A few minutes later she stood looking for a long time at the door that had closed after him. Then she put on hat and coat and went down the steps and over to the theater.

[164]
]CHAPTER VI

Harvard Club,
New York, July 30th.

Dear Naomi,—

This letter is going to be harder to write than an income tax report. When a man has never before been on his knees to a woman, they’re apt to be creaky and resist bending. But I’m on my knees to you, my dear,—in tribute, in abject apology, in the tenderest feeling I’ve ever known in my life.

Last March Bill Dixon went home and I sat back with the sensation of a good Samaritan. I was blithering ass enough to think I was the one who had sent him away. To-day, four months later, I’ve learned the truth. It came with the announcement of his marriage to Nan Crawford. He told me what happened. He told me what you had done, Naomi.

I’ve never had much belief in women. I’ve always thought them rather a poor lot. That’s the penalty of having begun early to know the wrong side of them—assuming there was no other. But you’ve given an old stager a faith he’s never known. For that I can’t repay you. But whatever I have, whatever I can give you of devotion and friendship is yours, dear girl. Knowing what you were equal to doing for that boy has suddenly made life worth living for me.

I haven’t seen you in months. Will you make up for lost time? Shall we go to supper to-morrow night?

Yours—I mean it—
Marshy.

[165]
] Naomi’s eyes wandered from the letter to another that lay open on the desk beside it. It was in a boy’s rugged hand, incoherent, embarrassed

. It told of his approaching marriage and tried to thank her for making him see that the old love was the true one. She had read it so many times that she could have told what it told her—with eyes shut.

She reread Kent’s letter then. After a moment she picked up her pen and wrote:

Thank you, dear Marshy. I can use your friendship. I need it. But I’ve quit going out to suppers—for good.

Naomi.

[167]
]THE BACK DROP

DRAMA

Comedy met Tragedy at the crossroads of Life.