"It's the place to live. The South Side is getting worse all the time--dirt, and the I. C. smoke and all. And now that they've brought all these niggers up from the South to work over at the Yards since the war it isn't fit to live in, that's what. Why, look at Grand Boulevard! Black way up to Forty-third Street. All those old houses. It's a shame!" He was driving with one hand, expertly. The other was hung negligently over the back of the seat. Lottie could feel it touching her shoulder blades. It was touching them so lightly that she could not resent the contact by moving slightly. Besides, she did not want to move. She had a little amused curiosity about the arm. She wanted to know what it would do next. She made up her mind that she would see the evening through. She smiled to herself in the warm darkness. She relaxed a little. She took off her hat and held it in her lap. The cool breeze on her brow was like a drink of water to one thirsting. They were driving slowly through Washington Park on the way home. Lottie closed her eyes. How deliciously cool it was. Her bedroom at home would be hot, she thought. It faced east, and to-night the scant breeze was from the west. The car stopped. She opened her eyes. They were parked by the roadside near the sunken gardens. The negligent arm behind her suddenly tightened into a band of bone and muscle. The loose-hung hand grasped her shoulder tight and hard. Ben Gartz was bent over her. She was conscious of a smell of cigarettes and shaving lotion and whiskey (he had had a highball earlier in the evening). Ben Gartz was kissing Lottie with a good deal of vehemence and little restraint and no finesse. It was an unexpected and open-mouthed kiss, mucous, moist, and loathsome. She didn't enjoy it. Lottie felt besmeared, befouled. Still, she did none of those statuesque or dramatic things that ladies are supposed to do who have been unhandsomely kissed against their will. For that matter, it had not been against her will. She had not expected it, true, but she had had a mild and amused curiosity about its possibility. She was now seized with a violent and uncontrollable shudder. She had released herself with a push of her strong hand against Ben's chest. Her eyes were wide and rather staring. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, hard. "I want to go home," she said. "Oh, say, Lottie, honestly, you're not mad! I don't know what made me--say, on the square----" Lottie put on her hat. "I'm not a bit angry, Ben. I just want to go home. I'm sleepy." But he refused to believe her, even while he shifted gears and drove home at a sharp clip through the almost deserted park and down the boulevard. It was almost as if he felt she should be resentful. "Say, you must think I'm a bum, that's what. Why, Lottie, I didn't mean anything. Why, I think you're one of the grandest girls I know. A fine girl. There isn't a girl I respect more."