“Well, it seems I always tell you everything from the pop of the pistol on through. When we went down in the lobby, he asked me where I wanted to go; and I said, ‘Hanley’s.’ He looked at me queerly on that. ‘What made you pick that out?’ he wanted to know.” She was caressing her hair with the military brushes, not raking it as was her custom. “‘Let’s walk over,’ I said. ‘I want to stop at a place on the Avenue.’ As we went down Forty-Second Street, I rained a loose line of chatter along. I told you to-day would be my turn to talk. We got to Charlette’s before I had stuck in any background. When I saw the good old grey-silk-curtained windows, I began to get a bit shaky. But I turned to him and said: ‘We got to the end—rather sudden, last night. Men don’t like to work back, but you know—and intimated as much—that women are different that way.’ He opened the door for me, looking sort of at sea, and we came in. ‘All I ask of you,’ I said, ‘is to stand here and watch me.’ ‘The last part is something I can never omit,’ he said. “You know Charlette’s—never many customers floating around, but oh, how they do bleed ’em when they come! I breezed forward, and the first person I ran into was Fanchon O’Brien. She tucked me into her flesh Georgette waist with a few motherly kisses, and the next minute somebody had passed the glad word and cutters, basters, fitters and designers came out and fell around me. I won’t go into details of Old Home Week at Charlette’s. When I broke away, Phil followed me to the door and on the other side I didn’t give him a chance to speak. “‘Did you see all the poor little rats hailing me as a kindred soul?’ I said. ‘I worked in that place from twelve years old up, from messenger-girl to designer. I was a poor little rat when I started—but when I finished, I was pretty proud of myself.’ I looked up at him, and he was looking at me, sort of scowling, as if to make everything add up right,—but not one bit _changed_. ‘I should think you would be proud,’ he said. ‘I am proud of you—I shall be prouder when I can realise it more fully.’ He didn’t say anything till we got over to Hanley’s. Then he took in the name again as we went in. ‘Hanley’s!’ he said. ‘Funny——’ He didn’t say anything more and I let him look at me till we got put in our places by a waiter. Then I said: ‘You’ve forgotten what was to me one of the most important points in the Brushwood Boy. The little kid he met in the theatre who supplied the foundation of his dreams—was the same person as the woman he found. The girl had grown up; but she was the same one; she had been the kid.’