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5) Which of the following statements is false? 5)
A) All cells have a membrane-bound nucleus.
B) Cells come in a wide variety of sizes and shapes.
C) The cell is the basic unit of structure for all
organisms.
D) All organisms consist of one or more
cells. E) All cells arise from preexisting
cells.

6) Which of the following is true of a nanometer? 6)

A) A nanometer is one millionth of a meter.
B) The nanometer is the most common measurement used in measuring whole
cells.
C) A nanometer is equivalent to 10 Angstroms (Å).
D) A nanometer is about the size of a common bacterial cell.
E) None of the above.

2
 7) Which of the following is closest to a micrometer in 7)
size?
A) the width of a strand of
DNA B) the length of a chicken
egg
C) the size of a ribosome
D) the length of a plant cell
E) a typical prokaryotic cell

8) Cell biology emerged from which of the following fields of 8)

biology?
A) cytology and biochemistry
B) genetics
C) biochemistry
D) biochemistry, cytology, and genetics
E) cytology

9) Which of the following is 9)

smallest?
A) prokaryote
B) mitochondrion
C) virus
D) protein
E) ribosome

10) Early microscopes did not allow clear visualization of cells because they were 10)
limited by
A) refraction.
B) resolution.
C) number of kernels.
D) magnification.
E) both magnification and resolution.

11) You are working on a project that involves the direct observation of DNA molecules. 11)
The
microscope that would give you the best information at this time would be the
A) transmission electron microscope.
B) light microscope.
C) phase-contrast
microscope. D) fluorescent
microscope.
E) digital video microscope.

12) The limit of resolution can best be defined as 12)

A) the magnification power of a microscope.
B) the inverse of the wavelength of light; it is greatest for black light.
C) the solvent that must be available to remix a solution.
D) the distance that an object must be moved to be distinguished from its
background.
E) the distance that two objects must be apart to be distinguished as separate
objects.

13) How does brightfield microscopy allow images to be visualized? B)

A) Specimens are illuminated with white light. Electr
3
ons strike the specimen being examined. 13)
C) Specimens are illuminated with blue light to visualize internal features of cells smaller
than
100 nm.
D) Specimens are fixed and have bright fluorescent molecules attached to them.
E) Specimens are viewed under phased light to improve magnification.

4
14) Which of the following is an application of immunofluorescence microscopy? 14)
A) Identifying which organelle or cellular compartment contains a particular
protein. B) Visualization of the natural fluorescence of a specimen under UV
light.
C) Identification of specific components of the immune
system. D) Visualization of the surface structures of a
specimen.
E) Construction of three-dimensional images of structures smaller than 10 nm.

15) Which type of microscopy enhances and amplifies slight changes in the phase of transmitted 15)
light?
A) phase-contrast microscopy
B) differential interference contrast microscopy
C) both differential interference contrast microscopy and phase-contrast microscopy
D) digital video microscopy
E) fluorescence microscopy

16) Which type of microscopy has the greatest resolving 16)

power?
A) fluorescence microscopy
B) confocal scanning microscopy
C) phase-contrast microscopy
D) digital video microscopy
E) electron microscopy

17) Which of the following can only be viewed by electron 17)

microscopy?
A) nuclei
B) prokaryotes
C) DNA
D) mitochondria
E) frog eggs

18) Which of the following types of light microscopy improves the resolution of thick 18)
specimens by
illuminating one plane of the specimen at a time?
A) confocal microscopy
B) brightfield microscopy
C) phase-contrast microscopy
D) fluorescence microscopy
E) differential interference contrast microscopy

19) A scientist is examining motile protist. He wishes to determine their direction of movement. 19)
Which
of the following microscopic techniques is least likely to be used to view these cells?
A) differential interference contrast microscopy
B) phase-contrast microscopy
C) fluorescence microscopy
D) light microscopy
E) electron microscopy

20) Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) is especially suited to B)

A) creating a sense of depth. simult
5 aneou
sly observing living specimens, examining internal cellular structure, and 20)
creating a sense of depth.
C) both observing living specimens and creating a sense of depth.
D) examining internal cellular
structure. E) observing living
specimens.

6
21) Melvin Calvin and his colleagues used which of the following to deduce the steps in the 21)
Calvin cycle?
A) ultracentrifugation
B) radioisotopes
C) Drosophila melanogaster
D) negative staining
E) electron microscopy

22) A microtome is used to 22)

A) slice thin sections of
specimens. B) dissect cellular
organelles.
C) view microscopic organisms.
D) focus short wavelengths of
light.
E) manipulate tiny objects.

23) The classic work of Friedrich Wöhler (1828) that united the fields of biology and chemistry 23)
was
based on the
A) identification of nucleotide
bases. B) discovery of ATP.
C) discovery of yeast ferments.
D) production of urea in the laboratory.
E) analysis of gene segregation.

24) You wish to obtain a purified sample of mitochondria from lysed cells. The best way to obtain 24)
this
sample would be
A) both centrifugation and polyacrylamide gel
electrophoresis. B) centrifugation.
C) chromatography.
D) polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis.
E) agarose gel electrophoresis.

25) 1 mm = nm 25)
A) 10
B) 1,000,000
C) 1/1000
D) 1/1,000,000
E) 1000

26) The outcome of the joining of cytology and biochemistry yielded a better understanding of the 26)
cell
by
A) creating bioinformatics.
B) identification of cellular structures.
C) identification of biochemical pathways and creating bioinformatics.
D) identification of cellular structures and biochemical
pathways. E) identification of cellular biochemical pathways.

7
27) Wöhler revolutionized biology through his demonstration that biological molecules are 27)
governed by the ordinary laws of physics and chemistry. He demonstrated this principle by
A) defining the laws of heredity.
B) synthesizing urea in the laboratory from ammonium cyanate.
C) inventing mass spectrometry which is commonly used to determine the size and
composition
of individual proteins.
D) developing techniques for isolating, purifying, and analyzing subcomponents of cells.
E) discovering active agents in cell extracts that were specific biological catalysts that have
since come to be called enzymes.

28) Gregor Mendel was most influential in which field of 28)

biology?
A) prokaryotic transformation
B) chromatography
C) cytology
D) genetics
E) biochemistry

29) The scientific work that established DNA, rather than protein, as the molecule of heredity 29)
was
performed prior to
A) the formation of the chromosome theory of heredity.
B) Antonie van Leeuwenhoek's observation of internal cell structures.
C) the description of the enzymatic steps of
glycolysis. D) Mendel's work on heredity.
E) the elucidation of the double helix structure of DNA.

30) Jacques Monod and François Jacob deduced the mechanism responsible for the 30)
regulation of
prokaryotic gene expression. They are, therefore, responsible for launching the era of
A) biochemistry.
B) the scientific method.
C) molecular
genetics. D) light
microscopy.
E) radioisotopes.

31) Which of the following biochemical techniques uses an electrical field to separate 31)
macromolecules
based on their mobility through a semisolid gel?
A)
ultracentrifugation. B)
mass spectrometry. C)
light microscopy.
D)
electrophoresis.
E)
chromatography.

32) To which of the following do Mendel's observations C)

relate? gravit
A) heredity y
B) diffusion
8
D) ideal gas laws 32)
E) thermodynamics

9
33) The steps of the scientific method, in the correct order, are 33)
A) collect data, interpret results, test the hypothesis, make observations, and
design experiments.
B) make observations, formulate the hypothesis, design experiments, collect data,
interpret results, and draw conclusions.
C) design experiments, draw conclusions, collect data, interpret results, make observations,
and test the hypothesis.
D) collect data, interpret results, test the hypothesis, design experiments, make
observations, and draw conclusions.
E) none of the above.

