He told me when he came back
from that trip that I had a rival coming on."

"Oh, no!" Tony objected even in jest to such desecration.

"Oh, yes," smiled her hostess. "Max Hempel is a brutally frank person. He
never spares one the truth, even the disagreeable truth. He has had his
eye out for a new ingénue for a long time. Ingénues do get old--at least
older you know."

"Not you," denied Tony.

"Even I, in time. I grant you not yet. It takes a degree of age and
sophistication to play youth and innocence. We do it better as a rule at
thirty than at twenty. We are far enough away from it to stand off and
observe how it behaves and can imitate it better than if we still had it.
That is one reason I was interested in your Rose last night. You played
like a little girl as Rose should. You looked like a little girl. But you
couldn't have given it that delightfully sure touch if you hadn't been a
little bit grown up. Do you understand?"

Tony nodded.

"I think so. You see I am--a little bit grown up."

"Don't grow up any more. You are adorable as you are. But to business.
Have you seen my Madge?"

"In the 'End of the Rainbow?' Yes, indeed. I love it. You like the part
too, don't you? You play it as if you did."

"I do. I like it better than any I have had since Rose. Did it occur to
you that you would like to play Madge yourself?"

Tony blushed ingenuously.

"Well, yes, it did," she admitted half shyly. "Of course, I knew I
couldn't play it as you did. It takes years of experience and a real art
like yours to do it like that, but I did think I'd like to try it and see
what I could do."

Miss Clay nodded, well pleased.

"Of course you did. Why not? It is your kind of a role, just as Rose is.
You and I are the same types. Mr. Hempel has said that all along, ever
since he saw your Rosalind. But I won't keep you in suspense. The long
and short of all this preliminary is--how would you like to be my
understudy for Madge?"

"Oh, Miss Clay!" Tony gasped. "Do you think I could?"

"I know you could, my dear. I knew it all the time while I was
watching you play Rose. Mr. Hempel has known it even longer. I went to
see Rose to find out if there was a Madge in you. There is. I told Mr.
Hempel so this morning. He is brewing his contracts now so be
prepared. Will you try it?"

"I'd love to if you and Mr. Hempel think I can. I promised Uncle Phil I
would take a year of the school work though. Will I have to drop that?"

"I think so--most of it at least. You would have to be at the rehearsals
usually which are in the morning. You might have to play Madge quite
often then. There are reasons why I have to be away a great deal just
now." Again the shadow, darkened the star's eyes and a droop came to her
mouth. "It isn't even so impossible that you would be called upon to
play before the real Broadway audience in fact. Understudies sometimes
do you know."

Miss Clay was smiling now, but the shadow in her eyes had not
lifted Tony saw.

"I am particularly anxious to get a good understudy started in
immediately," the actress continued. "The one I had was impossible, did
not get the spirit of the thing at all. It is absolutely essential to
have some one ready and at once. My little daughter is in a sanitarium
dying with an incurable heart leakage. There will be a time--probably
within the next two months--when I shall have to be away."

Tony put out her hand and let it rest upon the other woman's. There was
compassion in her young eyes.

"I am so sorry," she said simply. "I didn't know you had a daughter. Of
course, I did know you weren't really Miss Clay, that you were Mrs.
Somebody, but I didn't think of your having children. Somehow we don't
remember actresses may be mothers too."

"The actresses remember it--sometimes," said Miss Clay with a tremulous
little smile. "It isn't easy to laugh when your heart is heavy, Miss
Antoinette. It is all I can do to go on with 'Madge' sometimes. I just
have to forget--make myself forget I am a mother and a wife. Captain
Carey, my husband, is in the British Army. He is in Flanders now, or was
when I last heard."

"Oh, I don't see how you can do it--play, I mean," sighed Tony aghast at
this new picture the actress's words brought up.

"One learns, my dear. One has to. An actress is two distinct persons.
One of her belongs to the public. The other is just a plain woman.
Sometimes I feel as if I were far more the first than I am the second.
There wouldn't be any more contracts if I were not. But never mind that.
To come back to you. Mr. Hempel will send you a contract to-morrow. Will
you sign it?"

"Yes, if Uncle Phil is willing. I'll wire him to-night. I am almost
positive he will say yes. He is very reasonable and he will see what a
wonderful, wonderful chance this is for me. I can't thank you enough,
Miss Clay. It all takes my breath away. But I am grateful and so happy;
you can't imagine it."

