“She’s home asleep by now.  I told her she had to be in bed by eleven.  She minds me, Morton.  I wouldn’t—­couldn’t—­wake her.  Morton, Morton, she’s yours as much as mine.  That’s God’s law, no matter how much man’s law may have let you shirk your responsibility.  Don’t hurt your own flesh and blood by coming back to us—­now.  I remember once when you cut your hand it made you ill.  Blood!  Blood is warm.  Red.  Sacred stuff.  She’s your blood, Morton.  You let us alone when we needed you.  Leave us alone, now that we don’t!”

“But you do, Hattie girl.  That’s just it.  You’re running things a woman’s way.  Why, a man with the right promoting ideas—­”

There was a fusillade of bangs on the door now, and a shout as if the hair on the voice were rising in anger.

“All out or the doors ’ll be locked on yuh!  Fine doings!”

She grasped her light wrap from its hook, and her hat with its whirl of dark veil, fitting it down with difficulty over the fizz of wig.

“Come, Morton,” she said, suddenly.  “I’m ready.  You’re right, now or never.”

“Your face!”

“No time now.  Later—­at home!  She’ll know that I’m there—­under the black!”

“So do I, Hattie.  That’s why I—­”

“I’m not one of the ready-made heroines you read about.  That’s not my idea of sacrifice!  I’d let my child hang her head of my shame sooner than stand up and marry you to save her from it.  Marcia wouldn’t want me to!  She’s got your face—­but my character!  She’ll fight!  She’ll glory that I had the courage to let you tell her the—­truth!  Yes, she will,” she cried, her voice pleading for the truth of what her words exclaimed.  “She’ll glory in having saved me—­from you!  You can come!  Now, too, while I have the strength that loathing you can give me.  I don’t want you skulking about.  I don’t want you hanging over my head—­or hers!  You can tell her to-night—­but in my presence!  Come!”

“Yes, sir,” he repeated, doggedly and still more doggedly.  “Yes, siree!” Following her, trying to be grim, but his lips too soft to click.  “Yes—­sir!”

They drove up silently through a lusterless midnight with a threat of rain in it, hitting loosely against each other in a shiver-my-timbers taxicab.  Her pallor showing through the brown of her face did something horrid to her.

It was as if the skull of her, set in torment, were looking through a transparent black mask, but, because there were not lips, forced to grin.

And yet, do you know that while she rode with him Hattie’s heart was high?  So high that when she left him finally, seated in her little lamplit living room, it was he whose unease began to develop.

“I—­If she’s asleep, Hattie—­”

Her head looked so sure.  Thrust back and sunk a little between the shoulders.

“If she’s asleep, I’ll wake her.  It’s better this way.  I’m glad, now.  I want her to see me save myself.  She would want me to.  You banked on mock heroics from me, Morton.  You lost.”