Mr. Peavey's automobile was waiting. DorÉ had telephoned for it while Ida Summers, protesting, had made a quick toilet. She had at first thought of availing herself for the day of the car so insistently pressed upon her; but she was not yet quite sure of Brennon, the chauffeur. If by any chance she should decide to keep her appointment with Sassoon, it would not be wise to accept such escort. So she supplemented the day's preparations by a message to Stacey, who was given a later rendezvous.

"Down-town! The Free Press building. Hope I didn't get you up too early, Brennon?"

He grinned at her ideas of morning values.

"He looks as if he were a good sort," DorÉ thought, meditating on the possibilities long after she and Ida had tucked themselves in.

"I say, Do, what's the game? Give us the cue!" said Ida Summers, making heroic efforts to get her eyes open.

"Your cue is to be real sisterly," said DorÉ. "Stick close, unless I give you the wink."

"Oh, I'll cling! Arm in arm, eh?" said Ida, beginning to laugh. "Conversation high-toned. I say, Do, I'm quite excited. Harrigan Blood! You do move in the swellest circles!"

DorÉ allowed her to chat away without paying attention, a fact that did not disturb her companion in the least.

"Well, he'll be furious!" she was thinking, delighted at paying Massingale back in coin. Nevertheless, she had mitigated the retaliation by taking a companion. Then, too, the effect on Harrigan Blood would not be at all bad—Blood, who expected a tÊte-À-tÊte, and who could thus be taught the value of such favors.

But now that she was finally embarked on her impulse, she began to consider more calmly, even with a willingness to see Massingale's side. All at once the perfectly obvious explanation occurred to her. How could he be expected to telephone, when she had not given him the number? Why had she never thought of this before? Probably he had been frantically seeking it! Of course he could not telephone—and of course he could not come personally; he would have to be in court all the morning. Perhaps at this very moment a letter was waiting for her, by the post, or by a messenger! She must indeed be in love, to be such a fool!

"Thank heaven," she thought, "I had the sense to bring Ida! I'll confess to him—or, no! He mustn't know what it has meant!"

The sudden joyful release, the calm of content that came to her from this explanation, surprised her. For a moment she felt like renouncing the visit; but a new turn strengthened her resolve. She could hardly believe in what had happened. Perhaps it was only another case of self-deception. She would try to revolt, to be interested in another man, to see if the old game could still attract.

"Lordy! I'd forgotten there was so much New York!" said Ida Summers, who lived, like her thousand sisters, between the Flatiron and the park.

They entered lower Broadway, random flowers on the foul truck-strewn flood, advancing by inches, surrounded by polyglot sounds, traversing revolted Europe in a block, closing their ears against the shrieking cries of imprisoned industries, the sordid struggle in the streets, the conflict in the air, where stone flights strove for supremacy.

All at once she remembered—this roaring entrance. She remembered the evening, not two years before, when she herded from the ferry, satchel in hand, oppressed by the jargon of a thousand tongues, she had arrived, hustled and jostled, barely making head against the outflowing tide of humanity which flushed the street in its roaring homeward scramble.

That first breathless impression of New York! How she had feared it, that first dusky evening, when, shrinking in a doorway before the onrush of driven multitudes, she had felt the very air dragged from her nostrils, obliterating her individuality, routing her courage, stunning her senses. She had stood a long time, clinging to her meager sheltering, disheartened at the fury at her feet, awed by the flaming ladders to the impending stars—no inanimate stones, but living rocks, endlessly climbing, which must end by toppling over on her in an obliterating crash. New York! How different from what she had imagined in the tugging, liberty-seeking aspirations of her soul!

She had never lacked courage before, in all her adventurous progress toward the Mecca of her dreams; but that night she had been defeated, overwhelmed before the issue, even. She had come, sublimely confident in a fanciful project she had conceived, a series of impressions—A Western Girl in New York—a western girl arriving undaunted, satchel in hand, ten dollars in her purse, to seek fortune in the great city of Mammon—surely a daring story to fill a woman's column. And she had gone to the same Free Press, standing in the outer office, talking to a tired sub-editor, vainly striving to interest him, to revive in herself a necessary spark of enthusiasm and audacity which had expired in that first brutal confrontation of the world in terms of thousands. Yes, she had lost even before she had opened her plea, convinced of the futility of making an impression on those frantic halls, where her voice was pitched not alone against the tired indifference of a routine mind, but against the invading storm of outer sounds, the clang of brazen bells, the honk of automobiles, the shaking rush of invisible iron forces tearing through the air, the grinding roll of traffic over the complaining cobblestones, the mammoth roar of the populace endlessly washing reverberating shores.

She had talked and talked, without interruption, clenching her fist, growing weaker and weaker, stumbling in her phrases, until at last, convinced, without waiting for an objection, she had stopped short, saying: "It's no use, is it?"