34) Scientists use various terms to describe conclusions reached through the scientific method. 34)
Which
of the following terms conveys the least degree of certainty?
A) law
B) hypothesis
C) theory
D) both hypothesis and theory
E) both theory and law

35) Once a scientific theory becomes a law, 35)

it
A) becomes static.
B) cannot be
challenged. C) is
irrefutable.
D) is subject to
modification. E) cannot be
changed.

36) You are studying the response of macrophages infected with the intracellular bacterium 36)
Brucella,
specifically by examining which gene products are being expressed. You would be studying
the macrophage to obtain this information.
A) transciptome
B) proteome
C) genome
D) amplicon
E) metabolome

37) Which of the following is an important characteristic for a model 37)

organism?
A) widely studied
B) prone to random changes that alter primary characteristics
C) difficult to manipulate in the laboratory
D) marginally characterized
E) all of the above

38) All of the following are model organisms, D)

except Arabi
A) Homo sapiens. dopsis
B) Saccharomyces cerevisiae. thiala
C) Caenorhabditis elegans. na.
10
E) Drosophila melanogaster. 38)

11
 39) In studying osteoporosis in humans, you wish to test a newly designed treatment for efficacy. 39)
Your best choice for a model organism would be
A) Escherichia coli.
B) Pisum sativum.
C) Caenorhabditis elegans.
D) Arabidopsis thaliana.
E) Mus musculus.

40) Which of the following is 40)

mismatched?
A) Caenorhabditis elegans - photosynthesis
B) Escherichia coli - genetics
C) Drosophila melanogaster -
embryogenesis
D) Mus musculus - immunology
E) Arabidopsis thaliana - plant gene
function

MATCHING. Choose the item in column 2 that best matches each item in column 1.

Match each scientist or group of scientists on the left with the appropriate phrase to the right.
41) Gregor Mendel A) dog saliva
41)

42) Walter Sutton B) cell theory

42)

43) Matthias Schleiden C) translation

43)

44) Oswald Avery, Colin MacLeod, D) hereditary factors

44)
and
Maclyn McCarty E) embryonic bacteria
45)
45) George Beadle and Edward F) chromosome theory of
Tatum heredity
46)
46) James Watson and Francis Crick G) transcription

H) pollen grain

I) DNA double helix

J) "one gene one

enzyme" K) transfer RNA

L) transformation

12
 47) Thomas Hunt A) Calvin cycle
47)
Morgan
B) fruit fly
48)
48) Friedrich Wöhler
C) urea
49)
49) Louis Pasteur
D) "ferments" of
yeast

E) oral prokaryotes

Match the type of microscopy with the appropriate characteristic.

50) brightfield A) detects electrons deflected from the
50)
surface of the
51) fluorescence specimen
51)
B) detects electrons passing through
52) phase-contrast
a specimen 52)

53) confocal C) uses a laser to view a single plane of 53)

a specimen
54) transmission electron
54)
microscopy D) light passes directly through
specimen
55)
55) scanning electron microscopy
E) shows specific molecules

F) amplifies variations in density

SHORT ANSWER. Write the word or phrase that best completes each statement or answers the question.
56) To be useful to scientists, a hypothesis must be ; in other words, the 56)
hypothesis
must be able to be confirmed or discredited.

57) A scientific must be so thoroughly confirmed that virtually no doubt 57)

remains
about its accuracy.

58) Glycolysis is also called the pathway after the scientists who did most of the 58)
work to define it.

59) synthesized urea in the laboratory from inorganic starting materials. 59)
Much of
what is now called dates from this discovery.

60) Melvin Calvin used , a specific , to deduce the Calvin cycle 60)
of
photosynthesis.

61) A(n) is an instrument used to separate subcellular structures and macromol

13 ecules on
the basis of size, shape, and density. developed this 61)
instrument in Sweden during the period 1925—1930.

14
62) Around 1914, determined that DNA was an important component in 62)
by using a staining technique that is still in use today.

63) Because of the low penetration power of electrons, samples for transmission electron 63)
microscopy must be extremely thin. A(n) is able to cut sections as thin as 20
nm.

64) In 1880, Walther Flemming identified , threadlike bodies seen in dividing cells. 64)

65) The was developed in the late 1920s by Theodore Svedberg. He originally 65)
used it
to determine the sedimentation rate of proteins.

66) is a biochemical technique that allows one to separate biological molecules 66)
based
on size, shape, and/or affinity for specific molecules or functional groups.

67) The total protein content of the cell is called the . 67)
68) is the ability to distinguish two objects that are close together as separate. In 68)
any
microscope, this ability is determined by .

15
MATCHING. Choose the item in column 2 that best matches each item in column 1.

Scientific discoveries have had great impact in human history. The people who make these discoveries and the
circumstances that surround these discoveries are very important to our understanding of science. Can you
identify the individuals as they might have described themselves?
69) I am a seventeenth-century later used to isolate A) Alfred
shopkeeper from Holland. My subcellular fractions. Hershey and
hobby involves hand-polishing Martha
glass to make lenses, some of which Chase
can magnify almost 300-fold. I was
the first to observe living cells and B) Robert
am known as the "Father of Hooke
Microbiology."
C) James
70) I was the Curator of Instruments for Watson and
the Royal Society of London in 1665. Francis Crick
I developed a microscope that could
magnify around 30 - fold. I D) Friedrich
examined plant material and Wöhler
observed many small chambers that
I called cells.
E) Antonie
van
71) At the University of California, Leeuwenhoe
Berkeley, I worked with k
radioisotopes. In the late 1940s and
early 1950s, I used 14C to identify F) Melvin
the most common pathway for Calvin
photosynthetic carbon metabolism.

G) Theodor
72) We worked out the double helix Svedberg
model of DNA structure in 1953.
We later received the Nobel Prize
for this work.

73) I am a nineteenth-century German

chemist. By synthesizing an organic
molecule from inorganic
components, I dispelled the idea
that biological processes were
exempt from the laws of chemistry.

74) My colleague and I worked with

bacterial viruses. We were able to
demonstrate that DNA–not
protein
–was the genetic material of the cell.

75) I am a Swedish scientist. I

developed the ultracentrifuge to
determine sedimentation rates of
proteins. The ultracentrifuge was
16
69)

70)

71)

72)

73)

74)

75)

17
ESSAY. Write your answer in the space provided or on a separate sheet of paper.

76) The following paragraph describes the activities of hypothetical scientists. After reading this paragraph,
list the steps of the scientific method, and list the activities that correspond to the steps of the scientific
method.

A rancher noticed that several grazing animals had become sick after grazing in a new area. The rancher
asked a team of scientists to analyze this problem. They visited the area and found that the food available
to the animals was similar to the food they had been eating. The water supply in the area was adequate
but limited to a single spring. Some of the scientists felt that the water might be contaminated with a
pathogen. Therefore, they collected water samples from the spring in the new area and compared them
with water samples taken from previous grazing sites. The scientists noticed that water from the new area
was cloudier than water obtained from other areas. Culturing this water revealed that a pathogenic strain
of bacteria was present. This bacterial strain was found to be identical to a strain obtained from sick
animals. This strain was not present in healthy animals. They concluded that a contaminated water supply
in the new area was responsible for the problem and instructed the rancher to avoid the water supply. The
disease was not found in the rancher's livestock again.

77) A number of different types of microscopy exist. Each type of microscopy has advantages and
disadvantages.
Can you identify the microscope that would be most advantageous for the situations below?
a. A cell biologist wishes to visualize the ribosomes of a cell.
b. A microbiologist wishes to examine the motility of a bacterium.
c. An immunologist wishes to determine if a lymphocyte possesses a certain surface protein.
d. A virologist is trying to determine the three-dimensional shape of a virus.
e. A pathologist is trying to examine the cytoplasm of a cell for changes that result from viral infection.

