After that it was easy for her to slip away into the darkness and seclusion of a cab, alone with the thousands in the checked thoroughfare. She wanted to get away from Terry Riordan and his success. She thought she was escaping for the same reason that Gloria had run away, but Gloria could not be as unhappy as she, for Gloria had had her success. Terry Riordan knew that Gloria was a great actress, but he didn’t know that she, Ruth Mayfield, was a great painter, at least a potential great painter. He had suggested that she was a cartoonist and he had thought that he was paying her a compliment. Years from now, when she became a beautiful, fascinating woman of thirty like Gloria, even in imagination she couldn’t make herself quite thirty-five—they would meet again. It would be at a private view at the Academy, and he would be standing lost in wonder before the picture she would have hung there. Every one would be talking about her and her work, and then they would meet face to face. There would be no condescension in his words and smile then— She was imagining childish nonsense. By the time she had won her success, Terry would be married to Gloria. It was easy to see that he loved Gloria. Why not? No one could be so beautiful or so charming as Gloria. It was silly to dream of Terry Riordan’s love, but she would win his admiration and respect. After all, marriage had never held any place in her plans. She didn’t want to marry. She wanted to be a great painter. One must make some sacrifices for that. The cab turned into the great quiet of Gramercy Square. A soft mist hung over the trees, like quiet tears of renunciation. She was startled to see lights gleaming in all the lower windows of the house. Inside she found George sitting on the lower step of the stairs. He rose as she entered, but did not respond when she spoke to him. The doors into the drawing-room were open and she looked in. Lying face down on the floor, still fully dressed, was Gloria and scattered around her were the violets from the bouquet she had been wearing. She was quite motionless, and Ruth dared not speak to her. Evidently George was keeping watch. “Can I do anything?” she whispered to him.