Part 3

As he walked briskly southward, he amused himself for a time by watching the passers-by, and inventing stories to fit their appearance. But this soon palled. They were all so bundled up, and hurried past so swiftly through the bitter air, that all Barry could think of was how cold they were and how anxious to get home.

Then he took to regulating his course by means of odd devices. If a certain man crossed the avenue at Twenty-eighth Street, he would follow the example. If the next kept on downtown, Lawrence would turn eastward on Twenty-seventh Street, and the like.

It happened that the man turned into the side street, and Barry continued straight ahead until, high above the icy branches of the naked trees, the glittering Metropolitan Tower, ethereal and fairylike, in spite of its colossal bulk, loomed before his eyes.

He paused an instant, while the silvery chimes rang out the hour of nine. There were many directions in which he might turn his steps, but at the moment the square seemed singularly deserted. At length his glance shifted to the bright, open space beyond him, where three streets joined, and he smiled.

"If that Broadway car is a Lexington," he murmured, "I'll cut across the square."

The car approached, swerved off, and turned east on Twenty-third Street; and Lawrence promptly wheeled into the winding walk, and briskly followed the diagonal course.

The benches, usually so full of loungers, were deserted now. The fountain in the center was filled with dingy snow, while ice glittered on the iron railing about it. The wind, whistling across the open space, penetrated even the thick fur of Barry's coat a little, and made him half wish that guiding street car had not led him thither. He did not turn back, however; he was too much interested in this game of chance to give it up just because it had so far failed to bring him anything out of the ordinary.

Rounding the desolate fountain, he slipped on a treacherous bit of ice. When he recovered his equilibrium, he saw that a woman was coming toward him along the cement path. She walked hurriedly, yet there was an odd touch of indecision in her movements which puzzled Barry.

As they approached each other, she passed under the glare of an electric light, and Lawrence noticed for the first time how slim and girlish she was. She seemed little more than a child. Certainly she ought not to be on the streets at that hour and in such bitter weather.

As she came nearer he saw that she had no muff or neck-piece, and that her little suit seemed woefully inadequate. Her face was invisible under the wide brim of the black hat, but she did not pause or falter or even glance up at him.

Then came a sound which turned Barry's sigh into a quick gasp of pain, and made him whirl around to stare after the slight, retreating figure. It was a stifled sob, carried to his ears by the vagrant wind, until it seemed as clear and pitiful as if she had stood close beside him. Another followed, and another still. The girl was crying as if her heart would break.

*CHAPTER IX.*

*A WOMAN IN DISTRESS.*

For a second Lawrence stood rooted to the pavement. His first impulse was to follow her. She was in trouble, and perhaps he could help her. He took a few quick steps back toward the fountain, and stopped still. How could he speak to her? How could he offer to do her a service? She would misconstrue his motives, and be terrified. She would----

A faint cry, which was little more than a startled exclamation of terror, cut short Barry's mental reasonings, and in a second he was running forward with long, lithe strides. As he approached the fountain he saw another figure scurrying away across the snow toward Madison Avenue. The girl was crouching against the ice-covered railing, steadying herself with one small, gloved hand, and, as Lawrence came straight toward her, he saw that she was trembling violently.

"You called me," he said quietly.

For a second she made no response. Her fingers still clutched the iron railing; her whole attitude was that of one driven into a corner and standing at bay. From under the shadowy hat brim Barry could see that her lips were pressed tightly together. Her eyes, wide with a desperate sort of fear, were fixed upon his face.

"I heard you call out," Barry said gently. "I thought you were frightened at something."

Something in his voice, or perhaps his face--the light was very bright around the snowy fountain--reassured her. Her eyes lost a little of that look of terror, and her fingers relaxed their grip on the iron railing.

