It could not be possible; but it was possible. There was no mistaking the tones of the quick, incisive voice. It was the same voice that had told him, almost every day of his youth, that his only chance lay through books. It was the same frame now fashionably, even expensively, clothed, that had bent above the washtub in the dingy kitchen of his childhood. It was the same face, with the accompanying miracle of elaborate and attractive hair dressing and a chamois skin dusted with pink powder. When Jason’s lips met, he realized that they had been hanging open until they were dry. Above the marvel of seeing Marcia standing so confidently at the wicket of the bank, transacting a financial matter that appeared to be of considerable importance, came the marvel of the deference with which she was treated by the cashier. For her the wicket was swung open; for her there were polite greetings and a few words concerning the weather and outside matters; for her there was a laughing jest as she turned away and went swiftly as she had come. Jason laid down the pen and followed at a distance. One block down the street she crossed and went into an interesting building on the corner. From across the street, he looked at the front window, at the side, at the entrance, and read, in letters of white china placed upon the glass, “Millinery and Ladies’ Furnishings. Nancy Bodkin and Company.” Jason repeated it over and over—“‘and Company.’” Did that mean that Martin Moreland had given liberty to his slave, that she was no longer a creature of dingy kitchens and the subterfuge of washtubs in order that for a few night hours she might be the creature Jason once had seen in the rose-pink environment and the dress of snow? Was Marcia the woman who could carry such an alliance further, and at the same time look and move and speak as he had just seen her? Jason found himself entering the store behind him. It proved to be a drug store. He bought a glass of milk shake, and sitting down at the counter, he began a conversation with the clerk as he drank. He started by remarking upon the wonderful growth of Bluffport—how many new buildings and how attractive they were. Then he came to the point which concerned him. “In all the tidying up you’ve done here in the past four or five years, I don’t see anything to beat this establishment or the one just across the street. I’d call that the kind of an enterprise that wouldn’t look so bad in Indianapolis or Chicago,” he said. “And that’s a funny thing,” said the clerk. “Ever since I was a little shaver running around town, Nancy Bodkin has been in the millinery business here. Good years she managed to make ends meet and bad years she didn’t. And I’ve heard here lately that she was just at the point of going bankrupt and giving up in despair when along comes a stranger in town and they get to work together.” “Oh,” said Jason, “then the stranger represents the ‘and Company’?”