Later she roused to the call of hunger, and foraged in the larder, or what served the studio as such, turning up a broken carton of Uneeda Biscuit and half a packet of black tea. There was an egg, but she prudently refrained from testing it. . . . It never entered her weary head to imagine that the feet that pounded heavily on the stairs were those of anybody but the janitor; she was wondering idly whether there were rent due, and if she would be turned out into the street that very night; and was thinking it did not much matter, when the footfalls stopped on the threshold of the studio and she looked up into the face of Mr. Trego. Surprise and indignation smote her with speechlessness, but her eyes were eloquent enough as she started up--and almost overturned the rickety table at which she had been dining. But he was crassly oblivious of her emotion. Removing his hat, he mopped his brow, sighed, and smiled winningly. "Hello!" he said. "You certainly did give me a deuce of a hunt. I wormed it out of Mrs. Gosnold that you inhabited a studio somewhere on this block, and I suppose I must have climbed thirty times three flights of stairs in the last hour." She demanded in a low, tense voice: "Why have you followed me here?" "Well," he protested, "Mrs. Gosnold sent me--and if she hadn't, I would have come anyway. I told you last night that I loved you. I haven't changed since then. And now that you're in a fix, whether or not of your own contriving--well, it isn't my notion of love to let you pull out for yourself if you'll let me help. And that goes, even if you stick to it that you won't marry me." "And Mrs. Artemas?" she inquired icily. "What does she think about your coming after me?" He stared and laughed. "Oh, did you know about that? I hoped you didn't." "I saw you with her in your arms." "Yes," he agreed patiently. "She'd been laying for me for several weeks. I told you she was--don't you remember? Only, of course, I didn't name her. And last night, when I went back there looking for you, she cornered me; and while I was trying to be nice and explain I could never be anything more than a brother to her she began to blubber and threw herself into my arms and . . . What could a fellow do? I tried to make her behave, but before she would listen to reason those confounded people had to pop up. And, of course, she took advantage of that opening instanter. But--great Scott!--you didn't suppose I was going to be that sort of a gentleman and let her get away with it, did you? when I am so much in love with you I can hardly keep from grabbing you now! Not likely!" She tried to answer him, but her traitorous voice broke, and before she could master it he had resumed. "Mrs. Gosnold wants you back--sent me to say so--says she'll come after you if I fail to bring you." "Oh, no!" she protested, trembling uncontrollably. "You won't meet any of those folks. They're all going to-day. It's a new deal from a fresh deck, so to speak."