The Trimmed Lamp | Page 9

Dan. "She hasn't been here or at the house
where she lived since Monday. She moved all her things from there.
She told one of the girls in the laundry she might be going to Europe."
"Hasn't anybody seen her anywhere?" asked Nancy.
Dan looked at her with his jaws set grimly, and a steely gleam in his
steady gray eyes.
"They told me in the laundry," he said, harshly, "that they saw her pass
yesterday--in an automobile. With one of the millionaires, I suppose,
that you and Lou were forever busying your brains about."
For the first time Nancy quailed before a man. She laid her hand that
trembled slightly on Dan's sleeve.
"You've no right to say such a thing to me, Dan--as if I had anything to
do with it!"
"I didn't mean it that way," said Dan, softening. He fumbled in his vest
pocket.
"I've got the tickets for the show to-night," he said, with a gallant show
of lightness. "If you--"
Nancy admired pluck whenever she saw it.
"I'll go with you, Dan," she said.
Three months went by before Nancy saw Lou again.
At twilight one evening the shop-girl was hurrying home along the

border of a little quiet park. She heard her name called, and wheeled
about in time to catch Lou rushing into her arms.
After the first embrace they drew their heads back as serpents do, ready
to attack or to charm, with a thousand questions trembling on their
swift tongues. And then Nancy noticed that prosperity had descended
upon Lou, manifesting itself in costly furs, flashing gems, and creations
of the tailors' art.
"You little fool!" cried Lou, loudly and affectionately. "I see you are
still working in that store, and as shabby as ever. And how about that
big catch you were going to make--nothing doing yet, I suppose?"
And then Lou looked, and saw that something better than prosperity
lead descended upon Nancy--something that shone brighter than gems
in her eyes and redder than a rose in her cheeks, and that danced like
electricity anxious to be loosed from the tip of her tongue.
"Yes, I'm still in the store," said Nancy, "but I'm going to leave it next
week. I've made my catch--the biggest catch in the world. You won't
mind now Lou, will you?--I'm going to be married to Dan-- to
Dan!--he's my Dan now--why, Lou!"
Around the corner of the park strolled one of those new-crop,
smooth-faced young policemen that are making the force more
endurable--at least to the eye. He saw a woman with an expensive fur
coat, and diamond-ringed hands crouching down against the iron fence
of the park sobbing turbulently, while a slender, plainly-dressed
working girl leaned close, trying to console her. but the Gibsonian cop,
being of the new order, passed on, pretending not to notice, for he was
wise enough to know that these matters are beyond help so far as the
power he represents is concerned, though he rap the pavement with his
nightstick till the sound goes up to the furthermost stars.

A MADISON SQUARE ARABIAN NIGHT
To Carson Chalmers, in his apartment near the square, Phillips brought

the evening mail. Beside the routine correspondence there were two
items bearing the same foreign postmark.
One of the incoming parcels contained a photograph of a woman. The
other contained an interminable letter, over which Chalmers hung,
absorbed, for a long time. The letter was from another woman; and it
contained poisoned barbs, sweetly dipped in honey, and feathered with
innuendoes concerning the photographed woman.
Chalmers tore this letter into a thousand bits and began to wear out his
expensive rug by striding back and forth upon it. Thus an animal from
the jungle acts when it is caged, and thus a caged man acts when he is
housed in a jungle of doubt.
By and by the restless mood was overcome. The rug was not an
enchanted one. For sixteen feet he could travel along it; three thousand
miles was beyond its power to aid.
Phillips appeared. He never entered; he invariably appeared, like a
well-oiled genie.
"Will you dine here, sir, or out?" he asked.
"Here," said Chalmers, "and in half an hour." He listened glumly to the
January blasts making an Aeolian trombone of the empty street.
"Wait," he said to the disappearing genie. "As I came home across the
end of the square I saw many men standing there in rows. There was
one mounted upon something, talking. Why do those men stand in rows,
and why are they there?"
"They are homeless men, sir," said Phillips. "The man standing on the
box tries to get lodging for them for the night. People come around to
listen and give him money. Then he sends as many as