78) You have identified a new molecule associated with the immune system that drastically reduces cell
division by tumor cells in vivo. Develop a hypothesis and design an experiment to test your hypothesis
using a model organism. Include an explanation as to why it is the best model for your experiment.

79) You have been given a sample of Mimivirus, which has the largest capsid diameter of all currently
known viruses (600 nm) and has the form of a 20-sided polyhedron (an icosahedron). Based on your
knowledge of microscopes, what would you be able to see/determine about mimiviral structure using
each of the following microscopes?
a. simple compound (light) microscope
b. fluorescent microscope using fluorescently labeled antibodies to a novel capsid
protein c. scanning electron microscope

18
Answer Key
Testname: UNTITLED1

1) C
2) B
3) A
4) E
5) A
6) C
7) E
8) D
9) D
10) E
11) A
12) E
13) A
14) A
15) C
16) E
17) C
18) A
19) E
20) A
21) B
22) A
23) D
24) B
25) B
26) D
27) B
28) D
29) E
30) C
31) D
32) A
33) B
34) B
35) D
36) A
37) A
38) A
39) E
40) A
41) D
42) F
43) B
44) L
45) J
46) I
47) B
48) C
49) D
50) D

19
Answer Key
Testname: UNTITLED1

51) E
52) F
53) C
54) B
55) A
56) testable
57) law
58) Embden-Meyerhof
59) Friedrich Wöhler; biochemistry
60) 14
C; radioisotope
61) ultracentrifuge; Theodor Svedberg
62) Robert Feulgen; chromosomes
63) ultramicrotome
64) chromosomes
65) ultracentrifuge
66) Chromatography
67) proteome
68) Resolution; wavelength
69) E
70) B
71) F
72) C
73) D
74) A
75) G
76) (Answers may vary.)
Observation. The rancher and the scientists made initial observations regarding the food and water that the
livestock consumed.
Hypothesis. The water supply was contaminated with a pathogen.
Experimentation. Water was collected, examined, and cultured.
Collect data. The turbidity of the water was examined. The cultures were positive for a pathogenic strain of
bacterium. Interpret results. The data was compared to other water samples. The cultures were compared to those
obtained from livestock.
Draw conclusion. The water was contaminated and responsible for the outbreak.
77) (Answers may vary.)
a. Electron microscopy, preferably transmission electron microscopy, should be used.
b. Phase contrast or differential-interference-contrast would be most
helpful. c. Fluorescence microscopy is often used.
d. Scanning electron microscopy should be used.
e. Transmission electron microscopy will enable the pathologist to visualize the interior.
78) Answers will vary; however, the hypothesis would indicate the utility of the cytokine for lymphoma treatment.
The obvious model organism would be the mouse model. It shares a great many similarities to humans at the
cellular, anatomical, and physiological levels. It is well characterized, and the genome has been sequenced.
Further, there is a mouse model of lymphoma currently available. Mice are easy to care for and require a
relatively small amount of space to maintain.
79) a. Light microscope: will be able to see basic viral shape, especially if particles are stained
b. Fluorescent microscope: should illuminate the outside of the viral particles
c. Scanning electron microscope: would allow imaging of the surface structure of the virus

20
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
a commission, and pronounce judgment or dispense mercy for the
furtherance of his own fortune and the strengthening of his own power. Out
of these threads of knowledge Violet resolved to weave the net in which to
catch freedom.

That afternoon Evelyn informed her that Rose was still abed and had
sent for her favorite, Wanda, to console her. This meant that she would not
descend to the ground floor or be visible to any visitors before the next
evening, and that the Englishwoman, promoted to temporary command,
would have to pass the night in that reception of callers which necessitated
the appearance of drinking much and the fact of drinking almost nothing.

"She does that every time she goes on a bust, my dear," complained
Evelyn. "Of course she jolly well knows that she can trust me and that I
have some manners too, but I wish she would remember that I also have a
thirst and can't do without my drop of real liquor."

Violet's nerves tingled. With her best effort to bury all signs of her
mounting hope, she ventured:

"I wish I could help you."

"You, my dear?" Evelyn's eyebrows raised and her contralto voice

followed them. "Catch the madam letting anyone but me take charge! You
know you're none of you allowed down in the front hall unless you're sent
for. Things are ticklish enough, thank you, with that new girl upstairs."

It was almost the first mention that had been made to Violet of the latest
captive since the recent day of Evelyn's exposition of the entire traffic.
Violet had not dared to ask any more questions than those that she deemed
necessary for the perfection of her own plans, and she dared ask none now.

"I do hate the job," Evelyn was continuing, "even if it does mean a few
bits extra. Rose says that fellow Dyker is due to-night. She's not fit to see
him above all men, and he's the one I most particularly hate to meet,
because he was a friend of my friend the doctor and used to call with him
now and again at my flat. I always fancy he's making comparisons under
those narsty low lids of his."
 Violet, in sudden reaction, felt choking with despair.

"I could see him," she said.

But Evelyn's honors sat heavily upon their possessor.

"You're not a trusty yet, my dear, by any manner of means," she

responded. "No, no; you will go to your own room after dinner and stay
there till you are wanted."

She tilted her sharp chin and strolled kitchenward for a drink; but,
though she left behind Her a Violet discouraged, it was not a Violet beaten.

In fact, the girl made her own opportunity. Noticing that evening that
Evelyn took up a dignified position in the parlor and had Cassie conduct all
the guests thither, Violet quickly disposed of the first person that claimed
her attention, and, having made her best toilet—having restored her cheeks
to a resemblance of their pristine glow, coiffed her russet hair, and donned
her best of linen—she descended quietly to the first landing on the stairway,
there to take up her watch. Before she was again in demand, she saw the
servant admit Wesley Dyker. She ran quickly downward and, just as Cassie
stepped forward to precede him, brushed by him in the rosy twilight of the
hall.

"Ask to see me," she whispered. "Ask to see Violet. Don't let on I told
you. I've heard something you want to know about O'Malley."

Before the man's shadowy figure could come to pause, she had passed
him and caught up to Cassie.

"Where have you been?" she asked. "I've been calling for you for five
minutes. I need some more water in my room."

She turned and reascended the stairs, but her door had not long been
closed before the servant was knocking upon the panel.

"Here's you' water, Miss Vi'let," said Cassie. "An' Miste' Dyker wants
fer to see you daown in de back parlor."
 Violet took the useless pitcher, made sure that the remnant of Katie's
note was secure in its hiding-place, and hurried, with Cassie following, to
the garish room in which Dyker was awaiting her.

He was seated on the lazy, pillowed sofa on which Violet had fallen
asleep so soon after her arrival in this house. He was in evening-clothes that
served him, on the East Side, much as the advertised portraits of certain
patent-medicine makers serve their proprietors, the flaccid whiteness of his
face still bearing traces of past beauty, the weakness of his mouth hidden by
his crisp, short, brown mustache, and his heavy lids concealing the secret of
his steel-gray eyes.

He half rose as she entered, but she motioned him to sit still.

"Hello!" she said, with the easy manner of the house, which always
seemed to presuppose a previous acquaintance. "Have you ordered
anything? I'm terribly dry."

He took her hand and caught her meaning,

"So am I, Miss Violet," he answered. "Let's have something."

Violet turned to the servant.

"Cassie," she said, "bring up a couple of bottles."

She waited for the door to close, and then sat down beside Dyker.

"Speak low," she cautioned. "That girl will listen if she can. You'll have
to pretend to be making love to me."

Dyker regarded her with smiling approval. Her blue eyes shone with
excitement and red blood fought through the rouge on cheek and fully ripe
mouth.

