Bessie had a proud new blouse with a deep V, the edges of which gaped a bit and suggested that by ingenuity one could see more than was evident at first. Troy Wilkins, while pretending to be absent-mindedly fussing about a correspondence-file that morning, had forgotten that he was much married and had peered at the V. Una knew it, and the sordidness of that curiosity so embarrassed her that she stopped typing to clutch at the throat of her own high-necked blouse, her heart throbbing. She wanted to run away. She had a vague desire to "help" Bessie, who purred at poor, good Mr. Wilkins and winked at Una and chewed gum enjoyably, who was brave and hardy and perfectly able to care for herself--an organism modified by the Ghetto to the life which still bewildered Una. Mr. Wilkins went home at 11.17, after giving them enough work to last till noon. The office-boy chattily disappeared two minutes later, while Bessie went two minutes after that. Her delay was due to the adjustment of her huge straw hat, piled with pink roses and tufts of blue malines. Una stayed till twelve. Her ambition had solidified into an unreasoning conscientiousness. With Bessie gone, the office was so quiet that she hesitated to typewrite lest They sneak up on her--They who dwell in silent offices as They dwell beneath a small boy's bed at night. The hush was intimidating; her slightest movement echoed; she stopped the sharply tapping machine after every few words to listen. At twelve she put on her hat with two jabs of the hat-pins, and hastened to the elevator, exulting in freedom. The elevator was crowded with girls in new white frocks, voluble about their afternoon's plans. One of them carried a wicker suit-case. She was, she announced, starting on her two weeks' vacation; there would be some boys, and she was going to have "a peach of a time." Una and her mother had again spent a week of June in Panama, and she now recalled the bright, free mornings and lingering, wonderful twilights. She had no place to go this holiday afternoon, and she longed to join a noisy, excited party. Of Walter Babson she did not think. She stubbornly determined to snatch this time of freedom. Why, of course, she asserted, she could play by herself quite happily! With a spurious gaiety she patted her small black hand-bag. She skipped across to the Sixth Avenue Elevated and went up to the department-store district. She made elaborate plans for the great adventure of shopping. Bessie Kraker had insisted, with the nonchalant shrillness of eighteen, that Una "had ought to wear more color"; and Una had found, in the fashion section of a woman's magazine, the suggestion for exactly the thing--"a modest, attractive frock of brown, with smart touches of orange"--and economical. She had the dress planned--ribbon-belt half brown and half orange, a collar edged with orange, cuffs slashed with it.