“You will not!” interrupted Anita. “Do as I tell you and say Sister once. Say it as though you meant it.” “But I don't mean it,” protested his lordship. “I've said already what I....” “Never mind what you've said already,” commanded Miss Flagg. “I've heard that from a lot of people. Say Sister just once.” His lordship frowned in embarrassment. “Sister!” he exclaimed. It sounded like the pop of a cork. Anita Flagg laughed unkindly and her beautiful shoulders shivered as though she were cold. “Not a bit like it, Deptford,” she said. “Good-night.” Later Helen Page, who came to her room to ask her about a horse she was to ride in the morning, found her ready for bed but standing by the open window looking out toward the great city to the south. When she turned Miss Page saw something in her eyes that caused that young woman to shriek with amazement. “Anita!” she exclaimed. “You crying! What in Heaven's name can make you cry?” It was not a kind speech, nor did Miss Flagg receive it kindly. She turned upon the tactless intruder. “Suppose,” cried Anita fiercely, “a man thought you were worth forty dollars a month--honestly didn't know!--honestly believed you were poor and worked for your living, and still said your smile was worth more than all of old man Flagg's millions, not knowing they were YOUR millions. Suppose he didn't ask any money of you, but just to take care of you, to slave for you--only wanted to keep your pretty hands from working, and your pretty eyes from seeing sickness and pain. Suppose you met that man among this rotten lot, what would you do? What wouldn't you do?” “Why, Anita!” exclaimed Miss Page. “What would you do?” demanded Anita Flagg. “This is what you'd do: You'd go down on your knees to that man and say: 'Take me away! Take me away from them, and pity me, and be sorry for me, and love me--and love me--and love me!” “And why don't you?” cried Helen Page. “Because I'm as rotten as the rest of them!” cried Anita Flagg. “Because I'm a coward. And that's why I'm crying. Haven't I the right to cry?” At the exact moment Miss Flagg was proclaiming herself a moral coward, in the local room of the REPUBLIC Collins, the copy editor, was editing Sam's story' of the laying of the corner-stone. The copy editor's cigar was tilted near his left eyebrow; his blue pencil, like a guillotine ready to fall upon the guilty word or paragraph, was suspended in mid-air; and continually, like a hawk preparing to strike, the blue pencil swooped and circled. But page after page fell softly to the desk and the blue pencil remained inactive. As he read, the voice of Collins rose in muttered ejaculations; and, as he continued to read, these explosions grew louder and more amazed. At last he could endure no more and, swinging swiftly in his revolving chair, his glance swept the office. “In the name of Mike!” he shouted. “What IS this?”