sincerely had felt even a part of what she had pretended, how could she walk away after her appeal to him for Ketlar and immediately pick up another youth and pass, without a pause, to the enjoyment of the thrills and sensations of that film?
Calvin returned to the elevated station with his original opinion of the Royle girl reëstablished. To-night, as before, she had tried to play upon him and trick him.
Joan Daisy did not proceed immediately to the enjoyment of the show with the man whom she had picked up nor had she entered the theater for entertainment. She had seen in her window a light which told that her mother was home and so she had stayed on the street and, when she had met an acquaintance who wanted to take her to a show, she had welcomed the chance to obtain, without cost to herself, a seat where she would be removed from every one in quiet and in darkness.
Of course Calvin could not comprehend this, even if it were told him. When he visited a picture theater, as he did rarely, it was for the definite purpose of viewing, with critical attention, a film which he desired to see. As he had no understanding of the manner of life which made an automat one's dining-room and utilized the sidewalk as a reception hall, so he lacked appreciation of the qualities which might convert a crowded film theater into one's library where a girl who was tired and perplexed might go to be quiet and undisturbed, and where she might sit as though alone with book in hand, to think.
Joan Daisy was seated quietly and, except for an occasional whisper from her escort and an occasional clasp of her hand, to which she made no response, she was undisturbed and the book unrolled before her upon the screen, requiring of her no effort of attention.
It was several minutes before she began even to watch the picture and before she let herself drift from the world
