Kedzie never feared that it might have a scarlet-letter significance. She forgot that she was anything but a newborn, full-fledged angel without a past--only a future with the sky for its limit. Alas! we always have our pasts. Even the unborn babe has already centuries of a past. It was Ferriday who brought Kedzie home to hers. “What about dinner to-night, my dear? I feel like having a wonderful dinner to-night! Are partridge in season now? What is your favorite sherry? Let me call for you at, say, seven. Where shall I call?” Kedzie flopped back from the empyrean to her flat. Gilfoyle again blockaded her. She nearly swooned then. Her soul rummaged frantically through a brain like her own work-basket. She finally dug up an excuse. “I'd rather meet you at the restaurant.” Ferriday smiled. He understood. The poor thing was ashamed of her boarding-house. “Well, Cinderella, let me send my pumpkin for you, at least. I won't come. Where shall my chauffeur find you?” Kedzie whimpered the shabby number of the shabby street. “Shall he ask for Miss Adair, or--” Kedzie was inspired: “I live in Mrs. Gilfoyle's flat-partment.” “I see,” said Ferriday. “Miss Anita Adair--ring Mrs. Gilfoyle's bell. All right, my angel, at seven. Run along.” He kissed her, and she was ice-cold. But then women were often like that before Ferriday's genius. CHAPTER VIII The things we are ashamed of are an acid test of our souls. Kedzie Thropp was constantly improving the quality of her disgusts. A few months ago she was hardly ashamed of sleeping under a park bench. And already here she was sliding through the street in a limousine. It was a shabby limousine, but she was not yet ready to be ashamed of any limousine. She was proud to have it lent to her, proud to know anybody who owned such a thing. What she was ashamed of now was the home it must take her to and the jobless husband waiting for her there. She was ashamed of herself for tying up with a husband so soon. She had married in haste and repented in haste. And there was a lot of leisure for more repentance. Already her husband was such a handicap that she had refrained from mentioning his existence to the great moving-picture director who had opened a new world of glory to her--thrown on a screen, as it were, a cinemation of her future, where triumphs followed one another with moving-picture rapidity. He had made a scenario of her and invited her to dinner. She smiled a little at the inspiration that had saved her from confessing that she was Mrs. Gilfoyle. It was neat of her to tell Mr. Ferriday that she could be addressed “in care of Mrs. Gilfoyle.” In care of herself! That was just what she was. Who else was so interested in Kedzie's advancement as Kedzie?