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Annotated Atlas of Coastal
and Marine Winds
This page intentionally left blank
Annotated Atlas of Coastal
and Marine Winds

Nazla Bushra
Department of Oceanography and Coastal Sciences,
Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA, United States

Robert V. Rohli
Department of Oceanography and Coastal Sciences,
Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA, United States
Elsevier
Radarweg 29, PO Box 211, 1000 AE Amsterdam, Netherlands
The Boulevard, Langford Lane, Kidlington, Oxford OX5 1GB, United Kingdom
50 Hampshire Street, 5th Floor, Cambridge, MA 02139, United States
Copyright © 2021 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including
photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
Details on how to seek permission, further information about the Publisher’s permissions policies and our arrangements with
organizations such as the Copyright Clearance Center and the Copyright Licensing Agency, can be found at our website: www.
elsevier.com/permissions.
This book and the individual contributions contained in it are protected under copyright by the Publisher (other than as may be
noted herein).
Notices
Knowledge and best practice in this field are constantly changing. As new research and experience broaden our understanding,
changes in research methods, professional practices, or medical treatment may become necessary.
Practitioners and researchers must always rely on their own experience and knowledge in evaluating and using any information,
methods, compounds, or experiments described herein. In using such information or methods they should be mindful of their
own safety and the safety of others, including parties for whom they have a professional responsibility.
To the fullest extent of the law, neither the Publisher nor the authors, contributors, or editors, assume any liability for any injury
and/or damage to persons or property as a matter of products liability, negligence or otherwise, or from any use or operation of
any methods, products, instructions, or ideas contained in the material herein.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress
ISBN: 978-0-12-820061-2

For Information on all Elsevier publications


visit our website at https://www.elsevier.com/books-and-journals

Publisher: Candice Janco


Acquisitions Editor: Louisa Munro
Editorial Project Manager: Samantha Allard
Production Project Manager: Prem Kumar Kaliamoorthi
Cover Designer: Alan Studholme
Typeset by MPS Limited, Chennai, India
Contents

Acknowledgments vii 3. The role of atmospheric humidity


in global winds 49

1. Introduction 1 4. Diurnal wind patterns 75

2. Monthly wind patterns 17 5. Tracks of severe coastal and


marine tropical cyclones 127
Ocean circulation 44
Monsoon circulations 47 Index 155

v
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Acknowledgments

The authors express their gratitude to their partners and colleagues at Elsevier, particularly Ali Afzal-Khan, Samantha
Allard, Prem Kumar Kaliamoorthi, Louisa Munro, Unni Kannan Ramu, and the rest of the editorial team for sharing
their talents, confidence, patience, and resources through this enjoyable project. The constructive comments and sugges-
tions from three anonymous reviewers are also most appreciated. The authors also thank their families and the
Department of Oceanography & Coastal Sciences and College of the Coast & Environment at Louisiana State
University for the overwhelming support and encouragement during this project and beyond.

vii
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Chapter 1

Introduction
The Earth’s surface temperature

To an unappreciative observer, the world’s five oceans—the Arctic, Atlantic, Indian, Pacific, and Southern oceans
(Fig. 1.1)—may look similar on the surface. But upon further reflection, everyone should agree that they, and
the local names for various inlets and sections of the oceans (shown in red in Fig. 1.1), are truly remarkable, unique places.

The wide array of life and complicated ecosystems and food webs that the oceans and their inlets support is depen-
dent on energy from the Sun. One important representation of that energy received from the Sun is the temperature.
Therefore, before we can understand the oceans, it is important to understand how the Sun’s radiation, manifested as
temperature, is received throughout the year.

The geometry of the Earth’s position relative to the Sun causes the tropical parts of the Earth to experience the Sun at a
nearly overhead position near noon, throughout the year, even as Earth orbits the Sun. When the Sun is overhead or nearly
overhead, it has great capacity to warm the surface, because its radiant energy arrives in a near perpendicular path to the sur-
face. At the Equator (the imaginary east-west-running line dividing the Earth in half) itself, the Earth Sun geometry means
that every single day, there are 12 hours of daylight and 12 hours of darkness. This consistency in the number of daylight
hours throughout the year, which is related to the high Sun angle throughout the year, causes the equatorial regions to remain
warm year-round.
By contrast, the Earth Sun geometry cause the polar parts of the Earth to experience the Sun at a much more overhead
angle during part of the year (summer) than the opposite part (winter). This causes summers to be warmer than winters. In fact,
the difference in Sun angle throughout the year increases with distance from the Equator, which is defined as 0 degree latitude,
to the North or South Pole, which lie at 90 degrees latitude North or South (of the Equator), respectively. At 66.5 degrees lati-
tude (the Arctic Circle in the Northern Hemisphere and the Antarctic Circle in the Southern Hemisphere), even the noonday
Sun shines only below the horizon on 1 day per year the first day of winter—the winter solstice, which occurs in the Northern
Hemisphere on December 21 or 22 (depending on how the calendar falls on that year). In other words, at the Arctic and
Antarctic Circles, there is no daylight at all on at least 1 day of the year; it remains dark for 24 consecutive hours. And pole-
ward of the Arctic and Antarctic Circles, the number of consecutive calendar days that remain dark increases from one at 66.5
degrees North or South latitude to 6 months at the North and South Poles. But only one of the two hemispheres (Northern or
Southern) receives the lengthy period of darkness at a time.

