“But I’ve got to give it up,” she added. “I can’t leave Dad.” “She’s been kind enough to you,” replied Madge, somewhat irrelevantly. There was a note of irritation in her tone. “I suppose you know you are supremely beautiful. You seem so indifferent to it, I wonder sometimes if you do.”!

He led the way to the piano. “Tell Madge I want her,” he whispered. He struck a few notes; and then in a voice that drowned every other sound in the room, struck up a comic song. She sat in the dusk after Flossie had gone; and the laboured breathing of the tired city came to her through the open window. She had rather fancied that martyr’s crown. It had not looked so very heavy, the thorns not so very alarming—as seen through the window. She would wear it bravely. It would rather become her.

“No, dear,” answered Mary. “It’s only one or two who have nowhere else to go.” She dined with the Greysons the Sunday after, and mooted the question of the coming fight with Carleton. Greyson thought Phillips would find plenty of journalistic backing. The concentration of the Press into the hands of a few conscienceless schemers was threatening to reduce the journalist to a mere hireling, and the better-class men were becoming seriously alarmed. He found in his desk the report of a speech made by a well-known leader writer at a recent dinner of the Press Club. The man had risen to respond to the toast of his own health and had taken the opportunity to unpack his heart. She introduced her. Miss Tolley bowed; and allowed herself to be drawn away by a lank-haired young man who had likewise been waiting for an opening. He represented the Uplift Film Association of Chicago, and was wishful to know if Miss Tolley would consent to altering the last chapter and so providing “Running Waters” with a happy ending. He pointed out the hopelessness of it in its present form, for film purposes.