AT lunch he was progressing toward an empty table when Hartmann waved him imperiously to a place at his side. “Have a drink,” he advised genially; “this is my affair.” Beer followed the initial cocktail, and brandy wound the meal to a comfortable conclusion. A Habana in the smoking car completed Anthony's bodily satisfaction.

“California's no place for a young man without capital,” Hartmann reiterated; “you work like a dog for two and a half a day; no future.” He paused, allowing this to be digested, then: “I have a little plan to propose, you can take it or not—or perhaps you are not competent.—My chauffeur is laid up with a broken wrist, a matter of a month or more; how would you like to run my car until he returns? Then, if you are satisfactory, you can go into the Challenger factory, with something ahead of you, a future. Or you can go on to California... say seventy-five dollars richer.” Anthony shook his head regretfully. “Don't answer now,” Hartmann advised; “Spring City is three hours off. Think it over; seventy-five dollars; a chance, if you are handy, in the factory.”

Anthony was suddenly obsessed by the thought that, at Spring City, he would be only a day removed from Eliza. He wondered what his father would say to this new possibility? At worst he would only be delayed in his arrival in California, and with seventy-five dollars in consequence. At best—the Challenger factory: he expanded optimistically the opportunities offered by the latter. If he could show his father immediate fruits from a change of plan, the elder, he was certain, would add his approval. In a passing, sceptical mood he speculated upon Hartmann's motive in this offer to an entire stranger; but his doubts speedily vanished—any irregularity must be immediately visible.

“You can make a stop over on your ticket for a couple of days and try it,” the other interjected; “it will cost you nothing.”

Only a day removed from Eliza! he would write to his father, his brother-in-law, and explain! he had decided that it would do no harm to try it. “Good!” the Jew exclaimed; “see the conductor about your ticket. If you decide to remain you can send for your trunk.” He offered his cigar case to his companion, but, now, neglected to include Anthony. Imperceptibly their relations had changed; Hartmann's geniality decreased; his colorless gaze wandered indifferently. Anthony found the conductor, and arranged a stop-over at Spring City. He collected his belongings; and, not long after, he stood on a station platform beside his bag, watching with sudden misgivings the rear of the train he had left disappearing behind a bulk of factories and clustered shanties.

Hartmann handed him a card, with a written direction and address. “The garage,” he explained; “have the car ready to-morrow at nine. I'll allow you an expense of five dollars until a definite arrangement.”

Anthony quickly found the garage—a structure of iron and glass, with a concrete floor where cars were drawn up in glistening rows. A line of chairs fronted upon the pavement, occupied by mechanics in greasy overalls, smarter chauffeurs, and garrulous, nondescript hangerson. The foreman was within, busy with the compression tanks. He was short in stature, with a pale, concerned countenance. “Fourth on the right from the front,” he directed, reading Hartmann's card; “there's a bad shoe on the back.... So the old man's ready for another little trip,” he commented.

“His chauffeur has a broken wrist,” Anthony explained. “He's offered me the job for a month.”

“Wrist hell! Hartmann fired him, he knew too much—about sprees with Kuhn. He's a sharp duck; I'll bet he picked you up outside Spring City.”

“I met him on the Sunset Limited,” Anthony continued; “I understood he was a director in the Challenger Motorcar Company—”

“He's that, right enough; the rottenest car and shop in America; they're so dam' mean they won't provide their men with drinking water; they have to bring labor from the East, scabs and other truck.” The conviction settled heavily upon Anthony that, after all, he had made a mistake in listening to Hartmann, in falling in with his suggestion. If there had been another train through Spring City that night for California he would have taken it. But, as there was not, and he had committed himself for the next twenty-four hours, he made his way to the Berliet car indicated. There he took off his coat, and busied himself with replacing the damaged shoe. When that was accomplished the dusk had thickened to evening, the suspended gas globes in the garage had been lighted, and shone like lemon-yellow moons multiplied in the lilac depths of a mirrored twilight.

