“You won’t know better than to build pictures while you wait. No one would. You will wait--while you’re away in Africa, making pictures about me, pictures of what I am _not_! I don’t know why I’m chosen to hurt you. If I hadn’t been so utterly lost in myself, I never could have brought this on. I feel that I’ve started a new set of conditions to bring you to another moment--another gash--like in this room the last time we were here. And oh, Dicky Cobden, I don’t want to! To be strangers! To be common and hateful and avoid each other is so much more simple and easy.” “I’ll stop talking, Pidge,” he said quietly. “It may be easier to be strangers, but it doesn’t look rosy to me. Don’t you worry about it. It is my job and I’ll take a chance.” “You don’t know what you’re saying!” “Perhaps not. We won’t talk about that any more.... Now, Pidge, I’m keeping these rooms while I’m away. Wouldn’t you--wouldn’t you for me--look after them--look in on them and keep them alive while I’m gone?... It would make me feel like--great, you know.” X APRIL BREATHES AGAIN THREE nights later, when she reached Harrow Street from the factory, Pidge found two letters. One was from John Higgins of _The Public Square_. This she opened first. ... At the suggestion of Mr. Cobden, just before he left for South Africa, I am offering you a position here as reader of the unsolicited manuscripts. Mr. Cobden hints that you know enough about _The Public Square_ to realize we cannot be lavish in salaries, but think we can at least pay you what you are getting now, to begin with--and the work will be different. “Oh, Dicky Cobden,” she whispered, alone in the upper room. She sat in the center of her cot as of old, breathing the sweetness of the release from the factory.... Friendliness like this art of Dicky’s was good.... It made her eyes smart now--the new work. It was easier to take it from him--away. It was a soft cloak that she could nestle in, because he wouldn’t see.... Miss Claes knocked. Pidge read in her eyes that she already knew. “No one can ever tell you anything.” “I’m so glad you want it, Pidge. I couldn’t tell him for sure that you’d take it.” “They really need somebody, don’t they?” “Mr. Cobden said you wouldn’t be in doubt about that after you got there.” “I’m going to take it,” Pidge said soberly. “I know it means something more than it looks--but I’m going to take it. I’m so sick of myself which fights everything. Also, I’m going down after supper--and sit there--in his ‘parlor.’ I haven’t entered since----” Miss Claes was called from below. Pidge felt the second letter in her hand. It was from Los Angeles, her father’s writing. A check dropped out on the cot. By powerful effort of will, Pidge left it there, until she had read the note: