"That may be managed, if you are willing to take it in detachments." "And I want--oh, I want to go somewhere where I can really see the ocean!" "I'll get father to take us down to Brighton Beach. It isn't too late, this mild weather." "This morning," said Hagar, "we came through--miles, I think--of places where poor people live. I want to see all that again." "It isn't very edifying. But we can get under the wing of some association and do a little mild slumming." "I want to go down there alone and often--" "That," said Rachel, "is impossible." "Why?" "It is not done. Besides, it would be dangerous." "Dangerous?" "You might take any disease--or get into any kind of trouble. There are all sorts of traps." "Why should they set traps?" "Oh, all kinds of horrors happen.--Just look at the newspapers! A girl--alone--you'd be subjected to insult." Hagar sighed. "I've always been alone. And I don't see that we are not subjected to insult everywhere. I could never feel more insulted than, sometimes, I have been at home." Rachel, turning in her chair, darted at her a lightning-like glance of comprehension. "Well, that's true enough, though I never heard it put into words before! It's true.... But it remains that with our present conventions, you must have company when you go to see how the other half lives." "The other half?" "It's a term: One half of us doesn't know how the other half lives." "I see," said Hagar. "Well, I'll be glad when I get out of fractions." Both laughed. A kind of soft, friendly brightness prevailed in the third-floor back bedroom. There was no open fire, but they sat on either side of the little squat table, and the reading-lamp with a yellowy globe did the job of a common luminary. The light reached out to each and linked them together. Rachel Bolt was small and dark and slender. Much of the time she passed for a cynical and rather melancholy young woman; then, occasionally, sheaths parted like opening wings and something showed that was vivid and deep and duskily luminous. The next moment the rift might close, but there had been received an impression of the inward depths. She had been married at eighteen, her first child born a year later. She was now twenty-five, and had been a widow for two years. In worldly wisdom and _savoir faire_, and in several emotional experiences she was well ahead of Hagar, but in other respects the brain ways of the younger in years were deeper and older. Whatever differences, their planes were near enough for a comprehension that, continually deepening, passed before long into the country of lasting friendship. CHAPTER XV LOOKING FOR THOMASINE When Hagar had been ten days in New York, she went early one afternoon to find Thomasine. She had the address, and upon showing it to Rachel the latter had pronounced it "poor but respectable," adding, "Are you sure you ought to go alone?"