"What you ask will be both easy and pleasant," he answered.

"No, no; none of that. This is no time for bluffing. Put your arm around
my shoulder. That way. Now then, you heard what I told you in the hall?"
 Dyker, with his type's disinclination to take seriously anything that any
woman has to say upon serious matters, smiled assent.

"You seem to have been doing some listening yourself," he said, as his
lingers tightened unnecessarily upon her shoulder.

"Yes, I did, and it's lucky for you I did it. Will you promise not to give
me away?"

"Of course I promise."

"Not even to Miss Rose?"

"Not even to Rosie."

"And if I help you, will you do me a favor?"

"To look at you I should say that I'd do you any favor you asked, and do
it without expecting anything in return."

His pale lips were curled in a half-scoffing smile, but Violet's next
words brushed from his flaccid face all traces of amusement.

"You remember that night you told Miss Rose about what you wanted to
get at the next election? You said you were afraid of O'Malley giving you
the double cross."

Dyker stiffened.

"Did you hear that?" he demanded.

"Hush! Keep your voice down, or I won't tell you nothing of what I
know. Remember you're supposed to be making love to me."

"All right, all right; but I want an answer to my question."

"Well, then, of course, I heard it. I was at the keyhole there—that's why
I want you to whisper now.—And I heard more."
 "What was that?"

"Wait a minute. You'll do me a favor if I tell you?"

"Anything," he smiled.

"But this is business. If I tell you something that it's worth your while to
know, will you promise not to blow on me to Miss Rose?"

"I promise."

"And to do something more that I'll ask you?"

Wesley was now certain that he must not stick at promises.

"Surely."

"Then sit tight. I don't know as much about O'Malley as I pretended out
there in the hall, but I do know about Miss Rose. I don't know whether
O'Malley is goin' to double-cross you or not, but I do know that Miss Rose
has given you the double-cross already."

She had thought that passion played a large part in his relations with her
mistress, and she had counted upon awakening his jealousy. What, however,
had far exceeded his affection was a poor pride of possession, and when
Violet's words, in addition to touching his ambition, struck at that pride,
they aroused an anger that was far more dangerous than any sense of love
betrayed.

"What's that?" he demanded.

Two red beacons flashed into his pale checks, and his heavy lids,
shooting upward for a single instant, disclosed hard, gray eyes gone hot and
malevolent.

"Be careful. Speak low, I tell you," she cautioned; "and remember your
promise."

"I don't believe——"

 "Here's Cassie!"

They waited while the black opened the champagne and filled the
glasses.

Violet brushed Dyker's hair over his eyes and laughed at the effect.
Dyker caught the offending hand and kissed it by way of punishment.

"Cassie," he banteringly asked, "why didn't you ever tell me there was
such a nice little girl in this house? I had to get the news from a friend on
the outside."

He tossed the now grinning negress a dollar and, as soon as she had left
them, dropped the farce as promptly as did Violet.

"I say I can't believe you," he resumed, the two spots of anger still
glowering in his cheeks.

Violet knew that her whole hope rested upon her ability to force
conviction.

"You've got to believe me," she said. "I'll tell you all that you told Miss
Rose till I had to run away, that evening."

She did it, omitting scarcely a particular.

"That's right, ain't it?" she concluded.

"May be. But what does that prove? It only shows that you heard me."

"It shows that I can hear Miss Rose when she talks to somebody else.
And I did hear her."

"Whom was she talking to?"

"The man you asked her about. To Rafael Angelelli."

"Well, but I told her to talk to him."

 "An' she did it. But the first time I heard her was just before you told her
to."

"That same night?"

"He was in the kitchen with her when you came in. Why, he's here all
the time! I don't care what she pretends to you, she's stuck on him, an' every
girl in the house knows it."

Rapidly, but as fully as she had sketched the dialogue between Rose and
Dyker, she now described the first conversation that she had overheard
between her mistress and the Italian.

"I'd come down to graft a drink," she said, "an' I heard them from the
stairs. That's how, after he'd left, I came to listen to you too."

Dyker had quailed under the revelation, thus made to him, of political
danger. He now quivered in anger at the comments upon himself, somewhat
colored, that Violet had placed in the mouths of Rose and Angel.

"I'll find out about this!" he said, struggling against the desperate arms
flung swiftly around him to keep him on the sofa. "Let me go! By God, I'll
have that drunken cat down here and squeeze the truth out of her throat!"

All the caution, all the craft, all that she had counted upon as the real
Wesley Dyker seemed to have escaped him. His voice was still low, but in
every other respect he was a raging beast.

She fought with him, mentally and physically.

"You can't get anything out of her that way," Violet urged, as the man
twisted under her strong hands. "Of course she'll say it's all lies. And you'd
only be warning her. You don't want her to know that you know; you want a
chance to block her game."

Partly convinced by this argument and partly subdued by the physical

restraint that accompanied it, Dyker ceased his struggles.

"But I want to be sure," he muttered sullenly.

 "You can't be sure by goin' to Miss Rose."

"Well, I ought to tell her." The high tide of his anger was slowly
subsiding, and the rocky Dyker that she had built on was beginning to show
its crest above the still hissing waves. "Look here, Violet," he said, "I'm
sorry I behaved like such a fool. I beg your pardon, but you must see that I
have got to put this thing up to Rose."

"You forget your promise."

"No, I don't, but I must make sure."

Violet thought rapidly.

"Listen," she said; "I told you I wanted you to do something for me an'
you gave your word you'd do it.—Will you?"

"Of course I will, only I'm thinking a little about myself."

"This will help you, too."

"What do you want?"

Violet drew a long breath.

"I want you to go over to the avenue right away," she said, "and buy me
a long cloak and a hat and bring them back, and then take me out of here
without a word to anybody. You needn't walk more'n three squares with me,
an' then I won't bother you no more."

Dyker drew away and whistled softly. His face grew quite composed
again. The heavy lids fell over his eyes.

"So that's it, is it?" he asked.

"I want to get away," said Violet.

"And so you've cooked up this little mess of lies to make me the goat,
eh?"
 Violet felt the sands slipping beneath her feet. She laced her fingers
together till the knuckles bruised her flesh.

"Don't do that," she pleaded; "don't take it that way; it's true, what I told
you, every word of it. I only want you to keep your promise to me."

She stopped with a sob, and waited.

Wesley reached calmly for a glass of wine, drank it, put down the glass,
thrust his hands deep into his trousers' pockets, and, stretching out his long
legs, regarded, humming, the toes of his shining pumps.

"I don't believe you," he said at last.

"But, Mr. Dyker——"

"It's too thin."

"Even if it was a lie," Violet despairingly persisted, "you ought to help

me. Do you know who I am?"

"That's the point."

"Do you know how I was brought here?"

"I can guess."

"I was tricked. The man said he wanted to marry me. I didn't know. I
believed him. An' they beat me an' starved me and did things I couldn't
think about an' couldn't help thinkin' about. An' all I want is just for you to
do me this one little favor. I won't bother you. I won't blow on you——"

"What's that?"

"Oh, you know I wouldn't blow on you! I couldn't. I want to forget the
whole thing. I've got friends to go to who'll get me work. I only want you to
get me out of the door and safe away."
 Like most men of his sort Dyker, although ready enough to make a
living out of the results of cruelty, hated the sight of cruelty's self. The girl's
words touched, though lightly, his selfish heart.

"But I can't afford to help you," he protested. "You see how I'm tied up
here. I can't have Rose jump on me now."

"You know she's jumping on you already. You know she's knifing you in
the back. The only way you can stop her is by using what I've told you."