Then he had gone to a file of papers, and returning, spread before her a gaily colored page, placing his finger on another face in silhouette, gay, jaunty. Another had had the same idea! How many others? She was no longer an individual—only one of a thousand who came, with the same ideas, to face the same struggle.

That first leaden closing of the doors of hope, as if no other doors remained! And now she was to enter that same Free Press, no longer daunted, clinging to a satchel, but rolling luxuriously, triumphant: no longer a suppliant, but amused, at the insistent invitation of the chief, the genius of the machine, whom once she had clamored so fruitlessly to see. Then and now.... Harrigan Blood—society itself, on which she was to take a delicious revenge. She forgot Massingale, remembering only a hopeless little figure, ready for tears, standing, a tiny black dot against the electric windows of the press, gazing into the wilderness of the strident crowded unknown.

A quick descent, a sudden volcanic propulsion upward, and they were transferred a hundred feet above strife, into a noisy anteroom, gazing down at the gray-and-white tapestry of the spread city.

"Hello! What are you doing here?"

They turned. Estelle Monks, of the second floor front at Miss Pim's, owner of the white fox stole and the circulating garments, was standing beside them, jauntily alert.

"Goodness' sakes, it's Estelle!" exclaimed Ida. "Well, what are you doing—?"

"Oh, I contribute," said Estelle evasively.

She was in a short tailored suit, Eton collar, Alpine hat and feather. With her hands in her side pockets, she was very direct, at ease, mannish, but not disagreeably so—rather attractive with her dark eyes, which, as Ida expressed it, had the "real come-hither" in their mocking depths.

A boy came shuffling out, saying nasally:

"Mr. Blood will see you naow."

They left Estelle Monks indulging in a long whistle of surprise, traversed a long chorus of clicking machines, and discovered a room of comparative quiet, spacious, with embattled desks. Harrigan Blood was waiting, a smile on his face as he fingered the two cards.

"Very nice of you to bring Miss Summers," he said jerkily, making his own introduction. "Added pleasure, I'm sure!"

DorÉ, who had expected some show of irritation, wondered in an amused way how he would manage to procure the tÊte-À-tÊte which she had just rendered impossible. In ten minutes Blood, without seeming to have considered the question, had resolved the knot by calling in Tony Rex, one of the younger cartoonists, a boyish person who eyed them with malicious curiosity, and having consigned Ida to him for a tour of inspection, had availed himself of the first interval to say:

"Come, you can see all this any time. You are not going to get out of a talk with me by any such tricks."

She consented, laughing, to be led back.

"Why did you do this?" he said, irritated.

"Do what?"

"Bring a governess?"

"Because I'm a very proper person."

"It annoys me. I hate women who annoy me!" he said abruptly.

She smiled in provoking silence, while, with a quick excusing gesture, he lighted a cigar.

"You seem more natural here," she said, glancing at his ruffled hair and careless tie. "I'd like to see you at work."

He rose to get a copy of the editorial sheet for the day, and handed it to her.

"You inspired that."

She took the editorial, which was entitled "Waste," and ran down its heavily leaded phrases, smiling to herself at these moralizations of the devil turned friar. He saw her amusement, and took the editorial abruptly.

"You won't understand—that's what I believe!"

He drew a chair opposite and flung into it; then, with an erect stiffening of his body, clasped his hands eagerly between his knees, releasing them in sudden flights, returning them always to their tenacious grip. There was something in the combustibility of the gesture that was significant of the whole man.

"By George!" he said suddenly, without relevancy, "why haven't I the right to stretch out my hand and take you?"

DorÉ burst out laughing, immensely flattered.

"What a nuisance you are!" he continued savagely. "What good do you do in the world? All you women do is to interfere! And to think that this sentimental civilization—idiotic civilization—is going to experiment for a few hundred years with pretending that women are made to share the progress of the world with men!"

"So you're not a woman's—"

"I'm absolutely against the whole feminine twaddle!" he broke in. "Man's the only thing that counts! We're suffocated with feminism already—over-sentimentalized; can't think but in the terms of an individual." He stopped, and glaring at her, said, with a furious gesture: "And now, here you are, an impudent little girl who doesn't do the world a bit of good, sitting back there and laughing contentedly because you've suddenly popped up to raise Cain with me!"

The originality of his attack delighted her. It pleased her immensely to feel her attraction for such a man, for it seemed to her a promise that with another she would not lack charm and fascination.

"What a strange method of courting," she said demurely. "If that's the way you're going on, I think I prefer to be shown the—"

"The machines, of course," he cut in. "That's the trouble with you. That's all they ever understand— the things they see. But, my dear girl, I am the paper; all the rest is only wheels, chains, links; every man here is only part of the machine. I only am the indispensable force."

He had found an idea, and was off on its exposition, starting up, pacing and gesturing.

