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A dozen apologies surged to Emma McChesney’s lips just as the driver drew up at the curbing outside the hotel and jumped down to open the door. She found herself hoping that the hotel clerk would not class her with her companion.

At eleven o’clock that morning Emma McChesney unlocked her door and walked down the red-carpeted hotel corridor. She had had two hours of restful sleep. She had bathed, and breakfasted, and donned clean clothes. She had brushed the cinders out of her hair, and manicured. She felt as alert, and cool and refreshed as she looked, which speaks well for her comfort.

Halfway down the hail a bedroom door stood open. Emma McChesney glanced in. What she saw made her stop. The next moment she would have hurried on, but the figure within called out to her.

Miss Blanche LeHaye had got into her kimono again. She was slumped in a dejected heap in a chair before the window. There was a tray, with a bottle and some glasses on the table by her side.

“Gawd, ain’t it hot!” she whined miserably. “Come on in a minute. I left the door open to catch the breeze, but there ain’t any. You look like a peach just off the ice. Got a gent friend in town?”

“No,” answered Emma McChesney hurriedly, and turned to go.

“Wait a minute,” said Blanche LeHaye, sharply, and rose. She slouched over to where Emma McChesney stood and looked up at her sullenly.

“Why!” gasped Emma McChesney, and involuntarily put out her hand, “why–my dear–you’ve been crying! Is there–“

“No, there ain’t. I can bawl, can’t I, if I am a bum burlesquer?” She put down the squat little glass she had in her hand and stared resentfully at Emma McChesney’s cool, fragrant freshness.

“Say,” she demanded suddenly, “whatja mean by lookin’ at me the way you did this morning, h’m? Whatja mean? You got a nerve turnin’ up your nose at me, you have. I’ll just bet you ain’t no better than you might be, neither. What the–“

Swiftly Emma McChesney crossed the room and closed the door. Then she came back to where Blanche LeHaye stood.

“Now listen to me,” she said. “You shed that purple kimono of yours and hustle into some clothes and come along with me. I mean it. Whenever I’m anywhere near this town I make a jump and Sunday here. I’ve a friend here named Morrissey–Ethel Morrissey–and she’s the biggest-hearted, most understanding friend that a woman ever had. She’s skirt and suit buyer at Barker & Fisk’s here. I have a standing invitation to spend Sunday at her house. She knows I’m coming. I help get dinner if I feel like it, and wash my hair if I want to, and sit out in the back yard, and fool with the dog, and act like a human being for one day. After you’ve been on the road for ten years a real Sunday dinner in a real home has got Sherry’s flossiest efforts looking like a picnic collation with ants in the pie. You’re coming with me, more for my sake than for yours, because the thought of you sitting here, like this, would sour the day for me.”

Blanche LeHaye’s fingers w
ere picking at the pin which fastened her gown. She smiled, uncertainly.

“What’s your game?” she inquired.

“I’ll wait for you downstairs,” said Emma McChesney, pleasantly. “Do you ever have any luck with caramel icing? Ethel’s and mine always curdles.”

“Do I?” yelled the queen of burlesque. “I invented it.” And she was down on her knees, her fingers fumbling with the lock of her suitcase.

Only an Ethel Morrissey, inured to the weird workings of humanity by years of shrewd skirt and suit buying, could have stood the test of having a Blanche LeHaye thrust upon her, an unexpected guest, and with the woman across the street sitting on her front porch taking it all in.

At the door–“This is Miss Blanche LeHaye of the–er–Simon–“

“Sam Levin Crackerjack Belles,” put in Miss LeHaye. “Pleased to meet you.”

“Come in,” said Miss Ethel Morrissey without batting an eye. “I just ‘phoned the hotel. Thought you’d gone back on me, Emma. I’m baking a caramel cake. Don’t slam the door. This your first visit here, Miss LeHaye? Excuse me for not shaking hands. I’m all flour. Lay your things in there. Ma’s spending the day with Aunt Gus at Forest City and I’m the whole works around here. It’s got skirts and suits beat a mile. Hot, ain’t it? Say, suppose you girls slip off your waists and I’ll give you each an all-over apron that’s loose and let’s the breeze slide around.”