Then, as their hands dropped, as she fell back a little, the second speaker came between, then others. Suddenly the lights were lowered, people were staying too long. Rachel's hand on Hagar's arm drew her back. "Come, we must go!" Willy, too, was insistent. "It's getting late. Show's over!" The space between her and the boy of the thicket, the figure drawn against the sky of the canal lock, widened, filled with forms in the partial dusk. She was half-drawn, half-pushed by the outgoing stream through the door, out upon the stair, and so down to the street, where now there were fewer lights. The wind had arisen and the air turned colder. "We'll take this cross-town car, and then the Elevated," and while she was still bewildered, they were on the car. The bell clanged, they went on; again, in what seemed the shortest time, they were out in the night, then climbing the long stairs, then through the gate and upon the rushing Elevated. Willy talked and talked. He was excited. "I thought it was going to be all about bombs! But they talked sense, didn't they?--and there was something in the air that kind of warmed you! Next time I'm in New York I'm going again. Look at the lights streaming off! By Jiminy! New York's great!" He was not staying at the Maines', but with other kinspeople a few blocks away. He saw the two in at the door, said good-night, and went whistling away. Hagar and Rachel turned off the lowered gas in the hall and went softly upstairs. As they passed Mrs. Maine's door she asked sleepily from within, "Did you enjoy the play?" "We didn't go," said Rachel. "We'll tell you about it in the morning." When the two had said good-night and parted and Hagar, in her own room, kneeling at the window, looked up at the Pleiades, at Aldebaran--only then came the realization that she did not know that man's name, that she had never heard it. In her thoughts he had always been "the boy." CHAPTER XVIII A TELEGRAM The next day she went down to the Settlement. Elizabeth was at home. "Yes, I could give you a list of books on Socialism. I read a good deal along those lines myself. I am glad you are interested." "I am interested," answered Hagar. "I cannot get any of these books now, but I am looking for fifty dollars, and when it comes, I will." "But I can lend you two or three," said Elizabeth. "Won't you take them--dear Hagar?" She regarded the younger woman with her steady, friendly eyes, her strong lips just parting in a smile. There was perhaps nine years' difference in their ages, but mentally they came nearer. It was the first time that she had dropped the formal address. Hagar answered with a warm colour and a tremulous light from brow to chin. "Yes, if you'll be so good--Elizabeth!"