She flushed with pleasure, but only shook her head again and sat down on the stairs to listen to the next recitation. As Le Duc stepped out, bowing with his easy, good-natured smile, Miss Davies saw her opportunity to speak to Halloran. At the beginning of the evening she had talked a moment with Lizzie Bigelow, but with unsatisfactory results as her troubled expression showed. She now led the way to a sitting-room behind the stairs. For a short space they were silent--this young woman who, with the buoyancy of youth, with sanguineness hardly justified by the facts of the black city that was pulsing around her, had plunged into its darkness the feeble light of her hopes--and this young man who knew so well the difficulty of climbing up from sloth and incompetency and vicious ignorance that he was willing to help. He put his hands in his pockets and stood waiting for her to begin. He liked to look at her, she was so earnest and unconscious of herself; perhaps, too, because she was well worth looking at, with her clear, delicate skin now a little flushed and the masses of brown hair above her forehead. “I wrote you,” she began, “that we have lost track of George. He was here as usual a week ago Wednesday, but then he disappeared. Lizzie, his sister, says they have no idea where he is; and I don't think she cares very much. She says he can look out for himself, and that is more than they can do for him at home. Now what are we to do?” “Have you seen his mother?” “No--not yet. She always rebuffs me. If she were more like our other women it would be easier. I wanted to talk with you first, and see if we couldn't think of some way to find him.” “But we have no clue. She might be able to give us a hint. Even to learn something about his loafing places would be a start--something to work from.” “I suppose--if she would tell. She is proud, you know. But we must do something. I can't leave that boy wandering around the city like this. The first thing we will hear of him in jail, and after that------” She ended with a shake of the head. At a thought that entered his mind Halloran smiled slightly. “Have you talked with Jimmie?” he asked. . “Jimmie McGinnis?” She had to smile, too. “He might tell something. One always knows what the other is up to. I can't think of any other way.” She looked earnestly at him as she asked: “Will you try it--if I bring him here?” He nodded, and soon she returned with him. Jimmie looked from one to the other, his small eyes devoid of expression, his inscrutable thin face as innocent as that of a sleeping baby. “Sit down, Jimmie,” said Halloran, “Miss Davies and I want to talk with you about George.”