"I'd ... I'd like to go to my room, if I may," the woman said, and, picking up one of the two lighted lamps, the other led her into the hall and up the narrow flight of stairs. Ten minutes later, the young man stood in the hotel kitchen, the house register in his hands. Over his right shoulder the waitress peered and over his left, the cook breathed heavily, as became her weight. "Just Ann. It don't say Miss or Missus," the waitress said. "I know, Nora, but somehow she don't look like _his_ Missus," the boy said, with a shake of his head. "From what you say about her, she sure don't. Are you goin' to tell her anythin'? Are you goin' to try to find out?" "Not me. I wouldn't tell her nothin'! Gee, I wouldn't have th' nerve. Not after knowin' him and then takin' a real good look at a face like hers." "If she is his, it's a dirty shame!" the girl declared, picking up her tray. She kicked open the swinging door and passed into the dining room. CHAPTER II SOME MEN Ann Lytton ate alone--ate alone, but did not sit alone. She was the last patron of the dining room that evening, and, after Nora Brewster, the waitress, had surrounded her plate with an odd assortment of heavy side-dishes, she drew out a chair at the end of the table, seated herself, elbows on the limp, light linen, and, black eyes fast on the face of the other woman, pushed conversation. "From the East, ain't you?" she began, and Ann smiled assent. "New York?" "No, not New York," and the blue eyes met the black ones, running quickly over the pretty, dark-skinned face, the thick coils of chestnut hair, noting the big, kindly mouth, the peculiarly weak chin. Obviously, the girl was striving to pump the newcomer and on the realization some of the trouble retreated far into the blue eyes and Ann smiled in kindliness at Nora, as she parried the girl's direct questions. In another mood a part of her might have resented this blunt curiosity, but just now it came as a relief from a line of thought which had been too long sustained. And, after they had talked a few moments, the eastern woman found herself interested in the simplicity, the patent sincerity, of the other. The conversation flourished throughout the meal and by the time Ann had tasted and put aside the canned plums she had discovered much about Nora Brewster, while Nora, returning to the kitchen to tell the cook and the boy from the office all she had learned, awakened to the fact that she had found out nothing at all!