possible that a few bristles remained; the dog was shedding now. The
playwright had never objected, nor had the jovial illustrator who
occupied the front apartment,--but he, as he admitted, "was usually
pye-eyed, when he wasn't in Buffalo." He went home to Buffalo sometimes
to rest his nerves.

It had never occurred to Hedger that any one would mind using the tub
after Caesar;--but then, he had never seen a beautiful girl caparisoned
for the bath before. As soon as he beheld her standing there, he realized
the unfitness of it. For that matter, she ought not to step into a tub
that any other mortal had bathed in; the illustrator was sloppy and left
cigarette ends on the moulding.

All morning as he worked he was gnawed by a spiteful desire to get back
at her. It rankled that he had been so vanquished by her disdain. When he
heard her locking her door to go out for lunch, he stepped quickly into
the hall in his messy painting coat, and addressed her.

"I don't wish to be exigent, Miss,"--he had certain grand words that he
used upon occasion--"but if this is your trunk, it's rather in the way
here."

"Oh, very well!" she exclaimed carelessly, dropping her keys into her
handbag. "I'll have it moved when I can get a man to do it," and she went
down the hall with her free, roving stride.

Her name, Hedger discovered from her letters, which the postman left on
the table in the lower hall, was Eden Bower.