to lift toward it that same glance of vague misgiving.

The building was not what the changeful city defined as a modern
one, and the dusty wooden stairway, as seen from the pavement,
disappeared upward into a smoky darkness. So would the footsteps
of a girl ascending there lead to a hideous obscurity, Alice
thought; an obscurity as dreary and as permanent as death. And
like dry leaves falling about her she saw her wintry imaginings
in the May air: pretty girls turning into withered creatures as
they worked at typing-machines; old maids "taking dictation" from
men with double chins; Alice saw old maids of a dozen different
kinds "taking dictation." Her mind's eye was crowded with them,
as it always was when she passed that stairway entrance; and
though they were all different from one another, all of them
looked a little like herself.

She hated the place, and yet she seldom hurried by it or averted
her eyes. It had an unpleasant fascination for her, and a
mysterious reproach, which she did not seek to fathom. She
walked on thoughtfully to-day; and when, at the next corner, she
turned into the street that led toward home, she was given a
surprise. Arthur Russell came rapidly from behind her, lifting
his hat as she saw him.

"Are you walking north, Miss Adams?" he asked. "Do you mind if I
walk with you?"

She was not delighted, but seemed so. "How charming!" she cried,
giving him a little flourish of the shapely hands; and then,
because she wondered if he had seen her coming out of the