"Of course," said Dyker in the tone of a man thinking aloud, "if she
really was playing both ends against the middle, I could pull her teeth by
going straight to O'Malley and telling him so."

Violet did not wholly understand this, but she agreed immediately.

"Of course you could," she said.

"And I suppose I could have her pinched then, if you'd testify against
her. Would you do that? Would you go into court?"

Violet's fingers closed spasmodically.

"Just give me the chanc't," she said fervently.

"And of course there are other girls who've been in the same scrape
here?"

"There's a new one upstairs this minute."

"There is? Um. That's good." He rattled the money in his pocket. "Only,
look here," he persisted, "if you have been telling the truth, it will probably
make me solid with O'Malley, but if you haven't, I'll go clean to smash."

Violet saw the turn of affairs and, with hope's revival, her mind cleared
immediately.

"I haven't told you all," she said, "and I guess the rest will make you
sure enough."
 "There's more then?"

"A lot."

"What is it?"

"Will you help me out of here?"

"If you convince me.—Let's see; the shops around here are still open.—
Yes, if you convince me, you'll be out of here in half an hour."

It was her only chance. She did not hesitate. She told him the whole of
what she had heard of the later assuring interview between Rose and
Angelelli.

This time he listened quietly, his face inscrutable.

"That all?" he asked when she had ended.

"That's all," she said.

"It's the truth?"

"Ain't I sayin' it proof that it's true? How could I make it up? I don't
know all that it means."

"You knew enough to pass it on to me."

"Lucky for you I did, too; but I don't know all it means—how could I?
—and you do know, an' that ought to be proof enough that it's God's truth,
Mr. Dyker."

She stopped. Her case was with the jury.

Dyker rose.

"Cassie!" he called.

Violet leaped to her feet and laid her hands on his arm.
 "What are you goin' to do?" she whispered.

He silenced her with a gesture.

"What you want," he said.

Cassie put her black head in at the door.

"Cassie," he continued, flipping the maid another dollar, "I'm a little off
my feed. I'm going to the drugstore on the corner and get fixed up."

"Thank you, Miste' Dyker.—Ah kin go fer you, Miste' Dyker," said the
negress. "Thank you, sah."

"No, thanks, Cassie, I can go myself; I want the air. But you can do
something else for me. You can just not let this girl run away from me. I
know she would run if she could, but I like her too well to let her, so if
anybody wants her, just you say she's in here and engaged for the evening
by me. I'll be back in fifteen minutes."

He left one door as the willingly assenting Cassie closed the other, and
Violet flung herself on the sofa and buried her face in the cushions, now
fearful that the servant, notwithstanding their precautions, had overheard
her, now afraid that Dyker would change his purpose and fail to return, and
again dreading that he might betray her to Rose. Since the night she had
waited for Max to telephone in the café, since the terrible morning that had
followed, it was the longest quarter of an hour that she had known, but it at
last dragged its quivering length away. The doorbell rang. Cassie passed
through the room to find Violet sitting suddenly upright, and at once
returned with Dyker, his summer raincoat tossed across his arm.

As the servant left them, he lifted the coat. Below it, not wrapped in the
paper usual to a new purchase, was a dark cloak. He unrolled it, uncovered
a beaver hat, and handed them both to the panting Violet.

"Here you are," he said quietly.

She seized them and began to put them on.

 "No," he cautioned, "on second thought, I guess I'd better carry them.
The parlor door's open, and Evelyn and Fritzie are in there with a couple of
men. I'll go ahead and open the vestibule door and the front door. Then you
come by as if you were going upstairs."

"Evelyn'll come out to see if I have any money."

"She'll never learn that, though here, by the way, is a ten-dollar bill that
will come in handy.—The doors will be open and I'll be on the pavement.
Keep only a yard behind me. Riley's at the other end of his beat, and I have
a cab at the curb. Ready?"

She could not speak, but she nodded her russet head.

He passed before her up the rosy twilight of the hall.

Violet, following, her lips tight, her breathing suspended, her heart
pounding against her breast, was dimly aware of her own soft footfalls
sounding hideously loud, of the blast of light and laughter from the parlor.

Dyker flung wide the vestibule door.

"Good-night!" he called to Evelyn.

"Going? Good-night!" Violet heard the Englishwoman answer.

She heard Evelyn rise. She heard the front door open. She saw Wesley
raise his arm.

She hurried by the parlor door, and then, instead of turning to the stairs,
gathered up her red kimona and ran through the vestibule, through a patch
of soft, fresh darkness, and was tossed precipitately into a cab into which
Dyker followed her just as the horse, under a quick blow, dashed madly up
the street.

At the open cab-window the night air beat upon her fevered face. She
drank it deep into her thirsting lungs. It was the wine of freedom.
 XIV

RIVINGTON STREET

The eastern end of Rivington Street is a hectic thoroughfare. Often it is

so hectic as to be no thoroughfare at all, but only a tossing fever-dream, a
whirling phantasmagoria of noisy shadows, grotesque and reasonless. It
seems a street with a bad conscience, for it never sleeps.

The dawn, even in summertime, hesitates long before it comes shivering

up from the crowded East River to drop a few grudged rays of anæmic light
on Rivington Street. Already, out of the humming courts, the black alleys,
and the foul passages that feed this avenue as gutters feed a sewer, a long
funeral procession of little handcarts has groped its way and taken a
mournful stand beside the fetid curbs; and soon, pausing at these carts to
buy the rank morsels of breakfast that there is never time to eat at home, the
gray army of the workers begins to scurry westward.

First come the market-laborers, with shoulders bowed and muscles

cramped from the bearing of many burdens. Upon their heels march the
pale conscripts of the sweatshops, their hands shaking, their cheeks sunken,
their eyes hot from loss of sleep. Follow the sad-lipped factory-girls,
women before their time, old women before their youth, and then the long
line of predestined shop-clerks, most of them still in short skirts and all of
them, befittingly, in mourning-black. Swiftly they go, the whole corps of
them, the whole corps strangely silent.

The street is not emptied of them before it is filled again, now by

solemn children on their way to school, children whose gaze is fixed, whose
mouths are maturely set, and whose voices, when they are heard at all, are
high, strident, nervous. As these go by, the shops begin to do business: the
cheap food-shops, the old-clothes shops, the shops that sell second-hand
five-cent novels for a copper, and the pawnbrokers'. The shawl-hooded
housewives clutter in and out, selling first that they may buy afterward, and
continuing like ants swarming about an ant-hill until noon strikes and the
children parade stolidly away from school for luncheon, and back again.

At that hour the underworld of Rivington Street enough recovers from

its drunkenness of the night preceding to stagger forth and drink again. The
doors of the shouldering saloons swing open and bang shut in a running
accompaniment, and the highway rocks with it until a cloud of clattering
two-wheeled push-carts swoops from "The Push-Cart Garage" around the
corner and alights as if it were a plague of pestilent flies. Bearded Jews
propel these, Jews with shining derbies far back upon their heads, who
work sometimes for themselves, but more often for the owners of the push-
cart trust, who squabble for positions in the gutter where an impotent law
forbids any of them long to remain, but where, once entrenched, they stand
for hours, selling stockings at five cents and shirts at ten, mirrors and
vegetables, suspenders and lithographs, shoestrings and picture-postcards,
collars of linen and celluloid, all sorts of cheap dress-material, every
description of brush, fruit, and cigar-butts.

The carts are end-to-end now; one could walk upon them from cross-
street to cross-street. Each has its separate gasoline torch leaping up, in
flame and smoke, to the descending darkness. Upon them charge the
returning army of workers. The crowd is all moving eastward; you could
not make six yards of progress to the west; the sidewalks overflow, the
street is filled. The silence of the morning has changed to a mad chorus of
discords. The thousand weary feet shuffle, the venders shriek their wares;
there is every imaginable sound of strife and traffic, but there is no
distinguishable note of mirth. Wagons jostle pedestrians, graze children, are
blocked, held up, turned away. The thoroughfare is like a boiling cauldron;
it can hold no more, and still it must hold more and more.