Miss Clay smiled and drew on her gloves. The interview was over.

"There is really nothing to thank me, for," she said. "The favor is on
the other side. It is I who am lucky. The perfect understudy like a
becoming hat is hard to find, but when found is absolutely beyond price.
May I send you a pass for to-morrow night to the 'End of the Rainbow'?
Perhaps you would like to see it again and play 'Madge' with me from a
box. The pass will admit two. Bring one of the lovers if you like."

Tony wired her uncle that night. In the morning mail arrived Max Hempel's
contract as Miss Clay had promised. Tony regarded it with superstitious
awe. It was the first contract she had ever seen in her life, much less
had offered for her signature. The terms were, generous--appallingly so
it seemed to the girl who knew little of such things and was not inclined
to over-rate her powers financially speaking. She wisely took the
contract over to the school and got the manager's advice to "Go ahead."

"We've nothing comparable to offer you, Miss Tony. With Hempel and Miss
Clay both behind you you are practically made. You are a lucky little
lady. I know a dozen experienced actresses in this city who would give
their best cigarette cases to be in your shoes."

Arrived home at the Hostelry, armed with this approval, Tony found her
Uncle's answering wire bidding her do as she thought best and sending
heartiest love and congratulations. Dear Uncle Phil!

And then she sat down and signed the impressive document that made her
Carol Clay's understudy and a real wage-earning person.

All the afternoon she spent in long, delicious, dreamless slumber. At
five she was wakened by the maid bringing a letter from Alan, a
wonderful, extravagant lover-note such as only he could pen. Later she
bathed and dressed, donning the white and silver gown she had worn the
night when she had first admitted to Alan in Carlotta's garden that she
loved him, first took his kisses. It was rather a sacred little gown to
Tony, sacred to Alan and her own surrender to love. He called it her
starlight dress and loved it especially because it brought out the
springlike, virginal quality of her youth and loveliness as her other
more sophisticated gowns did not. Tony wore it for Alan to-night,
wanted him to think her lovely, to love her immensely. She wanted to
taste all life's joy at once, have a perfect deluge of happiness. Youth
must be served.

Alan, graceful for being forgiven so easily, fell in with her mood and
was at his best, courtly, considerate, adoring. He exerted all the
magic of his not inconsiderable charm to make Tony forget that other
unfortunate night when he had appeared in other, less attractive
colors. And Tony was ready enough to forget beneath his worshiping
green eyes and under the spell of his wonderful voice. She meant to
shut out the unwelcome guests of fear and doubt from her heart, let
love alone have sway.

They dined at a gorgeous restaurant in a great hotel. Tony reveled in the
splendor and richness of the setting, delighted in the flawless service,
the perfection of the strange and delectable viands which Alan ordered
for their consumption. Particularly she delighted in Alan himself and the
way he fitted into the richness and luxury. It was his rightful setting.
She could not imagine him in any of the shabby restaurants where she and
Dick had often dined so contentedly. Alan was a born aristocrat,
patrician of the patricians. His looks, his manner, everything about him
betrayed it. Most of all it was revealed in the way the waiters scurried
to do his bidding, bowed obsequiously before him, recognized him as the
authentic master, lord of the purple.

"So Carson really has gone to Mexico," Alan murmured as they dallied over
their salads, looking mostly into each other's eyes.

"Yes, he went yesterday. I hated to have him go. It is awfully
disagreeable and dangerous down there they say. He might get a fever or
get killed or something." Tony absent-mindedly nibbling a piece of roll
already saw Dick in her mind's eye the victim of an assassin's blade.

"No such luck!" thought Alan Massey bitterly. The thought brought a flash
of venom into his eyes which Tony unluckily caught.

"Alan! Why do you hate Dick so? He never did you any harm."

Tony Holiday did not know what outrageous injury Dick had done his
cousin, Alan Massey.

Alan was already suavely master of himself, the venom expunged
from his eyes.

"Why wouldn't I hate him, _Antoinetta mia_? You are half in love
with him."

"I am not," denied Tony indignantly. "He is just like Lar--." She broke
off abruptly, remembering Dick's flare of resentment at that familiar
formula, remembering too the kiss she had given him in the dimly-lit hall
in the Hostelry, the kiss which had not been precisely such a one as she
would have given Larry.

Alan's face darkened again.

"Oh, yes, you are. You are blushing."

