At the door she dismissed the automobile, aware of sudden eyes in windows above and climbed the brownstone steps. The emotion of familiarity was so instantaneous that absent-mindedly she found herself seeking in her purse for a departed latch-key. Not Josephus but another darky answered her ring. On the hat-rack was a disordered heap of letters which other girls tremulously would come to sort. In the musty parlor with its Sunday solemnity a couple were whispering, sinking their voices in sudden consciousness at her arrival. She groped her way into the obscurity of the stairs, thinking with a little melancholy of the girl and the man below, playing the old, old game. On the second landing, from the room that once was Ida's, another girl in hasty kimono was saying, "You answer--tell him I went out with another man--make out I'm furious--" She caught herself at Dodo's rustling coming, eying her curiously and then as though reassured ended, "If he responds with a bid for dinner, grab it!" The whispering plotters recalled a hundred fragments of the old life, as though one cry had started echoes from every corner and cranny. She went on a little saddened by the sound of old accents in new mouths. So even she had not been different from the rest. Other Dodos would come and go as she had passed, as everything changed and gave way to the same renewals. Then she opened the door of her room and saw Snyder standing--gazing eagerly at her. She did not cross immediately, waiting by the door, lost in familiar details of patched walls and carpets, noting changes, the absence of confusion, the new note of bare simplicity. "It doesn't seem quite the same--without the trunks. You've moved the couch, too. Funny, queer old room!" she said solemnly. For the trunks that had served so often as impromptu bureaus, were gone, all save one,--those trunks that were always gaping open, in such fine disorder. Then there were no flowers, sporting their gay extravagance from rickety table or smoky mantel and the great gilt mirror which had leaned in the corner had departed, too. Yet all the familiar old seemed incredibly distant: even that rapid figure her imagination conjured up, perched on a trunk before the dressing-table studying a disastrous hole in a golden stocking. Was that Dodo and if so where had been the present self all that tempestuous time? Suddenly she noted the figure of the woman waiting on her tensely. She raised her veil, crossed quickly, holding out her arms. "How is he--how is Mr. Lindaberry?" said Snyder at once. "Garry? Magnificent--every inch a man." "And you?" "And I?" she asked a little puzzled. "You're happy, aren't you?" said Snyder breathlessly. "Oh--very happy--" She added with careful emphasis, "Very, very happy!" She slipped off her black fur jacket and was about to toss it on a chair when she stopped, folded it carefully and handed it to Snyder.