But when he came to the house where he had visited her, he was told that she no longer lived there.  With a sudden pang it occurred to him that once more she might have moved a step down the economic scale toward the furnished room in one of those dingy lodging-houses which she had dreaded; places where the heart sickens at the forlornness of its environment.

He inquired for the girl with whom Marcia had shared the little apartment, and to his relief learned that she still had her abode here and would receive him.  As he opened the door, Dorothy Melliss was bending over her drawing-board by a north window, rushing through some fashion illustrations which must be delivered on the morrow.  She greeted Paul with a nod and went on with her work, while he explained his mission.

Dorothy was a wholesome young person of clear complexion and straightforward eyes and she spoke with an independence of manner amounting to slanginess.  She was one of those girls whom an unaided life in the city fosters.  She could take care of herself—­and did—­but she knew life and looked it in the face—­and dispensed with anything like a baby stare in doing so.  Now she listened to Paul’s talk, then suddenly shoved back her India-ink bottle and wiped her pen, while her pupils met his with directness.

“Before I answer any of your questions, Mr. Burton, I’ve got a few to ask you myself,” she announced.  “I might as well talk straight from the shoulder.  Just how anxious you are to see Marcia isn’t going to make such a great difference in my young life.  Whether or not she wants you to find her—­does make a great deal of difference.”

“What do you mean, Miss Melliss?” Paul was genuinely puzzled.

“I mean that of course I know her address—­or addresses—­because they change every day.  I also know that she gave me the most explicit orders not to tell you where she could be found.”

“Oh!” he exclaimed in disappointment, relinquishing his inquiry at the first obstacle.  “Then I suppose I may as well go.”

“Hold on,” she commanded tersely.  “I’m Marcia Terroll’s friend.  I think I’m enough her friend to decide for myself whether I can help her most by obeying or disobeying her.  Sit down for five minutes and listen to me.  I feel like talking.”

He obeyed, and the young woman’s face flushed with her interest as she took a chair near him and lighted a cigarette.  After that she sat for a few moments reflectively silent.

“I guess there isn’t so much similarity between Marcia and me, but there’s one thing—­and it’s a bond of kinship in a way.”  She looked at him unwaveringly.  “We’ve both been on our own for some time in a town where there are more Don Juans than Walter Raleighs—­and we’re both straight.  To the women of your protected set that wouldn’t be so much to brag of—­about as much as for a millionaire to boast that he’d never picked a pocket.  None of those sheltered girls in your own world, where women nibble at life like bon-bons, have anything on Marcia Terroll.  In brain and character and charm she has it over those female noncombatants like a tent.”