The others had other suggestions to howl, and Anita cowered in silence, wondering if one of the fiends would not at any moment guess “Kedzie Thropp.” The call to arms and legs cut short her torment, and for once the music seemed appropriate. Never had she danced with such lyricism. Gilfoyle had the presence of mind to be waiting in the alley after the matinee, and took from her hand the note she was carrying to the mail-box. When he read it he almost embraced her right there. They took a street-car to Mrs. Jambers's boarding-house, but cruel disappointment waited for them. Another boarder was entertaining her gentleman friend in the parlor. Kedzie was furious. So was the other boarder. That night Gilfoyle met Kedzie again at the stage door, but they could not go to the boarding-house, for Mrs. Jambers occupied at that time a kind of false mantelpiece that turned out to be a bed in disguise. So they went to the Park. Young Gilfoyle treated Kedzie with almost more respect than she might have desired. He was one of those self-chaperoning young men who spout anarchy and practise asceticism. Even in his poetry it was the necessitous limitations of rhyme-words that dragged him into his boldest thoughts. Sitting on a dark Park bench with Kedzie, he could not have been more circumspect if there had been sixteen duennas gathered around. The first time he hugged her was a rainy night when Kedzie had to snuggle close and haul his arm around her, and then his heart beat so fast against her shoulder that she was afraid he would die of it. Cool, wet, windy nights in late summer feel very cold, and a damp bench under dripping trees was a nuisance to a tired dancing-girl. Love was so inconvenient that when Kedzie bewailed the restrictions imposed on unmarried people Gilfoyle proposed marriage. It popped out of him so suddenly that Kedzie felt his heart stop and listen. Then it began to race, and hers ran away, too. “Why, Mr. Gilfoyle! Why, Tommie!” she gurgled. It was her first proposal of marriage, and she lost her head. “And you a socialist and telling me you didn't believe in marriages!” “I don't,” said Gilfoyle, with lovely sublimity above petty consistencies, “except with you, Anita. I don't believe in anything exclusive for anybody except you for me and me for you. We've just got to be each other's own, haven't we?” Kedzie could think of nothing to add except a little emphasis; so she cried, “Each other's very ownest own!” Thus they became engaged. That made it possible for her to have him in her own room at the boarding-house. Also it enabled him to borrow money from her with propriety when they were hungry for supper. Fortunately, he did not mind her going on working. Not at all.