"I was," she answered, in a low, uneven, and charming voice, "terribly frightened. That--man----"

Suddenly she put up both hands to her face, and swiftly turned from him. Scarcely a sound came from her, but the sight of that bowed head and the convulsively heaving shoulders, showing but too plainly through the thin cloth of her short coat, hurt Lawrence desperately, and brought a lump into his throat. She seemed so young and frail and girlish, so utterly unfitted to cope with the world, that a quick impulse came to the man to take her in his arms and comfort her exactly as one does a child. He realized instantly, of course, that such a thing would be impossible.

"Please don't," he said softly, after a moment's silence. "It's all right now." He watched her trembling hands searching for a handkerchief, and then he went on, with deliberately forced cheerfulness: "I tell you what we'll do. If you'll let me, I'll walk along with you, so there won't be a chance of anything like this happening again."

She ceased dabbing her eyes, and, turning slowly, looked long and searchingly into his face. "You are very kind," she said at length, and Barry caught again that faint, Southern intonation which he had not been quite sure of before; "but it is a long distance, and I think I can manage by myself. I--am used to going about alone."

"But you really wouldn't be taking me out of my way--if that's what you were thinking," Lawrence expostulated. "I haven't a thing to do. I'm out for a walk, and one direction is just as good as another for me. I hate to think of your taking any more chances."

For a second the girl hesitated. Then her lids drooped a little, and she swayed the least bit, putting out one hand blindly to steady herself against the railing.

Barry stepped swiftly forward, and took her arm.

"Come!" he said, with a whimsical sort of positiveness. "You really must! I know it's unconventional, and all that, but we'll probably never see each other after to-night. I'll leave you wherever you wish, and say good night. You were heading toward Broadway, weren't you? Well, we'll go together."

The girl made no protest. Perhaps it was because she had come to the end of her rope, and had no strength left. Perhaps she sensed intuitively the motives which governed this frank, straightforward stranger who had come to her aid so opportunely. At all events, she let her hand rest upon his arm, and walked with him back through the square, across Twenty-fifth Street, into the dazzling stretch of Broadway.

The touch of her hand brought again to Barry that odd desire to protect and comfort her. By this time he knew that she was almost perishing with cold. In spite of her effort to control herself, he felt she was shaking violently, and every now and then the unconscious weight of her hand on his arm made him wonder whether some other thing than cold had not contributed to her weakness.

He wanted desperately to do something, yet somehow he could not think of any way. He had not asked her where she wished to go, and the girl herself volunteered nothing.

And so they walked on up New York's great artery, he talking carelessly, lightly, and frequently at random as his brain worked in another totally different direction, she answering him briefly now and then in her soft, tired voice, but more often silent--out of sheer weariness, he guessed.

Suddenly the electric sign of a well-known restaurant blazing before his eyes gave Lawrence the clew he had been seeking, and he stopped abruptly.

"Are you in very much of a hurry?" he asked.

She glanced up at him swiftly, and he was struck anew by the charm of her-wonderful eyes, the delicate beauty of her mouth and chin.

"Not very," she said, in an odd, restrained tone. "Why?"

"I was wondering whether you'd do me a favor," Barry returned glibly. "I meant to get a bite of supper here, and I hate to eat alone. If you'd only take pity on me, and keep me company, I'd be everlastingly obliged. After that we can take a car to where you're going, so's to make up time."

Again she sent a long, searching glance into his candid, level gray eyes. Then suddenly she laughed, a curious laugh, which had no mirth in it, but rather held an undercurrent of intense pathos.

"Very well," she said quietly, with an odd gesture of her hands.

Her manner brought the color into Barry's cheeks, and made him wonder whether she saw through his clumsy subterfuge. He did not hesitate, however, but stood aside for her to enter the turnstile door, following close behind.

The dining room was almost empty, for it was the quiet interval which comes between dinner and the after-theater supper crowd. They were ushered at once to a table against the wall.

While Barry was slipping out of his coat he noticed the girl glancing into a mirror beside her, touching her hair here and there, and giving the frilly lace thing at her neck an unconscious pat. She was still shaking a little, and when she drew off her gloves he saw that she was gently chafing her hands together beneath the shelter of the white cloth.