He saw, across the street, a creamery, and, at a bare table, consumed a quart of milk and a plate of sugared rusk. Then, on a chair in the line before the garage, he sat half intent upon the conversation about him, half considering the swift changes that had overtaken him in the past, few days. His fingers closed upon Eliza's letter in his pocket, and he gazed at the callous and ribald faces at his side, he heard the truculent laughter, with wonderment that they existed in the same world with her delicate beauty. She smiled at him, out of his memory, over a mass of white bloom, and the present seemed like an ugly dream from which he must awake in her presence. Or was the other a dream, a vision of immaterial delight spread before his wondering mind, and this harsh mirth, these mocking faces, Hartmann's smooth lies, the hateful reality?

The night deepened, one by one the chairs before the garage were deserted, the sharp pounding of a hammer on metal sounded from within, the disjointed measures of a sentimental song. A sudden weariness swept over Anthony, a distaste for the task of seeking a room through the strange streets; and, arranging the cushions in Hartmann's car, he slept there until morning. He awoke to the flooding of the concrete floor with a sheet of water flashing in the crisp sunlight. It was eight o'clock, and he made a hurried toilet at a convenient spigot, breakfasting at the creamery.

Hartmann appeared shortly after nine: his countenance glowed from a scented massage, his yellow boots shone with restrained splendor, and a sprig of geranium was drawn through an ironed buttonhole. He nodded briefly to Anthony, and narrowly watched the latter manouvre the Berliet from its place in the row onto the street. They sped smoothly across town to what, evidently, was the principal shopping thoroughfare; and, before a glittering plateglass window that bore the chaste design, “Hartmann & Company” drew up, and Hartmann prepared to descend.

“I think I'll go on West,” Anthony informed him; “this afternoon.”

Annoyance was plainly visible upon the other's countenance. “I was just congratulating myself on a find,” he declared; “you must at least stay with me until I get some one else.” He paused; Anthony made no comment. “Now, listen to what I will do,” he pronounced finally; “if you will stay with me for a month I'll give you a hundred dollars and your expenses—it will be clear money. I... I had thought of taking a little trip in the car, I'm feeling the store a little, and I need a discreet man. Think it over—a hundred in your pocket, and you may be able to get off in three weeks.” He left hurriedly, without giving Anthony an opportunity for further speech. It was an alluring offer, a hundred dollars secured for the future, for Eliza. He speculated about the prospective trip, Hartmann's wish to secure a “discreet” man, the foreman's insinuations. However, the motive didn't concern him, the wage was his sole consideration, and that, he decided, he could not afford to lose. He whistled to a newsboy, and, studying the baseball scores, waited comfortably for his employer.

Later he drove Hartmann, now accompanied by Kuhn, out of town, through a district of suburban villas, smooth, white roads and green lawns, into the farmland and pasturage beyond. They finally stopped at an inn of weathered grey stone set behind a row of ancient elms. A woman was sitting on the portico, and she rose and came forward sinuously as the men descended from the motor car. Anthony saw that she had a full, voluptuous figure, lustreless, yellow hair, and sleepy eyes. Hartmann patted her upon the shoulder, and the three moved to the portico, where they sat conversing over a table of whiskies and soda. Occasional shrill bursts of laughter, gross terms, reached Anthony. The woman lounged nonchalantly in her chair; she wore a transparent white waist, through winch was visible a confused tracery of purple ribband, frank rubicund flesh. When the men rose, Hartmann kissed her. “Thursday,” he reminded her; “shortly after three.”

“And I'll depend on you,” Kuhn added,—“a good figger and a loving disposition. We don't want any dead ones on this trip.”

“Laura's all right,” she assured him; “she's just ready for something of this sort; she goes off about twice a year.”

When they had started, Hartmann leaned forward. “Going Thursday... that little trip I spoke to you about.—No talking, understand. Look over the tires, get what you think-necessary for five or six hundred miles.” He tended Anthony a crisp, currency note. “Here's the five. Your salary starts to-morrow.”

That night Anthony wrote a letter of explanation to his father, a note to California in reference to his trunk, and a short communication to Eliza.—He was not certain that she would receive it. Her parents, he was convinced, were opposed to him—they were ignorant of the singleness, the depth, the determination, of his love.

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