"I am not." Then putting her hands up to her face and feeling it warm
she changed her tactics. "Well, what, if I am? I do care a lot about
Dick. I found out the other night that I cared a whole lot more than I
knew. It isn't like caring for Larry and Ted. It's different. For after
all he isn't my brother--never was--never will be. I'm a wretched flirt,
Alan. You know it as well as I do. I've let Dick keep on loving me,
knowing all the time I didn't mean to marry him. And I'm not a bit sure I
am going to marry you either."

"Tony!"

"Well, anyway not for a long, long time. I want to go on the stage. I
can't put all of myself into my work and give it to you at the same time.
I don't want to get married. I don't dare to. I don't dare even let
myself care too much. I want to be free."

"You want to be loved."

"Of course. Every woman does."

Alan made an impatient gesture.

"I don't mean lip-worship. You are a woman, not a piece of statuary. Come
on now. Let's dance."

They danced. In her lover's arms, their feet keeping time to the
syncopated, stirring rhythms of the violins, their hearts beating to a
mightier harmony of nature's own brewing, Tony Holiday was far from being
a piece of statuary. She was all woman, a woman very much alive and very
much in love.

Alan bent over her.

"Tony, belovedest. There are more things than art in the world," he said
softly. "Don't you know it, feel it? There is life. And life is bigger
than your work or mine. We're both artists, but we'll be bigger artists
together. Marry me now. Don't make me wait. Don't make yourself wait. You
want it as much as I do. Say yes, sweetheart," he implored.

Tony shook her head vehemently. She was afraid. She knew that just now
all her dreams of success in her chosen art, all her love for the dear
ones at home were as nothing in comparison with this greater thing which
Alan called life and which she felt surging mightily within her. But she
also knew that this way lay madness, disloyalty, regret. She must be
strong, strong for Alan as well as for herself.

"Not yet," she whispered back. "Be patient, Alan. I love you,
dear. Wait."

The music came to an end. Many eyes followed the two as they went back to
their places at the table. They were incomparable artists. It was worth
missing one's own dance to see them have theirs. Aside from his wonderful
dancing and striking personality Alan was at all times a marked figure,
attracting attention wherever he went and whatever he did. The public
knew he had a superlative fortune which he spent magnificently as a
prince, and that he had a superlative gift which for all they were aware
he had flung wantonly away as soon as the money came into his hands.
Moreover he was even more interesting because of his superlatively bad
reputation which still followed him. The public would have found it hard
to believe that at last Alan Massey was leading the most temperate and
arduous of lives and devoting himself exclusively to one woman whom he
treated as reverently as if she were a goddess. The gazes focussed upon
Alan now inevitably included the girl with him, as lovely and young as
spring itself.

"Who was she?" they asked each other. "What was a girl like that doing
in Alan Massey's society?" To most of the observers it meant but one
thing, eventually if not now. Even the most cynical and world-hardened
thought it a pity, and these would have been confounded if they could
have heard just now his passionate plea for marriage. One did not
associate marriage with Alan Massey. One had not associated it too much
with his mother, one recalled.




CHAPTER XXVII

TROUBLED WATERS


Ted Holiday drifted into Berry's to buy floral offerings for the
reigning goddess who chanced still to be pretty Elsie Hathaway. Things
had gone on gayly since that night a month ago when he had stolen that
impudent kiss beneath the crescent moon. Not that there was anything at
all serious about the affair. College coquettes must have lovers, and
Ted Holiday would not have been himself if there had not been a pretty
sweetheart on hand.

By this time Ted had far outdistanced the other claimants for Elsie's
favor. But the victory had come high. His bank account was again sadly
humble in porportions and his bills at Berry's and at the candy shops
were things not to be looked into too closely. Nevertheless he was in a
gala humor that November morning. Aside from chronic financial
complications things were going very well with him. He was working just
hard enough to satisfy his newly-awakened common sense or conscience, or
whatever it was that was operating. He was having a jolly good time with
Elsie and basket ball and other things and college life didn't seem quite
such a bore and burden as it had hitherto. Moreover Uncle Phil had just
written that he would waive the ten dollar automobile tax for December in
consideration of the approach of Christmas, possibly also in
consideration of his nephew's fairly creditable showing on the new leaf
of the ledger though he did not say so. In any case it was a jolly old
world if anybody asked Ted Holiday that morning as he entered Berry's.

