THE VERY TIRED GIRL
into the waiting cab, and galloped off toward the river edge of the city.
True to his promise, the Political Economist did not speak to her, but he certainly had not promised to keep his eyes shut as well as his mouth. From the very first she sat far forward on the seat where the passing street-lights blazed upon her unconscious face. The Man, the cab, love-making, debt-paying, all were forgotten in her desperate effort to keep keyed up to the working-point. Her brain was hurriedly sketching in her backgrounds. Her suddenly narrowed eyes foretold the tingling pride in some particular imagining. The flashing twist of her smile predicted the touch of malice that was to make her pictures the sensation of—a day.
The finish of the three-mile drive found her jubilant, prescient, pulsing with power. The glow from the flames lit up the cab like a room. The engine bells clanged around them. Sparks glittered. Steam hissed. When the cabman's horse refused to scorch his nose any nearer the conflagration, Noreen turned to the Political Economist with some embarrassment. "If you really want to help me," she pleaded, "you'll stay here in the cab and wait for me."
Then, before the Political Economist could offer his angry protest, she had opened the door, jumped
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