THE flaring gas jet within shone on Hartmann, in his shirt sleeves, reclining collarless on a bed, while the yellow-haired woman, in a short, vividly green petticoat, but otherwise normally garbed, sat by him twisting her fingers in his hair. Mrs. Dallam, her waist open at the neck, was cold-creaming her throat, while Kuhn was decorating her bared arms with pats of pink powder from a silver-mounted puff. He turned at the small commotion in the doorway.... His jaw dropped, and his glabrous eyes bulged in incredulous dismay. The powder puff fell to the floor; he wet his dry lips with his tongue. “Minna!” he stammered; “Minna!”

The woman in the door had grey hair streaked and soiled with sallow white, and a deeply scored, harsh countenance. Her gnarled hands were tightly clenched, and her tall, spare figure shook from suppressed excitement and emotion. At her back were two men, one unobtrusive, remarkable in his lack of salient feature; the other stolidly, heavily, Semitic.

Hartmann hastily scrambled into an upright position; the woman at his side gave vent to a startled, slight scream, desperately arranging her scant draperies; Mrs. Dallam, with a stony face, continued to rub cold-cream into her throat.

“Now, Mrs. Kuhn,” Hartmann stuttered, “everything can he satisfactorily explained.” The woman he addressed paid not the slightest attention to him, but, advancing into the room, gazed with mingled hatred and curiosity at Mrs. Dallam. The two women stood motionless, tense, oblivious to the others, in their silent, merciless battle. The latter smiled slightly, with coldly-contemptuous lips, at the grotesque figure, the ill-fitting dress upon the wasted body, the hat pinned askew on the thin, time-stained hair, before her. And the other, painfully rigid, worn, brittle, gazed with bitter appraisal at the softly-rounded, graceful figure, the mature youth, that mocked her.

“Minna,” Kuhn reiterated, “come outside, won't you, I want to see you outside. Tell her to go out, Abbie,” he entreated the stolid figure at the door; “it ain't fit for her to be here. I will see you all down stairs.” He laid a shaking hand upon his wife's shoulder. “Come away,” he implored.

But still, unconscious apparently of his presence, she gazed at Mrs. Dallam.

“You gutter piece!” she said finally; “you thief!”

Mrs. Dallam laughed easily. “Steal that!” she exclaimed, indicating Kuhn, “that... beetle! If it's any consolation to you—he hasn't put his hand on me. It makes me ill to be near him. I should be grateful if you'd take him home.”

“That's so, Mrs. Kuhn,” Hartmann interpolated eagerly, “nothing's went on you couldn't witness, nothing.”

Tears stole slowly over the inequalities of Mrs. Kuhn's countenance. She trembled so violently that the man called Abbie stepped forward and supported her. Now tears streamed copiously over Kuhn's narrow countenance. “Oh, Minna!” he cried, “can I go home with you? can I go now? These people don't mean anything to me, not like you do.—I get crazy at times, and gotta have excitement; I hate it,” he declared; “but I can't somehow stand out against it. But you must give me another try.... Why, I'd be nothing in the world without you; I'd go down to hell alive without you, Minna.”

Mrs. Kuhn became unmanageable; she uttered a series of short, gasping cries, and wilted into the arm about her. “Take her out, Abbie,” Kuhn entreated, “take her out of this.” Anthony, with the tray still balanced in his grasp, stood aside. The man without characteristics was making rapid notes in an unostentatious wallet. Then Mrs. Kuhn, supported and followed by her husband and the third, disappeared into the hall.

“Shut the door,” Hartmann commanded sharply; “and give me a drink.” Anthony set the tray on a table. “God!” the yellow-haired woman ejaculated, “me too.” Mrs. Dallam returned to the mirror, and surveyed the effects of the cold cream. With an expression of distaste she brushed the marks of the powder from her arm. “The beetle!” she repeated.

“Minna Kuhn won't bring action,” Hartmann declared, with growing confidence; “she'll take him back; nothing will come out.” The other woman drank deeply, a purplish flush mantelled her full countenance. A strand of metallic hair slipped over her eyes. “Let her talk,” she asseverated; “we're bohemians.” She clasped Hartmann to her ample bosom.

Mrs. Dallam moved to the half opened door to the room beyond. “Bring in the pitcher of water, Anthony,” she directed. He followed her with the water, and she bolted the door behind them. The door to the hall was closed too. She stopped and smiled at him with narrowed, enigmatic eyes. The subtle force of her being swept tingling over him. She laid her hand, warm, palpitatingly alive, upon his.

“The swine,” she said; “how did we get into this, you and I?”