Miss Tracy fanned herself with a folded newspaper; her large, even-featured face glistened with tiny globules of perspiration; her blond hair had lost some of its crimp. "Nobody can say I haven't done my duty by Charley, Loo. If ever a girl had a slow time it's been me; but I have been holdin' off, hoping he might get into something else. He ain't never wanted to stick himself; but it just seems like poundin' ragtime is all he's cut out for." "A girl's gotta have life--that's what I always say. Just because you're married ain't no sign you're an old woman; but I don't want to poke into your business. If you make up your mind just you come over tonight after he leaves, and you can bunk with me in the old room, just like we used to. Lordy! wasn't them good old times?" "Don't be surprised to see me, Loo. I ain't never let on to Charley, but it's been in my head a long time. I'd a whole lot rather be back in the department again than watchin' these four walls--I would." "It's a darn shame! Why, I'd go clean daffy, Lil, if I had to stick round the way you do. What's the use o' bein' married, I'd like to know!" "It won't be so easy to get back in the department, I'm afraid." "Easy? Why, you can get your old job back like that!" Miss Tracy snapped her fingers with gusto. "It was only yesterday that an ancient dame with a glass eye bought a pair of chamois and asked for you--and Skinny heard her, too. He knows you had a good, genteel trade--and watch him grab you back! You ain't no dead one if you have been buried nearly two years." "Ain't it so, Loo? Here I have been married going on two years! I ain't never let on even to you what I've been through. Charley's all right, but--" "Yes, but I could tell. You can ask any of the girls down at the store if I wasn't always sayin' it was a shame for a girl with your looks to 'a' throwed herself away." Lilly dabbed and swabbed at the inside of a stew-pan; the irises of her eyes were unnaturally large--a wisp of hair, dry and electric, drifted across her face. She blew at it, pursing out her lower lip. "I've been a fool!" she said. "There's Maisie--been married just as long as you; and honest, Lil, I ain't been to a dance that I ain't seen her and Buck. Of course, Buck has got his faults, but when he's sober there ain't nothin' he won't do to give Maisie a swell time." Lilly bristled. "One thing I will say for Charley--I believe in givin' everybody his dues--Charley's never laid a hand on me; and that's more'n Maisie Cloot can say!" She finished with some asperity. "I guess there ain't none of them perfect when it comes right down to it--ain't it so? I seen Maisie the week after she had that bad eye, and I never see a sweller seal-ring than she was wearin'. Buck's rough, but he tries to make up for it--not that I got anything against Charley." Miss Tracy took a few steps that were suggestive of departure.