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THE VISIONARY
345

"Don't know," Pittsey answered laconically. "Don't see much of him. I'm taking a staff position on the paper next week, and I'll see less of him then."

"How will you get the housework done?"

"Oh, he's found a woman to come in for three hours a day, to straighten up the rooms and cook us our dinner."

"Where did he find her?"

"Search me. I don't know. I haven't seen her yet."

"Well," Don said, "good-bye. I hope you have success on the paper."

"Thanks. I'll surely have my hands full. So long."

Don returned to his garret, glad that he was free of his old life. He sat smoking, with his feet on the fender of the stove, so occupied with his thoughts of the girl below him that he did not think to light a fire. He lay down on his bed, covered himself with his overcoat, and fell asleep to dream of Coulton. He was wakened in the darkness by her knocking on his door.

"Hurry! Hurry!" she cried. "We'll be late!"


They arrived in time—thanks to the laughing haste they made in the restaurant and on the street—but he found two new supers in the dressing-room; he had to show them how to "make up," and he was kept so busy helping them that he had not time to think of her. He was still powdering the hair on his temples, to give it the grey of approaching middle-age, when the call-boy shouted in the door: "All up!" And he had to run