Page:That Royle Girl (Balmer).pdf/13

 and courts her in a taxicab and in the dark of motion picture theaters. A hotel room makes a home; a mansion is an apartment of one room, two or three, with bed built in a door, kitchenette in a cubby and the whole rented, with precarious delightfulness, for three months or, recklessly, for six.

A girl living here naturally looks out for herself; and Joan Daisy, as she proceeded toward her home, knew that she would be accosted or not just as she pleased. She did not please; and, as men loitered by, she knew exactly what to do. She went on with the same lilt in her step, neither gazing at the men nor making a point of avoiding them. She merely showed them that they were out of her mind; and they were. As a matter of fact, she was watching her shadow as she went along; for now that the brighter street-lamps were extinguished, the moon was casting an image of her upon the walk.

The glow from the posts which remained alight, somewhat confused her shadow made by the moon; but she soon turned into an avenue to the east which was darkened and where her shadow consequently became sharp and distinct as it accompanied her at her side.

Not only her shadow but the moon itself began to follow her, skimming in the sky over the roofs of the apartments and hotels on the south side of the street, halting whenever she stopped to gaze at it and then keeping pace with her, step by step, past chimney, past coping and parapet of the roofs.

No men happened to be loitering on this street, which was built up solidly from the boulevard to its end at the shore of the lake about a thousand feet away. Most of the buildings presented straight walls to the sidewalk, but a few fronted, not directly upon the street, but upon long, narrow courts cut back from the walk.

Joan Daisy lived in one of these—an ornate and im-