Her hair was brown, thick, and dark, with glints of copper in it, and waved attractively above her brow. Her eyes were almost of the same shade, with long, curling lashes, which made them seem almost too large for the delicate, oval face. Her mouth was sensitive, and infinitely appealing with its pathetic downward droop at the corners. There was an unmistakable refinement in everything about her; and, in spite of the fact that she was very tiny, she held herself with an air which made Barry quite forget her forlorn condition.

"How the mischief could I have ever taken her for a child?" he thought, with a faint flush of embarrassment, as he reached for the card. "I suppose it was because she seemed so little and helpless."

*CHAPTER X.*

*SHIRLEY RIVES.*

Having ordered two portions of a nourishing bouillon to be served at once, Lawrence picked out several dishes, then leaned back in his chair.

"I quite forgot to introduce myself," he said, with quick, boyish impulsiveness. "My name is Lawrence--Barry Lawrence."

A faint, shadowy smile curved the girl's lips. The warmth of the room was beginning to touch her cheeks with color, and make her even more lovely than before.

"It will be easier," she conceded gravely. "I am Shirley Rives."

"From Virginia?" Barry inquired quickly, then bit his lips. "I beg your pardon," he added contritely. "I forgot for a second that I meant to ask no questions."

"That one doesn't matter," she said quietly. "I am from Virginia. Since you've asked it, though, I'll venture one myself: Do you happen, by any chance, to be a Harvard man?"

Barry stared. "Why, yes!" he exclaimed. "How in the world did you guess?"

"You seem rather like other Cambridge men I've known," she answered slowly. "I had a cousin there, and his friends used to visit----"

She broke off abruptly, as if regretting that she had been so frank, and for a moment there was silence as she touched one of the forks nervously.

"I don't know that it makes much difference," she went on at length. "His name is Philip Calvert. Perhaps you knew him."

Barry laughed boyishly, and then bent forward with sparkling eyes. "Of course I did!" he exclaimed. "He was a junior the year I was graduated. To think of my meeting Phil Calvert's cousin in New York! I knew chance was going to bring me something pleasant when I started out this evening."

There was a moment's pause while the waiter placed the soup before them. Somehow, Barry had a feeling that the girl was more than hungry, and, though he did not see how he could take a mouthful after his luxurious dinner at the Waldorf, he did his best to seem ravenous himself, talking all the while, so that she might not see how little he was really eating.

The girl sipped the bouillon slowly and leisurely, listening to her companion's whimsical account of his progress down Fifth Avenue that night, and occasionally making a light comment of her own. One would never have guessed, to watch her, that she could have drained the cup at a single swallow.

Lawrence's surmise as to her desperate condition was more the result of intuition, helped on a little by details he observed from time to time, rather than anything he saw in her manner.

Little by little it was borne upon his consciousness that the extraordinary trimness which had puzzled him at first was nothing more than the painful neatness of extreme poverty, combined with innate good taste. The wide black hat was simply trimmed, and showed signs of wear. The perfectly fitting suit was of good material, but had been brushed and sponged until it was almost threadbare. The shirt waist of fine cambric looked as if it had been washed time and again with jealous care by the girl's own hands. On one sleeve a tear had been repaired with painful neatness.

All this Barry noticed as he talked on, wondering to himself how under the sun a cousin of his fastidious, seemingly wealthy, college mate could possibly have been reduced to such straits. But he asked no questions, nor did he in his manner betray the slightest touch of curiosity. He was only too thankful to see, under the influence of warmth and comfort and nourishing food, the color coming back into the girl's face, the sparkle to her eyes, and that tired droop of her mouth growing less and less noticeable.

As the meal progressed, however, his curiosity was gratified. It was inevitable that the discovery of a mutual friend should make some difference in the girl's attitude toward Lawrence. From discussing Calvert--who, it appeared, had been in Manila for over a year--the girl's story came out bit by bit.

