"Better 'tend to this thing; better write again to--your father," he said and walked off, leaving me cold and tremulous with rage. I must have imagined the pause, the inflection; but he has me under surveillance. Like a thief! I flew to the dining-room and swallowed a glass of sherry, for I was faint and quivering; but before I had turned from the sideboard Cadge bounced into the room, tearing through the flat to find me, and stopped to stare, open-eyed. "Drop that!" she cried. "Oh, don't preach! I've just been having such a time!" "Everybody has 'em; I've had fifty a year for fifty years. And I don't mind your drowning sorrow in the flowing bowl, either. But do it like a man, in company. Honest now, Helen." She changed the subject abruptly to the errand that had brought her; but, before she went away, she looked curiously at the sideboard and said:---- "Helen, you really don't----" "Mercy, no! Scarcely at table, even. Why I used to be shocked to see how things to drink are thrust upon women, even in department stores. But they're not all deadly; there's 'creme de menthe' now--the pep'mint extract Ma used to give me for stomach-ache." Cadge laughed with me, but she turned quickly grave again. "Mind what I tell you, Princess," she said, "and never, never drink even 'pep'mint extract' in the house like that, alone; if you do, I see your finish; reporters learn a thing or two." She's right--for ordinary women. But I told her the truth; I don't care for wine. I've seen girls flushed at dinner, but I know too much of physiology, and I care too much for my beauty. Still, in emergencies---- Emergencies--oh! I could have named to her the very day I first tasted wine. It was here in the Nicaragua, the day Darmstetter---- Well, well,--I mustn't think about that. I can't understand why I don't hear from Father. Impossible to make him see how different are my present tastes and pressing needs from those I brought from home. I hope he won't delay long about the money. My position is becoming intolerable. I owe the butcher, grocer, furniture dealer, photographer--and the milliner is the worst of all. The money I got from the _Star_ is filched from me by people who need it far less than I. Why, I even owe money to the maids, and I can't discharge either of them, because I'd have to pay her. But they must somehow be sent away. I wonder if Father couldn't sell the farm. That would bring more than a mortgage; but it might take months, and even then I need in a single year more than all he has in the world. Will any woman who reads the story of my life--the real story which sometime I shall write, leaving out the paltry details which now harass me--will any woman believe that the most beautiful woman in the world in the wonderful year, of the finding of the Bacillus actually thought of tramping the streets, looking for work, like a story heroine seeking her fortune? I shall have to do something--anything!