didn't have the money? He could get it, of course. If worst came to worst he could probably borrow from somebody. But very likely he wouldn't have it that evening. That would mean another visit from the collector. That was a disgrace. Lillian had been reared to believe that nothing was more disgraceful than not having one's rent on the first of the month. She remembered Mrs. Egan—a dim shadow from out of her childhood. Mrs. Egan had never had her rent on the first. One month the rent collector had come eleven times. Lillian remembered because her mother had spoken of it later.
Oh, if the landlord only knew Hubert! If he only realized that Hubert was not the same as his other tenants. Thirty-five dollars was nothing to him. The rent was ridiculously small. Only just now, of course, there was a little slump in Hubert's fortunes. She wondered if she could write well enough to convey to the landlord some inkling of Hubert's real status. How he had given money away like nothing. How he would soon be able to do so again. She sat at her window looking down into the hot street and wondering what sort of person the landlord was. Probably an impossible sort who would be more impressed by regular payment of that insignificant rent than by anything she could say of Hubert.
The sun glittered on the pavement and women rocked baby-carriages and fanned themselves and talked. Children fell and their mothers spanked them. Across the street there was another woman sitting at her window looking at the doings on the street. Lillian wondered if that woman had her rent ready to hand the collector. If she hadn't she could sell that ring that the sun kept
