“Hester,” he said, “you’re the most beautiful, the most exciting, the most maddening, the most--the most everything girl in the world! You’re not going to have an easy time of it, Hester, with your--your environment and your dangerousness, if you don’t settle down--quick, with some strong fellow to take care of you. A fellow who loves you. That’s me, Hester. I want to make a little home for you and protect you. I can’t promise you the money--right off, but I can promise you the bigger something from the very start. From the very start, Hester. Dear?” She would not let her hand relax to his. “I hate this town,” she said. “There’s Cincinnati. Maybe my friend could find an opening there.” “Faugh!” “Cincinnati dear, is a metropolis.” “No, no! You don’t understand. I hate littleness. Even little metropolises. Cheapness. I hate little towns and little spenders and mercerized stockings and cotton lisle next to my skin, and machine-stitched nightgowns--ugh; it scratches!” “And I--I just love you in those starchy white shirt-waists, Hester. You’re beautiful.” “That’s just the trouble. It satisfies you, but it suffocates me. I’ve got a pink-crêpe-de-Chine soul. Pink crêpe de Chine--you hear?” He sat back on his heels. “It--is it true, then, Hester that--that you’re making up with that Jewish traveling salesman from New York?” “Why!” she said, coloring. “Why, I’ve only met him twice walking up High Street evenings!” “But it _is_ true, isn’t it, Hester?” “Say, who was answering your questions this time last year?” “But it _is_ true, isn’t it, Hester? Isn’t it?” “Well, of all the nerve!” But it was. * * * * * The rest tells glibly. The Jewish salesman, who wore blue-and-white-striped soft collars with a bar pin across the front, does not even enter the story. He was only a stepping-stone. From him, the ascent, or descent, or whatever you choose to call it, was quick and sheer. Five years later, Hester was the very private, the very exotic, manicured, coiffured, scented, svelted, and strictly _de-luxe_ chattel of one Charles G. Wheeler, of New York city and Rosencranz, Long Island, vice-president of the Standard Tractor Company, a member of no clubs but of the Rosencranz church, three lodges, and several corporations.