Only very slowly, as the night wears on, do the crowd and noise lessen;
but at last, by tardy degrees, they do lessen. Imperceptibly, but inevitably,
even this portion of New York breathes somewhat easier. By twos and
threes the people melt away; a note at a time, the cries weaken and the
shuffling dies; and finally, in the small hours of the morning, Rivington
Street turns over, with a troubled sigh, to a restless doze.

But to doze only. Its bad conscience will grant it no absolute oblivion,
no perfect rest, however brief. Cats yell from the dizzy edges of the lower
roofs; dogs howl from the doorsteps. Back in the narrow courts and alleys
and passages, drunken battles are won and lost. The elevated cars roar out
the minutes through the nocturnal distances. An ambulance clangs into a
byway street. A patrol-wagon clatters past. Rivington Street turns and tosses
on its hot couch, and through its dreams slink hideous shadows that dare not
show themselves by day. One, ten, a hundred, each alone, they come and
go: vague, inhuman. And then, reluctantly, the hesitant dawn creeps
shivering out of the East River, and the weary day begins again.

Into this street—into its noisiest quarter at its noisiest time—the cab that
bore Violet on her way to liberty at last turned and proceeded as far under
the flaring gasoline torches as the evening crowd of workers, buyers, and
sellers, would permit. The girl, through the dark thoroughfares that had
preceded it, had answered a score of questions, which Dyker had asked her,
the fever of escape beating high in her breast and tossing ready replies to
her heated lips; but now, in the roar and brilliance of Rivington Street's
nocturnal traffic, there had come upon her a terror almost equal to that
which had assailed her when, with Max for her guide, the lighted length of
East Fourteenth Street had first unrolled itself before her. The city was
again an inimical monster awaiting her descent from the cab, and the newly
acquired habit of seclusion, the habit of the prisoner, recoiled upon her.
Freedom was strange; it became awesome, and when the horse was stopped
and Violet knew that she must soon fare alone, she cowered in a corner,
breathing hard.

"Can't go no furder, boss," said the cabby, leaning far around from his
seat. "Where to now?"

"Nowhere right away," answered Dyker. "Just stand where you are for a
minute."

Then he turned to Violet.

 "Now," he said, not unkindly, "I'm afraid I'll have to drop you here. It
wouldn't do for me to figure publicly as an active agent in this case, you
know. But you needn't worry. Just get out and walk to the next corner. Turn
to your right, take the next cross-street to your left, go up the first narrow
street you come to, and your friend's house ought to be about the third in the
row. It will be a little dark, but you won't have any trouble finding it."

Violet hesitated.

"I hope I won't," she said.

"Surely not. If you have, just ask the way of the first policeman you
see."

"Not a policeman, Mr. Dyker!"

"Of course, a policeman. He won't hurt you as long as you keep your
cloak tight. Now, you're sure you've given me the right address?"

"I gave you the one the man gave me."

"Yes, but I mean you're not lying to me?"

Violet's wide eyes should have been sufficient denial.

"Why would I do that?" she asked.

"That's so; only I thought—well, I beg your pardon, Violet. You have
my office-address on that card. I'll send for you in a day or two—be sure to
be home every afternoon—and then we'll fix Madame Rose with the
District-Attorney.—Good-by. Sure you're not afraid?"

Her gratitude would not permit her to acknowledge fear.

"Not afraid," she smiled, rather grimly.

"Then remember: the first street to your right, the next to your left, and
then to your right again—third or fourth house in the row."
 He opened the cab-door and alighted, holding out his hand.

She straightened her beaver hat, drew the folds of her dark cloak tightly
over the betraying crimson of her kimona, and, helped by his grasp,
followed him to the swarming curb.

"I—I don't know how to thank you," she said.

"Then don't try," returned Dyker, laughing easily. "You can make it all
right with me when you testify against Rose."

She kept his hand a moment longer, partly in fear of the human
multitude about her and partly in genuine gratitude.

"But I do thank you," she said.

Dyker, not too well liking the white light of publicity in which this little
scene was being enacted, pressed her hand and dropped it.

"That's all right," he responded. "Just don't forget your promise." He

stepped back into the cab. "Good-by, and good luck," he said.

"Good-by," he heard her answer, and then, with his head out of the cab-
window, he saw her pause bewilderedly. "To your right," he cautioned.

He watched her turn. He saw her plunge into the crowd. He saw the
crowd swallow her up.

"Take me over to my office," he ordered the driver, and added his

address.

Once there, he dismissed the cab, climbed the steps of what seemed an
old and modest little house, and, opening the door and turning into the front
room, lit a gas-jet the flame of which revealed an apartment surprisingly
new and arrogant. The walls were lined with new bookcases holding rows
of new law-books, and surrounded by rows of new chairs. The flat-top desk
in the center, at which his stenographer sat by daylight, was a new desk,
with new wire-baskets upon it, and a new telephone, to which Dyker now
immediately proceeded and called a number.
 "Hello," he said into the transmitter, adopting the low tone that he
always used in his wired conversations. "Is that Schleger's?—It is?—That
you, Ludwig?—This is Dyker.—Yes, good-evening, Ludwig.—Yes, pretty
good, thank you. How are you, and how's business?—That's good. Mrs.
Schleger and the babies all right?—I'll bet that boy's gained three pounds!
—He has? I'm glad to hear it. You're a wonder.—Yes.—That's what I said.
And, say, Ludwig, is O'Malley anywhere around?—He isn't?—Hasn't been
in this evening?—Oh! Well, I wonder where I can find him.—You don't?
Perhaps he's at Dugan's place.—No, it's not anything important: I just
wanted to take a drink with him, that's all. He's sure to be at Dugan's or
Venturio's, but I guess I won't bother. Ever so much obliged, Ludwig.—
Good-by."

In spite of his word, Dyker did, however, bother. He called three other
numbers in his quest of the political boss, and when he found him, the
underling made a pressing appointment for an important conference on the
next morning, though what it was that he wanted then to discuss he
carefully neglected to mention over a telephone-wire.

He hung up the receiver in a glow of satisfaction.

"And now," he said, "I think I'll get away for the night. I don't care to
have any arguments with Rose for a day or two."

Yet, even as he said it, the telephone-bell uttered its staccato summons.
He stood uncertainly beside the desk.

"She wouldn't have the nerve to use the wire," he argued. "Perhaps it's
O'Malley with more to say."

Again the bell rang, and his curiosity overcame his caution. He took up
the receiver.

"Hello!" he said sharply, and then his tone mellowed, for the voice that
came to him across the hurrying New York night was the voice of Marian
Lennox.

"Is that Mr. Dyker's office?" it asked.

 "It is the head of the firm himself," he answered, "and mighty glad to
hear from you."

"I am glad you're glad," the voice pursued, "because I want to ask a
favor."

"It is as good as performed. What is it?"

"I have been down town, and remained longer than I intended, and I
want you, please, to take me home."

"I thought you were asking a favor, not bestowing one. Where are you?"

"At the settlement."

"In Rivington Street?" Wesley set his teeth as he asked it.

"Yes."

"Very well, I'll be over right away."

He rang off and left the office. He was sorry that he had dismissed the
cab, for he expected to need it when he reached the first stage of his
journey; but the way was not long to the place that Marian had named, and,
even had it been twice as far to the settlement, Dyker, who walked thither
with the feet of chagrin, would not have remarked the distance.