"Yes, all the rest is only a machine. I can change every bolt in twenty-four hours and it will go on just the same. I pay a cartoonist twenty thousand dollars a year, and he thinks he's indispensable; but I can take another and make him famous in a month. I give him the ideas! Yes, they are lieutenants here—editors of Sunday supplements, special writers, women's columns, sporting experts. I can change 'em all, take a handful of boys, and whip them into shape in six weeks! That's not journalism. What is? I'll tell you. Others have copied me; I found it out—emotions and ideas! You don't get it? Listen! They're two heads: the news column and the editorial page."

He paused at the table, and taking up a paper, struck it disdainfully.

"Trash! I know it! News? No! That's not what the public wants—not my public! It wants fiction, it wants emotions! You don't know what the multitude is; I do! A great sunken city, a million stifling, starved existences, hurried through, railroaded through life. News? Bah! They want a taste of dreams! I make their dreams live in my paper. It's everything to them, melodrama, society, romance; it's a peep-hole into the worlds they can't touch. I show 'em millionaires moving behind their house-walls, rolling in wealth, fighting one another, battling for one another's wives, flinging a billion against a billion, ruining thousands for a whim. 'Monte Cristo'? It's tame to what I serve 'em. 'Mr. X Gives a Hundred Thousand Dollar Lunch'—'Secret Drama of Oil Trust's Home'—'Deserts Millionaire Husband for Chauffeur'—'Ten Millions in Five Years'! That's life—that's emotion! That's what makes 'em go on! Look here, did you ever stop to think what does make the five million slaves go on, day in and day out, driven, groaning? Hope! the belief that in some miraculous way life is going to change."

He stopped, and with a drop to cold analysis, laying his hand on the editorial sheet, said:

"This is what does count. This is real—ideas! The other is just tom-tom-beating to get the crowd around—yes, just that: the band outside the circus. But this is different; this is true. America, the future—the glorious future when I've stirred up their imagination and taught them to think! There! Now do you understand what kind of man I am?"

She had understood one thing clearly, in this stupendous flurry of egotism—that, as Sassoon had sought to tempt her with the lure of his wealth, Harrigan Blood was seeking to overwhelm her with the brilliancy of his mind. She did not oppose him, seeking flattery, needing fresh proofs of her power, thinking: "If he wants me, Massingale—Massingale, who is so clever and strong—will want me too."

"You lunch with me," he said confidently.

She shook her head. "Previous engagement."

"Where?"

"Tenafly's at one."

"Sassoon?" he said, sitting up with a jerk.

"Yes," she answered, with malice aforethought.

"What—you're going to be caught by that whited sepulcher?"

"And you, Mr. Blood?" she said softly.

"I? I'm loyal!"

"But not monogamous."

"Sassoon only wants to be stung out of a lethargy. Women—I need them to help me. I have the right! That's why I want you!"

"I'm not the kind you want," she said, drawing back, for his precipitation gave her the feeling of being crowded into a corner.

"You would if I could make you love me!"

"Indeed! Are you considering—matrimony?"

"Never!" he said angrily. "Marriage is a reciprocal tyranny. I don't want to own a woman, or have her own me! What, you can have a career, and you want to marry?"

She defended herself, laughing, assuring him that was not the case.

"You have your career; I have mine. I'll educate you! Ten thousand men will give you money—I'll give you brains! My little girl, I wonder if you know what opportunity is dangling on your little finger-tips. Break your engagement!"

"I can't!"

"Interested?"

"Um! Very curious. Certain sides are amusing!" Then she turned, assuming an air of dignity, repeating her defensive formula: "Mr. Blood, I am not like other girls. I play fair. I give one warning—and one only. Then take the consequences."

"What's your warning?" he said abruptly, with a bullish stare.

"You will lose your time," she said calmly. "You think you know me. You may, and you may not. I won't give you the slightest hint, but I tell you frankly now, and only once, you will lose your time!"

"But," he said contemptuously, "you don't know what a real man is! There's nothing real in your life. I'm going to give you realities!"

"How charming!" she said, shrugging her shoulders. "And in the same breath you let me know it won't last. Thanks; I don't enjoy being an episode!"

"That depends on you."

"Frank!"

"Don't you know," he said suddenly, coming toward her, "what is true about a man like myself?—yes, about all men? They say we're naturally polygamous. Rats! nothing of the sort! We want to be true to one woman only. Look here. The real tragedy in life is that a man can't find in one woman all he wants,—all the time!"

At this moment, much to DorÉ's relief, Ida Summers and her companion returned. As they went out to the elevator, Blood made another opportunity for a final word:

"I haven't said half that I wanted to. When can I get a chance really to talk with you?"

A malicious suggestion, prompted by some devil of intrigue within her, suddenly rose in her imagination.

"Come and get me after luncheon."

"I thought you said you were lunching with Sassoon," he said suspiciously.

"I am. What of it?—or don't you dare?"

He looked at her fixedly, divining her reason.

"I warned you to beware of me," she said demurely. "I love scenes—dramatic temperament, you know. Think how furious Sassoon will be! Well?"

"What time?" he said, with a snap of his jaws.

"Oh, half past two."

"I'll come!"