Clear like a clarion a familiar whistle ripped through the din of the street and came up to her sharp and undiverted--two clean calls and a long, quavering ritornelle. At that signal, for the year and a half of their married life, Lilly had unfailingly fluttered a white handkerchief of greeting from the three flights up. Her arm contracted reflexly, but she stayed it and stepped back into the frame of the window, leaning straight and tense against the jamb. Her pulse leaped into the hundreds as she stood there, her arms hugging her sides and her blouse rising and falling with the heave of her bosom, her handkerchief a tight little wad in the palm of her hand. Again the call, tearing straight and true to its destination! She remained taut as stretched elastic. There was a wondering interim--and a third time the signal split the air, sharp-questioning, insistent. Then a silence. Lilly darted into the kitchen and stooped absorbed over the burbling coffee. A key rattled the front-room lock, and she bent lower over the stove. She heard her name called sharply; a door slammed, and her husband bounded into the kitchen, his face streaming perspiration and his collar like a rag about his neck. "Hello, honey! Gee! You gimme a scare there fer a minute. I thought the heat might 'a' got you." He gathered her in his arms, pushed back her head, and looked into her reluctant eyes. "What's the matter, hon? You ain't sick, are you?" She wriggled herself free of his arms and turned to the stove. "No," she said, in a monotone, "I ain't sick." He regarded her with a worried pucker between his eyes. "Aw, come on, Lil--tell a fellow what's the matter, can't you? It ain't like you to be like this." "Nothin'!" she insisted. "You gimme a swell turn there fer a minute. They're droppin' like flies to-day--hottest day in five summers." Silence. "Whew!" He peeled off his coat and hung it, with his imitation Panama hat, behind the door; his pink shirt showed dark streaks of perspiration; and he tugged at the rear button of his limp collar. "Be-e-lieve me, the pianner business ain't what it's cracked up to be! There ain't a picture house in town got the Gem beat when it comes to heat. Had to take off the Flyin' Papinta act to-day and run in an extry picture because two of the kids give out with the heat. I've played to over ten thousand feet o' films to-day; and be-e-lieve me, it was some stunt!" He sluiced his face with cold water at the sink, and slush-slushed his head in a roller-towel, talking the while. "I never seen the--extry picture--they--run in to cover the--Papinta act; and before I--could keep up--with the film--I was givin' ragtime fer a funeral. You oughta heard Joe squeal!" He laughed and threw his arms affectionately across his wife's shoulder. "Eh--ragtime fer a funeral! Fine pianner-player you got fer a husband, honey!"