More than likely Shirley Rives would never have thought of starting out to tell it to any one from beginning to end. But, while he did not express it by a single word, she seemed to feel Barry's sympathy, and be comforted by it. She had been bearing her troubles alone for so long that the temptation to talk a little about them to some one else was irresistible. And, last of all, she, too, seemed to feel that night something of Barry's attitude toward fate. She had come to the end of her rope, and was desperate. When one is in that pass conventions seem very petty, and life is stripped to the bones.

The story Lawrence gathered from a chance word here, a sentence there, was very old and hackneyed. It was really threadbare, yet the personality of the girl across the table lent it a vivid, enthralling interest.

Orphaned a year before, and left in straitened circumstances, Shirley Rives had taken the few hundred dollars remaining after the settlement of the encumbered estate, and come to New York to earn her living. Having no particular talent, and no influence, stenography seemed the only thing left her. She took a course in a correspondence school, and then obtained a position. Three months later the firm changed its organization, and she was cast adrift. She got another place, after eating into her diminishing capital, but the wholesale company was presently absorbed by a trust. Another period of enforced idleness ensued before she was taken on in a broker's office, only to be forced to leave by the unwelcome attentions of a junior partner.

That was three weeks ago. Since then she had failed to find anything. Her money became exhausted, and the board bill remained unpaid. The landlady gave her notice to pay or leave. The room had been rented late in the afternoon to another woman. Since then she had walked the streets, dazed, bewildered, not knowing what to do or where to go.

It was all told in snatches, but the thought of this girl, delicate and refined and well-bred, thrust out into the streets at such a time, without a penny, and with no place to go, made Barry's blood boil. Again came that intense desire to do something for her, accompanied by that same maddening sense of helplessness he had felt before.

"You were hurrying when I saw you first," he said at length.

She moved her shoulders a little. "It was partly to keep warm," she explained quietly, "and partly because I had just thought of a sort of forlorn hope."

"And that was----"

"A girl who used to work with me in the wholesale house; she was very nice, and we got to be good friends. She used to live on Forty-eighth Street, and I thought she would take me in to-night."

"How long is it since you've seen her?" Barry asked.

"Some months. I was tired, and it's a long way to Forty-eighth Street."

She tried to speak lightly, but Lawrence could see that old look of desperation, banished for a time, again lurking in her eyes.

"But what if she's moved?" he asked. "What if you shouldn't find her at the old address?"

She tried to smile, but her lips only quivered. And though she held her head high, like the thoroughbred she was, the expression in her eyes cut Barry to the quick.

"I--hadn't thought," she answered, in a low tone.

*CHAPTER XI.*

*HIDE AND SEEK.*

For a second Lawrence was silent, as a thought flashed through his brain as to the pathetic plight of the girl. The next instant he bent forward across the table, his clear gray eyes fixed upon hers, and holding her wavering gaze.

"I want to tell you a little story, Miss Rives," he said, in a hurried, almost jerky, tone, "and then I want you to do me a favor. Wait, please! Don't say you won't until you've heard me. This morning I left a miserable hall bedroom over on the West Side to walk the streets, because I could not face the woman I owed three weeks' rent."

She caught her breath quickly, and, as her eyes flashed to the wonderful emerald ring on his finger and back again to the pearls gleaming in his immaculate shirt, an expression of bewildered incredulity came into her face.

"I know," Barry went on hastily; "it seems impossible, but it's true. I'd had little to eat for days. My last nickel went for a cup of coffee. I had only a single penny left. I was cold and hungry and desperate. I had been out of a job for months, and there wasn't the slightest prospect of getting one. You see, there's scarcely a person in New York who could understand as I do what you have been through--and what may be before you now."

He paused an instant, but she made no comment. Her eyes were fixed intently on him as if his story held her entranced.

"For hours I walked the streets, then took refuge in a railway station to keep from freezing," Lawrence continued presently. "And there, when everything was blackest, when it seemed as if not a single hope remained, the wheel of fortune turned. From the lowest depths I was hoisted in a moment to a height I had come to believe impossible."