In the midst of Rivington Street, in a house that used, long ago, to be a

Methodist parsonage, a little group of devoted women are doing their best
to redeem, by social activities, the people of the neighborhood from the
benighted condition in which the people's lot is cast. This best has now been
done for more years than a few, and the people, still considering it
necessary to remain alive, and still knowing that to remain alive they must
submit to the economic system imposed upon them, continue
discouragingly unredeemed. But the devoted women, though they neglect
the disease for its symptoms, persist as only feminine natures can persist.

They are college-bred women with the limitations and emancipations of

their class; and they have a great deal to occupy their attention besides their
essays in social entertainment. For the most part they pass their days in
really practical investigation. One of them will inspect the public schools
and impartially consider curricula and ventilation. Another will visit
tenements and ask housewives personal questions for the tabular benefit of
the Russell Sage Foundation. A third goes into the laundries of the best
hotels and finds that these hostelries force their washerwomen to sleep
twenty in a room. Yet, when they return to Rivington Street, these daylight
investigators spur their wearied nerves to further exertion and go forward,
not to teach the toilers the practical cause and remedy of the economic evil,
but to form the boys and girls, the young women and young men, into
reading groups, debating clubs, sewing circles, cooking classes, and
elocutionary juntas. Their zeal is boundless, their martyrdom sadly genuine,
and, if there is humor, there is something more than humor in their ultimate
complaint:

"Some of our people we retain, but most of them slip away, and, even
with the best of fortune, we seem, somehow, able to do so little."

Dyker knew the place by reputation. He had always scorned it for its
own sake, and now he had come to hate it for Marian's. For want of a better
term, it may be repeated that he was in love with Marian. Moreover, he
wished the assistance that an early marriage with the daughter of a wealthy
department-store owner would give him in the coming campaign. And,
finally, his peculiar legal activities were already well enough known on the
East Side to make it probable that any young woman entering the settlement
would speedily learn of them.

After the night of the opera his cooler reflection had rejected Marian's
plan of joining the Rivington Street colony as a fervently girlish dream
destined to fade before the reality of action. He had decided that the best
way to aid its dissipation was no longer to combat it, and he had even,
during the months that had followed, seen Marian but rarely, and never
alone. Occupied with politics and knowing the tactical value of restraint, he
had not so much as pressed his wooing. He had relied upon what he chose
to describe as his sweetheart's basic commonsense to work out their
common salvation, and had decided that, this commonsense being what he
esteemed it, Marian was a woman more likely to be won by a Fabian
campaign than by a Varric attack.

The point wherein these calculations erred was their underestimation of

the momentum of a girlish impulse. That method of consideration which
makes one slow to reach convictions works beyond the convictions and
retards one from action upon them, once they are achieved, but the
impulsive mind that bolts a creed unmasticated straightway drives its
owner, in the creed's behalf, to the thumbscrews or the wrack. It is from the
pods of half-baked opinions that there is shaken the seed of the church:
Marian meant to keep to her purpose.

Perhaps Wesley's silence and the subtle sense of pique that it awakened
played a part in this; perhaps the purpose was self-sufficient; but, in either
case, Marian missed scarcely an evening at the settlement. Two of her
former classmates were knee-deep in the work there, and what she saw and
what they told her served only to confirm her. It thus happened that, anxious
again to see him alone, and more anxious to let him know the endurance of
her resolution, she had, on this evening, telephoned on the chance of finding
him late at his office.

"Good heavens!" he gasped as she met him at the settlement's door.

"What on earth are you doing in this part of town at this hour of the night?
Let me 'phone for a taxi."

What, as a matter of fact, she had been doing was to listen to slim little
Luigi Malatesta and fat little Morris Binderwitz respectively attacking and
defending the proposition that Abraham Lincoln was a greater American
than George Washington; but what she thought she had been doing was
assisting in raising the lower half of society. Under this impression, her fine
brown eyes shone with the consciousness of moral rectitude, her mouth was
even more than usually firm, and her head even more than usually like
some delicate cameo.

"One thing at a time, please," she imperturbably answered. "First, no

taxicab. It isn't far to Second Avenue, which is quiet enough, and I want to
walk for a few blocks."
 She took the arm that he grimly offered, and he began to break his way
through the noisy crowd under the flaring gasoline lamps of the push-carts.
Coherent conversation was at first impossible, but Dyker felt a glow of
pride as, with her fingers closed in tight trust upon him, he shouldered a
passage for her, and Marian herself was not insusceptible to the thrill
inherent in the situation. Nevertheless, the girl, as soon as they had turned
northward, reverted to her former attitude; and the man, knowing well that
all this meant that she was still determined upon a course necessarily
delaying his wooing and perhaps resulting in his discovery, frankly resumed
his opposition. He did more and worse: he swept aside all his method of
silence, all his plans of conquest through non-resistance.

"Now," he said, continuing their interrupted talk, "I should really like to
know what you, of all people in the world, were doing on Rivington Street."

"I was there," she announced serenely, "because I have made up my

mind that it is I, of all people in the world, who ought to be there."

"Marian,"—he almost stopped as he said it—"are you really in earnest

about this fancy? Do you honestly mean that you are seriously considering
any such chimerical course?"

He had, naturally, chosen precisely the tone that, were any additional
incentive required, would have compelled her to resolution. Her mind, as it
chanced, was, however, made up, and what he now said served only to turn
her toward that feminine logic which assumes as done that which is
determined.

"I am past consideration," she said. "I have already virtually begun."

"Marian! You're joking."

"I am simply stating a fact. Why do you suppose I have been staying in
town this summer? I begin my real work at the settlement with the first of
next week."

Her classmates in Rivington Street, could they have heard this, would
have been pleased, but they would also have been surprised. Nevertheless,
she at once mentally decided to make good her declaration.

In the darkness Dyker bit the lip that, under his short, crisp mustache,
trembled with vexation.

"You really mean that?"

She bowed a brief assent.

"Then what, if you please, do you propose to do when you get there?"

As to that Marian found herself suddenly certain.

"You ought to know," she said, "how these people are living; you ought
to know how the girls—hundreds and hundreds of them—are every week
going into lives of shame and death. I mean to do what I can to stop them."

It would have been a hard thing for her to say to him had he not
wrought upon her anger, and had not the freshness of her partial glimpse of
earth's lower seven-eighths fired her heart with a blind inspiration. She had
the partial vision that makes the martyr: a vision that shows just enough of
an evil to confirm the necessity of action and not enough to prove how little
individual action individually directed can be worth.

For the second time Wesley gasped. Here were depths in her of which
he had not dreamed, and because he had not dreamed of them he would not
admit them.

"But you can't!" he protested. "It is impossible that you should. It's
inconceivable that a woman of your delicacy should go into such coarse
work!"

"Is it better that it should be left to coarse women? It seems to me that

there has been enough of coarseness in it already."

"But this—why, it's something that one can't even speak about!"

"Yes, something that we are not permitted even to mention, Wesley; and
because we aren't permitted even to mention it, the thing grows and grows,
night by night. It thrives in the shadow of our silence. They tell me that the
liquor laws are broken, because nobody will mention it; that bestial men get
rich in it, because nobody will mention it; that in this city alone there are
three hundred saloon dance-halls intended to furnish its supply, because
nobody will mention it!"

Figuratively, Dyker threw up his hands in horror, but actually, like all
desperate men, he seized at the straws of detail.

"Now, that just shows how wrong your view of the whole subject
happens to be," he declared. "My work has put me in a position to know
something about these dance-halls, and I know that they exist simply
because the girls that go to them want them to exist—the girls, mark you;
not the men. Why, the girls aren't taken to such places; they go of
themselves, they pay their own admission, and it is the usual thing for a girl
earning six dollars a week in a store to save fifty cents out of every salary-
envelope for the dance-halls."

