The other had no stomach for such an adversary. He backed out of the door, closing it as he vanished. His voice floated in from the hall.

"I'm telling you!" he called. "Clear out!"

Nicholas Devine turned back toward the girl. He surveyed her sitting in her chair; she had dropped her chin to her hand to steady the whirling of her head.

"We'll go," he said. "Come on."

"I just want to sit here," she said. "Just let me sit here. I'm tired."

"Come on," he repeated.

"Why?" she muttered petulantly. "I'm tired."

"I want no interruptions. We'll go elsewhere."

"Must dress!" she murmured dazedly, "can't go on street without dress."

Nicholas Devine swept her frock from its place in the corner, gathered her wrap from the chair, and flung them over his arm. He grasped her wrist, tugging her to an unsteady standing position.

"Come on," he said.

"Dress!"

He snatched the red checked table cloth from its place, precipitating bottles, ash-tray, and glasses into an indiscriminate pile, and threw the stained and odorous fabric across her shoulders. She gathered it about her like a toga; it hung at most points barely below her waist, but it satisfied the urge of her muddled mind for a covering of some sort.

"We'll go through the rear," her companion said. "Into the alley. I want no trouble with that rat in the bar--yet!"

He still held Pat's wrist; she stumbled after him as he dragged her into the darkness of the hall. They moved through it blindly to a door at the far end; Nicholas swung it open upon a dim corridor flanked by buildings on either side, with a strip of star-sprinkled sky above.

Pat's legs were somehow incapable of their usual lithe grace; she failed to negotiate the single step, and crashed heavily to the concrete paving. The shock and the cooler air of the open steadied her momentarily; she felt no pain from her bruised knees, but a temporary rift in the fog that bound her mind. She gathered the red-checked cloth more closely about her shoulders as her 

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