Page:That Royle Girl (Balmer).pdf/154

 "That," said Calvin, "is the chief issue of the trial." And, as he terminated the discussion, he realized that he had been defending the Royle girl against this girl in his arms.

She reminded him somewhat of the Nesson girl for her trick of obtruding her body; and he thought, contrastingly, how little had the Royle girl, whom he had found in pajamas, obtruded her form. To recall his first encounter with her, was to recollect her spirit, her blue eyes and white brow and her dark hair, and her head up in challenge to him. Of course, he thought too of her slender figure and her slim white heels but not of her displaying them.

It was thus, by considering her contrast to this girl, with whom he danced, that he became stirred to question the complete correctness of his opinion of Joan Daisy Royle's character; and it was then that he determined to make another visit uptown.

This notion amazingly tantalized him during the next days and led him, on Tuesday evening, to travel by elevated train to the Wilson Avenue station, whence he debouched at six o'clock amid the typists and file clerks, shop-girls and mannequins, hair-dressers, fitters, tailors, shoe clerks, automobile salesmen, barbers, realtors, draftsmen, demonstrators, insurance agents, accountants and the others, who had finished downtown their toils for the day and were returning home.

Each girl and each man must be bound, eventually, to some such home as the Royle girl's, Calvin thought; and he remembered how he had asked her, when in her sleeping-room, where was her home and she had replied, with surprise, "You're in it."

So each of these people, when she or he arrived at a small four-walled space in one of these flat-buildings or one of these hotels, would say, "I'm home." No wonder