A faint, puzzled line had come into her low forehead. For a moment she waited, expecting him to continue. When he did not, she raised her eyebrows a trifle.

"But how----" she began.

"I can't tell you," he put in swiftly. "I've promised to keep silent. I can only say that I was given a very large sum of money to carry out certain conditions, and that those conditions carry with them no loss of self-respect. What I want you to do is to take a little--just a little--of this money to tide you over this period of hard luck."

A sudden color flamed into her face, and her lips parted. Before she could utter a word Barry went on pleadingly:

"Please don't say no, Miss Rives. The situation is desperate. If this girl friend of yours has moved, what will you do? Even if she is still there, I don't suppose you would keep on accepting hospitality from one who probably couldn't afford it. I can, you see, and if you'll only look upon me as Phil's friend, acting in his place, I'm sure you won't refuse."

For a long minute the girl sat staring into his frank, kindly face with eyes which seemed to plumb his very soul. Perhaps it was what she saw there that made her give in; perhaps it was the thoughts which flashed through her mind of the awful streets, wind-swept and dark and bitter cold, with even more poignant terrors lurking in the shadows. At all events, she sighed faintly, and reached for her gloves.

"Very well, Mr. Lawrence," she said quietly. "You may lend me--ten dollars."

"But that isn't----"

"It is quite enough," she put in decidedly, "to make me grateful to you as long as I live. Would you mind--if we go now? It's getting late."

Without further protest, Barry paid the bill at once, and helped her on with her coat. As they reached the street he handed her a ten-dollar bill, which she slipped into her worn glove with another brief word of thanks.

The ride uptown was a rather silent one. Barry did most of the talking, for he felt that the girl would rather say little.

At Forty-eighth Street they got out, and, turning westward, walked briskly through the chilly street. As they approached a certain shabby-looking house midway in a block, Miss Rives, glancing upward, gave an exclamation of satisfaction at the sight of a light in the front room on the top floor.

"I'm sure Sally's still there," she said, turning to Lawrence. "She used to sit up reading till all hours." She hesitated an instant, and then went on more slowly: "I think I'd better go to the door alone. The woman who keeps the house is very kind, and, even if Sally's gone, she'll take me in. Good-by, Mr. Lawrence, and--thank you--a thousand times, for what you have done. Will you--give me your address so that I can send back the money--when I have it?"

Barry's fingers closed firmly over the hand she held out.

"I'm at the St. Albans just now," he returned. "But I probably won't stay there long. Wouldn't it be better if I looked you up to see how you're getting on?"

For a bare second Shirley Rives hesitated. Then she turned away, and began mounting the steps.

"I should be very glad to see you again, Mr. Lawrence," she answered. "Good night!"

From a little distance Barry watched her ring the bell, saw the door open with almost no delay at all, and heard a brief murmur of conversation. When the girl finally stepped into the house and the door closed, he turned away with a sigh of satisfaction, and started back toward Broadway.

He had not gone more than a few steps when he saw approaching the lights of a rapidly moving carriage, and a moment later a well-appointed private brougham passed him, the iron-shod hoofs of the spirited horses striking sparks from the icy street. A vague, languid curiosity stirred him as to what a conveyance of that sort was doing there at that hour, but it swiftly vanished in the interest of another discovery.

Reaching the corner of Eighth Avenue, he happened to glance swiftly to his right, and noticed a man standing silently in the corner of a darkened doorway. There was nothing very extraordinary in this, save for the fact that it was a night which offered no temptations for loitering in the street; but there was something about the powerful, square-shouldered figure, accentuated by the heavy ulster which enveloped it, that struck Lawrence as oddly familiar. The coat collar was turned up and buttoned close; the brim of the soft felt hat was pulled well down, so as to conceal the face, but in spite of that a bit of grizzled beard was visible, which stimulated Barry's memory.