But she couldn't retrace her steps and go back to Wray. She thought of it. She had chosen to descend by the stairs instead of by the lift which served the huge studio building, in order to give herself the chance of changing her mind. She went down a few steps and stood still, then a few more steps and stood still. If it had been only a question of the money she might have swallowed her pride and returned to throw herself at his feet.

But there was the other woman-_dressed like that_! He had dared to invoke her. Well, let him invoke her. Let him paint her; let him do anything he liked. She, Jennie, would break her heart over it; but it would be easier to break her heart than go back.

And yet not to go back made her feet like lead as she dragged herself down the interminable steps.

CHAPTER VII

"Shall I ever go in or out of this door again?"

Jennie lingered on the threshold to ask herself this question, and, as she did so, saw Bob Collingham lift his hat.

For the time being she had forgotten him. That is, she had a way of putting him out of her mind except when, as he expressed it to herself, he came bothering her. Bothering her meant asking her to marry him, which he had done perhaps twenty times. Each time she refused him she considered that it was for good. There was a quality in him that raised her ire-a certainty that, pressed by need, she would one day come to him. That, Jennie said to herself, would be the last thing! She wouldn't do it as long as there was any other possibility on earth. In view, however, of the state of things at home and Wray's cold-bloodedness at the studio it had sometimes seemed to her of late as if earth would not afford her any other possibility.

If she welcomed him now, it was chiefly as a distraction from thoughts which, were she to keep dwelling on them, would drive her mad. Her temperament being naturally happy, anguish was the more anguishing for being so unnatural. The mere necessity of having to strive with Bob called forth in her that spirit of s.e.x-wrestling which was not so much second nature in her as it was first.

She greeted him, therefore, with a sick little smile, and allowed him to limp along beside her. The studio building was in a street in the Thirties and east of Lexington Avenue. To take the way by which she usually went, they sauntered toward the sunset.

"You're in trouble, Jennie, aren't you?"

The kindly tone touched her. He was always kind. He was always looking for little things he could do. It was part of the trouble with him from her point of view that he was so watchful and overshadowing. He poured out so much more than her cup was able to receive that he frightened her. All the same, his sympathy, coming at this minute, started her tears afresh.

"Is it things at home?" he persisted, when she didn't respond.

Thinking this enough for him to know, she admitted that it was.

"I've got something in my pocket that would-that would help all that-in the long run."

From anyone else this would have alarmed her. She would have taken it to mean money, money which she would in her own way be expected to repay.

As it was she merely turned her swimming eyes toward him in mild curiosity.

"Look!"

Seeing a little white box which could contain nothing but a ring held between his thumb and forefinger on the edge of his waistcoat pocket, she flushed with annoyance.

"I think you'd better go away," she said, coldly, pausing to give him the chance to take his leave.

"And chuck you back upon your trouble?"

The argument was more effective than he knew. Jennie became aware that even this little bit of drama had put home conditions and Wray's cruelty a perceptible distance behind her. It was sheer terror at being thrown on them again that induced her to walk on, tacitly permitting him to stay with her.

"You can't be saved from one kind of trouble by getting into another,"

she argued, ungraciously. "The fire's not much of a relief from the frying pan."

"It is if it doesn't burn you-if it only warms and comforts you and makes it easier to live."

"This fire would burn me-to death."

"Oh no, it wouldn't; because I'd be there. I'd be the stoker, to see that it was kept in the furnace. The furnace in the house, Jennie, is like the heart in the body-something out of sight, but hot and glowing, and cheering everybody up." If she could have listened to such words from Hubert Wray, she thought, how enraptured she would have been. "Did you ever hear the story of the guy who gave us fire in the first place?"

Bob continued, as she walked on and said nothing. "You know we didn't have any fire on earth-at least, that's the tune to which the rig is sung. The G.o.ds had fire in heaven, but men had to shiver."

"Why didn't they freeze to death?''

"They did-in a parable way. It wasn't life they lived; it was a great big creeping horror on the edge of nothing. Then this old bird-I forget his name-went up to heaven-"

"How did he do that?"

"The story doesn't tell; but up he went, stole the fire, and brought it down. After that, they were able to open the ball we call 'civilization,' which gives every one a good time."

"Oh, does it? Much you know!"

"I know this much, Jennie-that I could give you a good time if you'd let me."

"You couldn't give me the good time I want."

"But I could make you want the good time I'd give you, which would come to the same thing. I imagine the folks on earth didn't think much of the fire from heaven-beforehand; but once they'd got it, they knew what it meant to them. That's the way you'd feel, Jennie, if you married me. You can't begin to fancy now-" On coming in sight of a line of taxicabs drawn up before a hotel, he broke off to say, "Do you see those taxis, Jennie?"

She replied that she did.

"Well, one of them may mean a great deal to you and me."

"Which one of them?"

"Whichever one we get into."

"Why should we get into it?"

"Because"-he tapped the white box in his waistcoat pocket-"this little thing I've got in here wouldn't do us any good without something else.

We should have to go after it together."

Her mystified expression told him that she was in the dark.

"It's something we should have to ask for, and to sign-Robert Bradley Collingham, bachelor, and Jane Scarborough Follett, spinster-I believe that's the way it runs."

"Oh!" The low e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n was just enough to show that she understood.

"Why shouldn't we, Jennie? It wouldn't take half an hour to get there and back."

"'Back?'" She was so dazed that she echoed the word more or less unconsciously.

They came in sight of a low brown tower at which he pointed with his stick. "Do you see that church? Well, that church has got a parson-quite a decent sort for a parson-"

"How do you know?"

"Because I talked to him-about half an hour ago. I said that if he was going to be at home, we might look in on him toward the end of the afternoon."