“But, see here!” he objected. “It isn’t ‘good-by’ yet. Of course I am going to see you safely home. Do you think I would turn you loose in the streets at this time of night?” “Perhaps you wouldn’t want to do it in Yankeeland, but you can do it safely enough here,” she argued. “Haven’t you heard the Denver boast that, for all it is such a ‘wide-open’ city, a woman who minds her own affairs is safe in the streets at any time of the day or night? And it is true, too--or almost true.” “That may all be. Just the same, I am going to take you home,” Philip insisted. “I owe it to my own self-respect, if I don’t owe it to you. Do we walk or ride?” “It is only a little way; and, really, Mr. Trask, I wish you wouldn’t!” “It is ‘Mr. Trask’ now, but it was ‘Philip’ last spring,” he reminded her. “Well, then--Philip, won’t you let me run away by myself this time? We mustn’t stand here cluttering up Mr. Charpiot’s sidewalk. Please!” “Is there any really good reason why I shouldn’t see you home?” “N-no; I don’t reckon there is any _reason_. Only----” “Then that settles it. Come along,” and he made her take his arm. In a very few minutes the truth of her saying that she had only a short distance to go was rudely thrust upon him. A silent walk of two squares down the nearest cross street toward the Platte ended at the stair of a brick building dingy and old as age might be reckoned in this Aladdin city of the plain; a building whose sidewalk-fronting windows yawned into the empty darkness of a former storeroom. And the street in which it stood was the street of the Corinthian plangencies. The neighborhood, as all Denver knew, was not merely a shabby one; it was disreputable. “Good gracious!” he exclaimed, as they paused at the dark stairfoot. “You don’t mean to tell me you are living here!” “You would come,” she answered reproachfully; then: “We have rooms on the second floor. I--I’m sorry I can’t ask you in.” “But this neighborhood!” he expostulated, and the sternest of his Puritan ancestors could not have crowded more deprecation into the three words. “I know,” she nodded. “But you remember the old saying--that beggars mustn’t be choosers. We were glad enough to find shelter anywhere. And the people ... they are not what they ought to be, perhaps; but they are kind to us. Won’t you let me thank you again and say good-night?” Since there was nothing else to be done, he did it; though he waited until after she had disappeared up the unlighted stair before he turned to walk away, still shocked and dismayed at the thought of two unprotected women and two young girls living--being obliged to live--in such surroundings. It shouldn’t be permitted; it must not be permitted. Surely he and Bromley together could hatch up some plan by means of which Jean and her family could be helped; some plan which they could accept without becoming objects of charity.