A twinge from the invalid ankle concentrated Mrs. Davis's full attention as she lifted her foot, adjusting it against the crutch, thinking to stop the pain. When it had subsided she smiled up at Townsend again, pointed to it and said, with an ingénue turn of the head, "I'd probably never have been able to get a divorce if it had not been for this." "You don't mean that your husband was brute enough to--" Townsend was shocked at the thought, but was not allowed to deliver himself of his full sympathy. Mrs. Davis was just getting into the lines of her part and she was quick to catch her cues. "Oh, heavens, no!" she broke in upon his condolences. "This was an accident. It's a sprain, and it is quite serious, as I'm a dancer." She beamed up at him and wriggled in the chair, continuing her explanation. "It's probably all for the best. Of course it'll break into my engagements. I'm in vaudeville, you know. I've wanted a divorce for years, but I'm always booked solid and I never stay in one place long enough to get one. When this happened I saw my chance to get a good long rest, and my freedom in the bargain." Her eyes begged his for understanding and received it. While she had been talking Townsend had been drinking in every word she said. Her variety of attractiveness was a new one to him. It appealed to his small-town idea of being a gay blade. He had often cast longing eyes at the Eastern wives sojourning in Reno for the six months necessary to establish a residence and therefore their right to a quick freedom which brought with it no restrictions in the matter of remarrying. The majority of these prospective divorcées were of a larger world and reckoned in figures of which Lemuel Townsend did not know the simplest rules. The only notice he had received for his ambitions being a smile to his face and a snicker at his back. But here was some one who not only was taking notice of him, but was actually meeting his advances half-way. Besides, she was pretty, and he could never withstand a pretty woman. As she finished the first lap of her story he exclaimed, "That certainly is a scheme!" "It's nice of you to listen to it all," she murmured, apologetically, moving her idle crutch up and down as if writing her mood in invisible letters on the floor. "I'm glad you told it to me. Do you know--" and he sidled in his chair, while a sugar-laden approval beamed at her in a steady flow from over the top of his glasses, "from the minute I saw you enter the door I was worried about you--I was afraid--Well, it was a great relief to find that you had two good--" he halted in hopeless confusion, as his eyes sought her ankle. He took his handkerchief from his pocket and blew his nose furiously, hoping to hide the real reason for a blush that seemed to have come to stay, having settled in a deep crimson even from the nape of his neck to the top of a head whose sparse hair refused to hide his embarrassment.