It was nearing the holidays when Will signed for the engagement which was destined to play such an important rôle in our future lives. The star was of foreign origin, with a fascinating accent and a steadily increasing reputation for eroticism. Under the guise of "high-brow" drama she revelled in the portrayal of abnormal femininity. Her adeptness in "suggestive" scenes, to which she lent a startling verisimilitude, soon gained for her a large, if not altogether intellectual, following. Will was not altogether satisfied with his rôle, but what actor ever is? I consoled him with the fact that the salary was good and that but little of the present season remained. With Will on the road, left to myself in the empty apartment, the blue devils renewed their lease. And when the approach of the Christmas season began to manifest itself in shop-windows and in holiday rush, my heartache increased manifold. Leila and I were much together in those days. My little friend's increasing depression, instead of augmenting my own, acted as a spur to brighter moods. Together we made the round of the shops or tramped through the snow in Central Park. Sometimes we lingered to watch the young people skating on the ice; again we hitched ourselves to sleds to the merriment of small folk. Coming home alone from a matinée I would find myself following a party of children out on an ante-holiday survey. Standing close to them I listened to their prattle and eager expectancy of a visit from Santa Claus.... If the tears came I swallowed hard. No one was near to heed. In the seclusion of my home I fought it out alone. It had been my intention to carry a box of flowers to the dear one's grave on Christmas morning. Passing one day through a wretched quarter of the East Side in search of a dilatory laundress, my steps halted in front of a cheap toy-shop. Beside me stood a small boy, clinging to the hand of an older girl, their eyes riveted upon the display within. With one grimy little hand, stiff and rough from the cold, the small man smeared the tears from his eyes and snivelled. His threadbare coat, sizes too large for his meagre frame, his toes showing through his shoes. The girl's face was peaked and old, as if the despair of life had already left its stamp. There was something infinitely tender in the way she held the boy close to her, mutely comforting his grief, her eyes meeting half defiantly the tinselled magnet of the shop-window, her lips compressed to stop their mutinous tremble. When at last I brought myself to break in upon their thoughts, they looked at me like startled fawns....