True to his promise, the Political Economist did not speak to her, but he certainly had not promised to keep his eyes shut as well as his mouth. From the very first she sat far forward on the seat where the passing street-lights blazed upon her unconscious face. The Man, the cab, love-making, debt-paying, all were forgotten in her desperate effort to keep keyed up to the working-point. Her brain was hurriedly sketching in her backgrounds. Her suddenly narrowed eyes foretold the tingling pride in some particular imagining. The flashing twist of her smile predicted the touch of malice that was to make her pictures the sensation of--a day. The finish of the three-mile drive found her jubilant, prescient, pulsing with power. The glow from the flames lit up the cab like a room. The engine bells clanged around them. Sparks glittered. Steam hissed. When the cabman's horse refused to scorch his nose any nearer the conflagration, Noreen turned to the Political Economist with some embarrassment. "If you really want to help me," she pleaded, "you'll stay here in the cab and wait for me." Then, before the Political Economist could offer his angry protest, she had opened the door, jumped from the step, and disappeared into the surging, rowdy throng of spectators. A tedious hour later the cab door opened abruptly, and Noreen reappeared. Her hat was slouched down over her heat-scorched eyes. Her shoulders were limp. Her face was dull, dumb, gray, like a Japanese lantern robbed of its candle. Bluntly she thrust her sketch-book into his hands and threw herself down on the seat beside him. "Oh, take me home," she begged. "Oh, take me home _quick_. It's no use," she added with a shrug, "I've seen the whole performance. I've been everywhere--inside the ropes--up on the roofs--out on the waterfront. The Fire Department Men are not 'inefficient.' They're simply _bully_! _And I make no caricatures of heroes!_" The lurch of the cab wheel against a curbstone jerked a faint smile into her face. "Isn't it horrid," she complained, "to have a Talent and a Living that depend altogether upon your _getting mad_?" Then her eyes flooded with worry. "What _shall_ I do?" "You'll marry me," said the Political Economist. "Oh, no!" gasped Noreen. "I shall never, never marry any one! I told you that I couldn't afford to be engaged. It takes too much time, and besides," her color flamed piteously, "I didn't like being engaged." "I didn't ask you to be engaged," persisted the Political Economist. "I didn't ask you to serve any underpaid, ill-fed, half-hearted apprenticeship to Happiness. I asked you to be married." "Oh, no!" sighed Noreen. "I shall never marry any one." The Political Economist began to laugh. "Going to be an old maid?" he teased.