"Then you want me to conclude that the fact that they want to do the
thing makes the thing right?"

"You don't understand——"

"Precisely; and so I mean to learn."

"You can't learn. No matter how closely you study this whole matter,
you can't learn, Marian. How can a clean-hearted, clean-lived American girl
ever get the point of view of these low-down, low-browed foreigners? It's
the sort of thing they're used to."

"Before they begin it?"

"It's the survival of the fittest."

"Then can't some be made more fit to survive?"

"It's the law of life, and it can't be stopped."

 "So was negro slavery the law of life. It couldn't be stopped either—
until we stopped it."

"That is all theory, Marian; it won't work out in practice. The great point
is that these unfortunate women, whether they become unfortunate through
the dance-halls or anywhere else, are simply not our sort of clay: they're not
Americans."

"They are human beings."

"A pretty low example."

"And they are more Americans than your ancestors or mine were three
hundred years ago."

"Nonsense. They're different, I tell you—different. Seriously, I know

what I am talking about: I speak from systematic investigations, reports,
statistics. The very latest investigation shows that all but about thirteen per
cent. of these women were either born abroad or else are the children of
foreign parents. It is always the newest immigrants that swell the ranks, and
of course the newest immigrants are our lowest type."

"I don't see that all this alters the question."

"Well, it does."

"The lower they are, the more plainly it is our duty to raise them."

"My dear Marian, how can you raise them when you don't understand
them?"

Marian shook her handsome head.

"You will come back to that," she said; "and all that I can answer is that,
not being utterly stupid, and having come to understand a few abstract
problems, I have hopes of mastering something so close at hand to me and
so concrete as a fellow human being."
 "What, for instance?" asked Wesley, "can you understand of the typical
Jewish girl of the East Side?"

"A good deal, I think. They were talking about that type at the
settlement this evening. We were looking from the front windows at an
endless stream of Jewish girls tramping home from the factories where they
worked to the tenements where they slept. Somebody said there are nearly
four hundred thousand Jews living east of the Bowery; that in most Jewish
families the ambition to which every comfort must be sacrificed is the
education of the boys; that for this reason the girls must work and are
worked until there is nowhere else in the world where so much labor is got
out of young women, and yet that the Jewess that is not married and a
mother before she is twenty is regarded as a family disgrace. It seems to
me, Wesley, that the case of those girls is pretty easy to understand. It seems
to me that they are on the horns of a rather ugly dilemma."

Dyker's cane whipped the air as if it were striking at the heads of

opposing arguments.

"You accept as gospel," he said, "everything that is told you by anybody

but me. It isn't a pleasant subject, but, if you insist upon facts, let me tell
you that there are troops of Jewesses who come down here from the upper
Ghetto and walk the streets for no other purpose than to get money for their
wedding trousseaus."

It was a blow at her conventions, and she shuddered; but she stood by
her guns. They had crossed down Twenty-sixth Street now and they turned
into the quiet of Madison Avenue, among comfortable houses and silent
churches, as she answered.

"If they do that," she said, "it is because they have to."

"Have to? Why on earth should they have to?"

"I don't know, but I know that the very use they make of the money
shows what they do is only a means and not an end."
 "Are trousseaus so necessary that these girls have to sell their souls for
them?"

"Souls have been sold for less. Even you and I make considerable
sacrifices for things that other people in other classes would not think
needful at all."

He had done his best to bridle his annoyance, but now he could bridle it
no longer. He was wholly sincere in his inability to take seriously either the
girl or her point of view, and now, though he felt as if he were riding a
hunter at a butterfly, he charged blindly.

"Oh, please don't let us jump at sentiment and theory," he remonstrated;

"let us keep our feet on figures and fact. The figures grow with the
population; they always have so grown and they always will so grow. And
the plain fact is that, though a few good people have been trying to stop this
thing for four thousand years, they have never succeeded in doing anything
but soiling themselves in the attempt."

"I know that," she frankly acknowledged, "and I don't know what it is
that's to blame; but I know that there isn't any evil that hasn't some cure if
we can only find it out."

"Then why not leave the search for a cure to the experienced?"

"I shall; but I propose to become one of the experienced. I mean to give
my time, at least for a while, to first-hand study. Perhaps then I shall learn
enough to know that it's useless for me to go on, but I shall keep trying to
go on until I am convinced that there isn't any use in the trying."

"That's absurd, Marian—simply absurd. The condition is, after all, one
that must be dealt with by the law, and I tell you honestly that, as yet, even
the law is helpless."

"Has the law really tried? Has it ever attempted, for instance, to do
anything to the men that take these immigrant girls at the dock and make
slaves of them?"
 "Yes, it has; it has tried just that. In Chicago two men were arrested for
taking a couple of such girls—they had brought them from New York—and
when the case was appealed, the United States Supreme Court found that,
though importation of girls was a violation of federal law, yet the federal
law providing a punishment for merely harboring such girls after their
arrival was unconstitutional."

Marian's voice faltered.

"Is—is that true?" she asked.

"Absolutely," said Dyker. Like most lawyers of his generation, his ideas
of what was right were limited only by the final decisions of what was
legal, and if the Supreme Court of the United States had, by even a majority
of one, declared that the sun moved around the earth, Dyker would have
first denied and then forgotten all previous astronomy.

"Absolutely," he repeated, and awaited her capitulation.

But Marian did not capitulate. She merely drew a long breath and
answered:

"After all, that, of course, is just a small portion of the big question, and
the only way it moves me is to lessen my opinion of the Supreme Court."

It was Wesley's turn to gasp, and he did so. He had always suspected
that these college-settlements were hotbeds of Socialism and Anarchy—two
theories that, to Dyker, were one and the same—and now he had his
confirmation.

He was too cynically wrong upon one side of their subject to realize
how emotionally wrong she, in her hope of accomplishment through
personal appeal, might be upon the other. But here was a concrete denial of
his one sincere conviction, and, though he was at last calm enough to see
that he must not allow this conviction to wreck his suit, he was not so calm
as to maintain a clear judgment. It was plain that Marian would not be
turned from her experiment. His best course was, he then reasoned,
immediately to put on record his opinion of its futility, even to quarrel with
her in defense of that opinion, and then, when experience brought the
awakening upon which his own worldly experience counted, to stand ready
to profit by the inevitable reaction that would most likely show the perfidy
of the women whom Marian hoped to help, detract from the credibility of
any gossip they might recount concerning him, and end by winning him his
wife.

"All right," he said sharply, "it is perfectly useless to talk reasonably to

anybody that can take such a view of so simple a matter. Here is Thirty-
fourth Street. I think we had better walk over to Broadway and get that
taxi."

The worst thing that a man can impute to a handsome woman is a lack
of intellect. Marian's cheeks flushed.

"I quite agree with you," she replied. "I am utterly incapable of arguing
with anybody that so confuses law and justice."

"Very well," said Dyker; "but I want you to remember what I have said
upon the subject as a whole. When you have trusted these women and been
betrayed by them, when they have poisoned your mind against all the
principles you have been brought up to believe, when you have left the
world of sentiment and bruised your poor hands with hammering at the
door of fact, then you will acknowledge that I have been right. I am not
angry——"

"Oh, of course not!"

"I am not angry, but I am firm. I only ask you to believe that I shall
never be far away from the settlement, and that you have only to telephone
for me when you have need of me."

Marian compressed her lips to a more severe firmness, and the ride from
Thirty-fourth Street to Riverside Drive was made in silence; but the
following Monday found her, against all parental protests, enlisted as a
settlement-worker in Rivington Street.