In October it was plain that spring skirts, instead of being full as predicted, were as scant and plaitless as ever. That spelled gloom for the petticoat business. It was necessary to sell three of the present absurd style to make the profit that had come from the sale of one skirt five years before.

The last week in November, tragedy stalked upon the scene in the death at Marienbad of old T. A. Buck, Mrs. McChesney's stanch friend and beloved employer. Emma McChesney had wept for him as one weeps at the loss of a father.

They had understood each other, those two, from the time that Emma McChesney, divorced, penniless, refusing support from the man she had married eight years before, had found work in the office of the T. A.

Buck Featherloom Petticoat Company.

Old Buck had watched her rise from stenographer to head stenographer, from head stenographer to inside saleswoman, from that to a minor road territory, and finally to the position of traveling representative through the coveted Middle-Western territory.

Old T. A. Buck, gruff, grim, direct, far-seeing, kindly, shrewd--he had known Emma McChesney for what she was worth. Once, when she had been disclosing to him a clever business scheme which might be turned into good advertising material, old Buck had slapped his knee with one broad, thick palm and had said:

"Emma McChesney, you ought to have been a man. With that head on a man's shoulders, you could put us out of business."

"I could do it anyway," Mrs. McChesney had retorted.

Old Buck had regarded her a moment over his tortoise-sh.e.l.l rimmed gla.s.ses. Then, "I believe you could," he had said, quietly and thoughtfully.

That brings her up to December. To some few millions of people D-e-c- e-m-b-e-r spells Christmas. But to Emma McChesney it spelled the dreaded spring trip. It spelled trains stalled in snowdrifts, baggage delayed, cold hotel bedrooms, hara.s.sed, irritable buyers.

It was just six o'clock on the evening of December ninth when Mrs.

Emma McChesney swung off the train at Columbus, Ohio, five hours late.

As she walked down the broad platform her eyes unconsciously searched the loaded trucks for her own trunks. She'd have recognized them in the hold of a Nile steamer--those grim, travel-scarred sample-trunks.

They had a human look to her. She had a way of examining them after each trip, as a fond mother examines her child for stray scratches and bruises when she puts it to bed for the night. She knew each nook and corner of the great trunks as another woman knows her linen-closet or her preserve-shelves.

Columbus, Ohio, was a Featherloom town. Emma McChesney had a fondness for it, with its half rustic, half metropolitan air. Sometimes she likened it to a country girl in a velvet gown, and sometimes to a city girl in white muslin and blue sash. Singer & French always had a Featherloom window twice a year.

The hotel lobby wore a strangely deserted look. December is a slack month for actors and traveling men. Mrs. McChesney registered automatically, received her mail, exchanged greetings with the affable clerk.

"Send my trunks up to my sample-room as soon as they get in. Three of 'em--two sample-trunks and my personal trunk. And I want to see a porter about putting up some extra tables. You see, I'm two days late now. I expect two buyers to-morrow morning.

"Send 'em right up, Mrs. McChesney," the clerk a.s.sured her. "Jo'll attend to those tables. Too bad about old Buck. How's the skirt business?"

"Skirts? There is no such thing," corrected Emma McChesney gently."

Sausage-casing business, you mean."

"Guess you're right, at that. By the way, how's that handsome youngster of yours? He's not traveling with you this trip?"

There came a wonderful glow into Emma McChesney's tired face.

"Jock's at college. Coming home for the holidays. We're going to have a dizzy week in New York. I'm wild to see if those three months of college have done anything to him, bless his heart! Oh, kind sir, forgive a mother's fond ravings! Where'd that youngster go with my bag?"

Up at last in the stuffy, unfriendly, steam-smelling hotel bedroom Emma McChesney prepared to make herself comfortable. A c.o.c.ky bell-boy switched on the lights, adjusted a shade, straightened a curtain. Mrs.

McChesney reached for her pocket-book.

"Just open that window, will you?"

"Pretty cold," remonstrated the bell-boy. "Beginning to snow, too."

"Can't help it. I'll shut it in a minute. The last man that had this room left a dead cigar around somewhere. Send up a waiter, please. I'm going to treat myself to dinner in my room."

The boy gone, she unfastened her collar, loosened a shoe that had pressed a bit too tightly over the instep, took a kimono and toilette articles out of her bag.

"I'll run through my mail," she told herself. "Then I'll get into something loose, see to my trunks, have dinner, and turn in early.

