"No," Rosemary gasped, "I don't. I know how to walk, and how to turn
around and come back. I've been doing those things for twenty-two years
or so, but Luck Lindsay, if you don't let me do it right away quick, I
just know I'll stub my toe and fall down, or something!" The worst of it
was, she meant what she said. Rosemary, I am sorry to say, was so scared
that her teeth chattered.

"All right, you go on and do it now," Luck permitted, and began to turn
the crank at seventeen in order to hold her action slow, while he watched
her. Groaning inwardly, he continued to turn, while Rosemary went primly
down the winding trail, stood with her toes on the line Luck had marked
for her, gazed stiffly off to the right, and then, when he called to her,
turned and came back, staring fixedly over his head. You have seen little
girls with an agonized self-consciousness walk up an aisle to a platform
where they must bow to their fathers and mothers and their critical
schoolmates and "speak a piece." Rosemary resembled the most bashful
little girl that you can recall.

"All right," said Luck tonelessly, and placed his palm over the lens
while he gave the crank another turn. "We'll try it again to-morrow.
Don't worry. You'll get the hang of it all right."

His very smile, meant to encourage her, brought swift tears that rolled
down and streaked the powder and rouge on her cheeks. She had made a mess
of it all; she knew that just as well as Luck knew it. He gave her
shoulder a reassuring pat as she went by, and that finished Rosemary. She
retreated into the gloomy, one-windowed bedroom with its litter of
half-unpacked suitcases and an overflowing trunk, and she cried
heartbrokenly because she knew she would never in this world be able to
forget that terrible, winking eye and the clicking whirr of Luck's