He made straight for Madeline as he invariably did. He was always
friendly and gay and casual with her, always careful to let no one
suspect he had ever known her any more intimately than at present--not
because he cared on his own account--Ted Holiday was no snob. But because
he had sense to see it was better for Madeline herself.

He was genuinely sorry for the girl. He could not help seeing how her
despondency grew upon her from week to week and that she appeared
miserably sick as well as unhappy. She looked worse than usual to-day, he
thought, white and heavy-eyed and unmistakably heavy-hearted. It troubled
him to see her so. Ted had the kindest heart in the world and always
wanted every one else to be as blithely content with life as he was
himself. Accordingly now under cover of his purchase of chrysanthemums
for Elsie he managed to get in a word in her ear.

"You look as if you needed cheering up a bit. How about the movies
to-night? Charlie's on. He'll fix you."

"No, thank you, I couldn't." The girl's voice was also prudently low,
and she busied herself with the flowers instead of looking at Ted as
she spoke.

"Why not?" he challenged, always impelled to insistence by denial.

"Because I--" And then to Ted's consternation the flowers flew out of her
hands, scattering in all directions, her face went chalky white and she
fell forward in a heavy faint in Ted Holiday's arms.

Ted got her to a chair, ordered another clerk to get water and spirits of
ammonia quick. His arm was still around her when Patrick Berry strayed
in from the back room. Berry's eyes narrowed. He looked the girl over
from head to foot, surveyed Ted Holiday also with sharp scrutiny and
knitted brows. The clerk returned with water and dashed off for the
ammonia as ordered. Madeline's eyes opened slowly, meeting Ted's anxious
blue ones as he bent over her.

"Ted!" she gasped. "Oh, Ted!"

Her eyes closed again wearily. Berry's frown deepened. His best
customer had hitherto in his hearing been invariably addressed by the
girl as Mr. Holiday.

In a moment Madeline's eyes opened again and she almost pushed Ted away
from her, shooting a frightened, deprecating glance at her employer as
she did so.

"I--I am all right now," she said, rising unsteadily.

"You are nothing of the sort, Madeline," protested Ted, also forgetting
caution in his concern. "You are sick. I'll get a taxi and take you
home. Mr. Berry won't mind, will you Berry?" appealed the best
customer, completely unaware of the queer, sharp look the florist was
bending upon him.

"No, she'd better go," agreed Berry shortly. "I'll call a cab." He walked
over to the telephone but paused, his hand on the receiver and looked
back at Ted. "Where does she live?" he asked. "Do you know?"

"Forty-nine Cherry," returned Ted still unconsciously revelatory.

The big Irishman got his number and called the cab. The clerk came back
with the ammonia and vanished with it into the back room. Berry walked
over to where Ted stood.

"See here, Mr. Holiday," he said. "I don't often go out of my way to give
college boys advice. Advice is about the one thing in the world nobody
wants. But I'm going to give you a bit. I like you and I liked your
brother before you. Here's the advice. Stick to the campus. Don't get
mixed up with Cherry Street. You wanted the chrysanthemums sent to Miss
Hathaway, didn't you?"

"I did." There was a flash in Ted's blue eyes. "Send 'em and send a dozen
of your best roses to Miss Madeline Taylor, forty-nine Cherry and mind
your business. There is the cab. Ready, Madeline?" As the girl appeared
in the doorway with her coat and hat on. "I'll take you home."

"Oh, no, indeed, it isn't at all necessary," protested Madeline. "You
have done quite enough as it is, Mr. Holiday. You mustn't bother." The
speaker's tone was cool, almost cold and very formal. She did not know
that Patrick Berry had heard that very different, fervid, "Ted! Oh, Ted!"
if indeed she knew it had ever passed her lips as she came reluctantly
back to the world of realities.

Ted held the door open for her. They passed out. But a moment later when
Berry peered out the window he saw the cab going in one direction and his
best customer strolling off in the other and nodded his satisfaction.

Sauntering along his nonchalant course, Madeline Taylor already half
forgotten, Ted Holiday came face to face with old Doctor Hendricks, a
rosy cheeked, white bearded, twinkling eyed Santa Claus sort of person
who had known his father and uncle and brother and had pulled himself
through various minor itises and sprains. Seeing the doctor reminded him
of Madeline.

"Hello, Doc. Just the man I wanted to see. Want a job?"

"Got more jobs than I can tend to now, young man. Anything the matter
with you? You look as tough as a two year old rooster."