The slap-stick comedians had finished their turn, the lights flared up and for the first time I noticed Nina’s resplendent gown. It was really a beautiful dress. If her hair had been done up with a little more skill and if Norman had not set all his authority against an excess of powder and paint she would have looked quite like an uptown lady, of the Holland Houses or Rector’s, like those who go up Fifth Avenue to a ball or like those who turn over to Broadway and strut about in the theater lobbies to attract the attention of some gentleman from out of town. I complimented her on her appearance and, she, pleased as a child, told me how they had bought the dress that afternoon at a second-hand place on Sixth Avenue. The most glorious experience of her life, before she had met Norman, was a short acquaintance with the woman who played the "lady villain" at "Miner’s." They had had rooms in the same house for a while. And this tragedienne had confided to Nina where she bought her second-hand clothes. Norman in a dinner jacket and Nina in a shirtwaist had attracted a good deal of attention, so he had decided that she must have a more suitable outfit for evening wear. She had led the way. And she told me with great animation—and frequent profanity—of the long and complicated dickering which had preceded the final purchase. The shop woman had asked $27.50 and Nina had stuck out for $17.50. At one stage of the wrangle the woman had led Nina aside and called her a little fool. "’He’s rich,’ she says to me. ’He’ll pay. Don’t you know enough to stick him. I’ll knock off fifty cents, you say all right. He’ll pay it. And tomorrow you come round and I’ll give you three dollars.’ Now wot do you think of that? Say. Do you know wot I did?" I could not guess. "I spit at her. I said ’You ....’" (Among the other epithets were "cross-eyed" and "hook-nosed.") "Well—how much did you pay at last?" I asked. "I think," said Norman, "she could have got it for the seventeen...." "Sure, I could," Nina interrupted. "But he was in a hurry and gave the ... thief twenty. It...." The lights went down, the curtain up and a woman, whom I would not have trusted to be kind to her own children, brought on a troupe of pitiable dogs. Nina turned back to watch the stage. "So you think," Norman reverted to the former subject, "that I ought to marry her?" "Of course not." "If you have any reasons why I shouldn’t that are not pure snobbishness, I’d like to hear them." "Good God," I said. "You’re not seriously thinking of that, are you?" "Hardly. But the idea has occurred to me. Why are you so frightened by it?"