At the town of Nankiwoc the hotel was not all it might have been. Evelyn L'Ewysse announced that she was "good and sick of eating a vaudeville dinner with the grub acts stuck around your plate in a lot of birds' bath-tubs--little mess of turnips and a dab of spinach and a fried cockroach. And when it comes to sleeping another night on a bed like a gridiron, no--thank--_you_! And believe me, if I see that old rube hotel-keeper comb his whiskers at the hall hat-rack again--he keeps a baby comb in his vest pocket with a lead-pencil and a cigar some drummer gave him--if I have to watch him comb that alfalfa again I'll bite his ears off and get pinched by the S. P. C. A.!" With Mrs. Lubley, the old lady and complacent unofficial chaperon of the show, Eve was going to imitate Carl and the two bandsmen, and sleep in the dressing-room tent, over half of which was devoted to the women of the company. Every day Carl warned himself that he must go no farther, but every night as Eve and he parted, to sleep with only a canvas partition between them, he cursed the presence of the show chaperon, and of the two bandsmen, always distressingly awake and talking till after midnight. A hot June night. The whole company had been invited to a dance at the U. C. V. Hall; the two bandsmen were going; the chaperon--lively old lady with experience on the burlesque circuit--was gaily going. Carl and Eve were not. It had taken but one glance between them to decide that. They sat outside the silent tent, on a wardrobe trunk. What manner of night it was, whether starlit or sullen, Carl did not know; he was aware only that it was oppressive, and that Eve was in his arms in the darkness. He kissed her moist, hot neck. He babbled incoherently of the show people, but every word he said meant that he was palpitating because her soft body was against his. He knew--and he was sure that she knew--that when they discussed Heye's string tie and pretended to laugh, they were agitatedly voicing their intoxication. His voice unsteady, Carl said: "Jiminy! it's so hot, Eve! I'm going to take off this darn shirt and collar and put on a soft shirt. S-say, w-why don't you put on a kimono or something? Be so much cooler." "Oh, I don't know as I ought to----" She was frightened, awed at Bacchic madness. "D-do you think it would be all right?" "Why not? Guess anybody's got a right to get cool--night like this. Besides, they won't be back till 4 P.M. And you got to get cool. Come on." And he knew--and he was sure that she knew--that all he said was pretense. But she rose and said, nebulously, as she stood before him, ruffling his hair: "Well, I would like to get cool. If you think it's all right----I'll put on something cooler, anyway."