"Where's Anna?" he asked briskly.

"She is in her room. She is not well."

If Rudolph suspected anything, it was only that Anna was sulking. But later on he had reason to believe that there trouble. Out of a clear sky Herman said:

"She has had a raise." Anna was "she" to him.

"Since when?" Rudolph asked with interest.

"I know nothing. She has not given it to me. She has been buying herself a watch."

"So!" Rudolph's tone was wary.

"She will buy herself no more watches," said Herman, with an air of finality.

Rudolph hesitated. The organization wanted Herman; he had had great influence with the millworkers. Through him many things would be possible. The Spencers trusted him, too. At any time Rudolph knew they would be glad to reinstate him, and once inside the plant, there was no limit to the mischief he could do. But Herman was too valuable to risk.

Suppose he was told now about Graham Spencer and Anna, and beat the girl and was jailed for it? Besides, ugly as Rudolph's suspicions were, they were as yet only suspicions. He decided to wait until he could bring Herman proof of Graham Spencer's relations with Anna. When that time came he knew Herman. He would be clay for the potter. He, Rudolph, intended to be the potter.

Katie had an afternoon off that Sunday. When she came back that night, Herman, weary from the late hours of Sat.u.r.day, was already snoring in his bed. Anna met Katie at her door and drew her in.

"I've found a nice room," Katie whispered. "Here's the address written down. The street cars go past it. Three dollars a week. Are you ready?"

Anna was ready, even to her hat. Over it she placed a dark veil, for she was badly disfigured. Then, with Katie crying quietly, she left the house. In the flare from the Spencer furnaces Katie watched until the girl reappeared on the twisting street below which still followed the old path--that path where Herman, years ago, had climbed through the first spring wild flowers to the cottage on the hill.

Graham was uncomfortable the next morning on his way to the mill. Anna's face had haunted him. But out of all his confusion one thing stood out with distinctness. If he was to be allowed to marry Marion, he must have no other entanglement. He would go to her clean and clear.

So he went to the office, armed toward Anna with a hardness he was far from feeling.

"Poor little kid!" he reflected on the way down. "Rotten luck, all round."

He did not for a moment believe that it would be a lasting grief. He knew that sort of girl, he reflected, out of his vast experience of twenty-two. They were sentimental, but they loved and forgot easily.

He hoped she would forget him; but even with that, there was a vague resentment that she should do so.

"She'll marry some mill-hand," he reflected, "and wear a boudoir cap, and have a lot of children who need their noses wiped."

But he was uncomfortable.

Anna was not in her office. Her coat and hat were not there. He was surprised, somewhat relieved. It was out of his hands, then; she had gone somewhere else to work. Well, she was a good stenographer. Somebody was having a piece of luck.

Clayton, finding him short-handed, sent Joey over to help him pack up his office belongings, the fittings of his desk, his personal papers, the j.a.panese prints and rugs Natalie had sent after her single visit to the boy's new working quarters. And, when Graham came back from luncheon, Joey had a message for him.

"Telephone call for you, Mr. Spencer."

"What was it?"

"Lady called up, from a pay phone. She left her number and said she'd wait." Joey lowered his voice confidentially. "Sounded like Miss Klein,"

he volunteered.

He was extremely resentful when Graham sent him away on an errand. And Graham himself frowned as he called the number on the pad. It was like a girl, this breaking off clean and then telephoning, instead of letting the thing go, once and for all. But his face changed as he heard Anna's brief story over the wire.

"Of course I'll come," he said. "I'm pretty busy, but I can steal a half-hour. Don't you worry. We'll fix it up some way."

He was more concerned than deeply anxious when he rang off. It was unfortunate, that was all. And the father was a German swine, and ought to be beaten himself. To think that his Christmas gift had brought her to such a pa.s.s! A leather strap! G.o.d!

He was vaguely uneasy, however. He had a sense of a situation being forced on him. He knew, too, that Clayton was waiting for him at the new plant. But Anna's trouble, absurd as its cause seemed to him, was his responsibility.

It ceased to be absurd, however, when he saw her discolored features. It would be some time before she could even look for another situation. Her face was a swollen mask, and since such attraction as she had had for him had been due to a sort of evanescent prettiness of youth, he felt a repulsion that he tried his best to conceal.

"You poor little thing!" he said. "He's a brute. I'd like--" He clenched his fists. "Well, I got you into it. I'm certainly going to see you through."

She had lowered her veil quickly, and he felt easier. The telephone booth was in the corner of a quiet hotel, and they were alone. He patted her shoulder.

"I'll see you through," he repeated. "Don't you worry about anything.

Just lie low."

"See me through? How?"

"I can give you money; that's the least I can do. Until you are able to work again." And as she drew away, "We'll call it a loan, if that makes you feel better. You haven't anything, have you?"

"He has everything I've earned.. I've never had a penny except carfare."

"Poor little girl!" he said again.

She was still weak, he saw, and he led her into the deserted cafe.

He took a highball himself, not because he wanted it, but because she refused to drink, at first. He had never before had a drink in the morning, and he felt a warm and reckless glow to his very finger-tips.

Bending toward her, while the waiter's back was turned, he kissed her marred and swollen cheek.

"To think I have brought you all this trouble!"

"You mustn't blame yourself."

"I do. But I'll make it up to you, Anna. You don't hate me for it, do you?"

"Hate you! You know better than that."

"I'll come round to take you out now and then, in the evenings. I don't want you to sit alone in that forsaken boarding-house and mope." He drew out a bill-fold, and extracted some notes. "Don't be silly,"

he protested, as she drew back. "It's the only way I can get back my self-respect. You owe it to me to let me do it."

She was not hard to persuade. Anything was better than going back to the cottage on the hill, and to that heavy brooding figure, and the strap on the wall. But the taking of the money marked a new epoch in the girl's infatuation. It bought her. She did not know it, nor did he. But hitherto she had been her own, earning her own livelihood. What she gave of love, of small caresses and intimacies, had been free gifts.

From that time she was his creature. In her creed, which was the creed of the girls on the hill, one did not receive without giving. She would pay him back, but all that she had to give was herself.

"You'll come to see me, too. Won't you?"

The tingling was very noticeable now. He felt warm, and young, and very, very strong.

"Of course I'll come to see you," he said, recklessly. "You take a little time off--you've worked hard--and we'll play round together."

She bent down, unexpectedly, and put her bruised cheek against his hand, as it lay on the table.