Wish Jock were here. We'd have a steak, and some French fried, and a salad, and I'd let the kid make the dressing, even if he does always get in too much vinegar--"

She was glancing through her mail. Two from the firm--one from Mary Cutting--one from the Sure-White Laundry at Dayton (hope they found that corset-cover)--one from--why, from Jock! From Jock! And he'd written only two days before. Well!

Sitting there on the edge of the bed she regarded the dear scrawl lovingly, savoring it, as is the way of a woman. Then she took a hairpin from the knot of bright hair (also as is the way of woman) and slit the envelope with a quick, sure rip. M-m-m--it wasn't much as to length. Just a scrawled page. Emma McChesney's eye plunged into it hungrily, a smile of antic.i.p.ation dimpling her lips, lighting up her face.

"_Dearest Blonde_," it began.

("The nerve of the young imp!")

He hoped the letter would reach her in time. Knew how this weather mussed up her schedule. He wanted her honest opinion about something-- straight, now! One of the frat fellows was giving a Christmas house- party. Awful swells, by the way. He was lucky even to be asked. He'd never remembered a real Christmas--in a home, you know, with a tree, and skating, and regular high jinks, and a dinner that left you feeling like a stuffed gooseberry. Old Wells says his grandmother wears lace caps with lavender ribbons. Can you beat it! Of course he felt like a hog, even thinking of wanting to stay away from her at Christmas. Still, Christmas in a New York hotel--! But the fellows had nagged him to write. Said they'd do it if he didn't. Of course he hated to think of her spending Christmas alone--felt like a b.l.o.o.d.y villain--

Little by little the smile that had wreathed her lips faded and was gone. The lips still were parted, but by one of those miracles with which the face expresses what is within the heart their expression had changed from pleasure to bitter pain.

She sat there, at the edge of the bed, staring dully until the black scrawls danced on the white page. With the letter before her she raised her hand slowly and wiped away a hot, blinding mist of tears with her open palm. Then she read it again, dully, as though every selfish word of it had not already stamped itself on her brain and heart.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "She read it again, dully, as though every selfish word had not already stamped itself on her brain and heart"]

After the second reading she still sat there, her eyes staring down at her lap. Once she brushed an imaginary fleck of lint from the lap of her blue serge skirt--brushed, and brushed and brushed, with a mechanical, pathetic little gesture that showed how completely absent her mind was from the room in which she sat. Then her hand fell idle, and she became very still, a crumpled, tragic, hopeless look rounding the shoulders that were wont to hold themselves so erect and confident.

A tentative knock at the door. The figure on the bed did not stir.

Another knock, louder this time. Emma McChesney sat up with a start.

She shivered as she became conscious of the icy December air pouring into the little room. She rose, walked to the window, closed it with a bang, and opened the door in time to intercept the third knock.

A waiter proffered her a long card. "Dinner, Madame?"

"Oh!" She shook her head. "Sorry I've changed my mind. I--I shan't want any dinner."

She shut the door again and stood with her back against it, eying the bed. In her mind's eye she had already thrown herself upon it, buried her face in the nest of pillows, and given vent to the flood of tears that was beating at her throat. She took a quick step toward the bed, stopped, turned abruptly, and walked toward the mirror.

"Emma McChesney," she said aloud to the woman in the gla.s.s, "buck up, old girl! Bad luck comes in bunches of threes. It's like breaking the first cup in a new Haviland set. You can always count on smashing two more. This is your third. So pick up the pieces and throw 'em in the ash-can."

Then she fastened her collar, b.u.t.toned her shoe, pulled down her shirtwaist all around, smeared her face with cold cream, wiped it with a towel, smoothed her hair, donned her hat. The next instant the little room was dark, and Emma McChesney was marching down the long, red-carpeted hallway to the elevator, her head high, her face set.

Down-stairs in the lobby--"How about my trunks?" she inquired of a porter.

That blue-shirted individual rubbed a hard brown hand over his cheek worriedly.

"They ain't come."

"Ain't come!"--surprise disregarded grammar.

Nope. No signs of 'em. I'll tell you what: I think prob'ly they was overlooked in the rush, the train being late from Dayton when you started. Likely they'll be in on the ten-thirteen. I'll send 'em up the minute they get in."

"I wish you would. I've got to get my stuff out early. I can't keep customers waiting for me. Late, as it is."

She approached the clerk once more. "Anything at the theaters?"