Likewise, at the Arctic and Antarctic Circles, the Sun never goes below the horizon—even at midnight—on 1 day per
year—the first day of summer—the summer solstice, or June 21 or 22 in the Northern Hemisphere. Southern Hemisphere
residents refer to December 21 or 22 as the summer solstice and June 21 or 22 as the winter solstice. At latitudes increas-
ingly poleward of the Arctic and Antarctic Circles, the length of time between sunrises in the winter part of the year and sun-
sets in the summer part of the year expands successively from 24 hours at the Arctic and Antarctic Circles, to 6 months at
the North and South Poles. Never accept a job in the polar parts of the Earth for which you are paid by the day!
The abundant solar radiation receipt in the latitudes near the Equator—known as the “low latitudes” or the Tropics—
provides even more radiant energy than is lost from the emission of radiation by the surface and atmosphere upward toward
space. This generates a surplus of solar radiation in tropical latitudes. As latitude increases from the Equator, the seasonal differ-
ences in Sun angle, number of daylight hours, and therefore solar radiation receipt, increase. On the whole, the net radiation
receipt decreases poleward, primarily due to reduced incoming solar radiation relative to the outgoing radiation emitted by the
Earth and its atmosphere, particularly in the winter months. Somewhere around 38 degrees of latitude, the net radiation

Annotated Atlas of Coastal and Marine Winds. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-820061-2.00001-8


© 2021 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. 1
2 Annotated Atlas of Coastal and Marine Winds

balances—the amount of incoming solar radiation is balanced, on an annual average basis, by the loss of radiation from the
surface and atmosphere. At high latitudes, the paltry solar radiation receipt does not offset the loss of radiant energy from
the surface and atmosphere; this generates a deficit of solar radiation at high latitudes.
Surpluses of radiant energy, such as is typical in equatorial areas, are turned into kinetic energy—energy of motion.
This motion can be manifested as atmospheric circulation (winds), and it can also be manifested at the molecular level.
Temperature is a measure of this molecular speed of motion—a measure of internal energy. The greater the surplus of
radiant energy at any time, the faster the molecules move. Latitude, then, is the most fundamental factor that controls
the monthly sea surface temperature patterns shown in these maps.
But, as is evident from these maps (Figs. 1.2 through 1.13), sea surface temperatures are not solely determined by
latitude. The lines on the map—known as isotherms—connect places that have the same temperature (sea surface tem-
perature, in this case). Notice how the isotherms do not always extend in a purely east west direction. Instead, they jog
northward and southward in various places in these monthly maps. This indicates that temperature is not solely deter-
mined by distance from the equator (i.e., latitude). What other factors come into play that affect the sea surface
temperatures?
60°0′0″S 30°0′0″S 0°0′0″ 30°0′0″N 60°0′0″N

FIGURE 1.1
World oceans and seas

kms

60°0′0″S 30°0′0″S 0°0′0″ 30°0′0″N 60°0′0″N

3 Introduction Chapter | 1
4
Annotated Atlas of Coastal and Marine Winds
Sea surface temperature, January (averaged over 1982–2018)
60°0′0″N

60°0′0″N
30°0′0″N
30°0′0″N

0°0′0″
0°0′0″
30°0′0″S

30°0′0″S
Legend
SST (°C)
60°0′0″S

60°0′0″S
–2.0−3.0
3.1−10.0
10.1−17.0
17.1−27.0 0 2000 4000 8000 12,000
27.1−31.0 km

Source: NOAA_OI_SST_V2 data provided by the NOAA/OAR/ESRL PSD, Boulder, Colorado, USA.

FIGURE 1.2
Sea surface temperature, February (averaged over 1982–2018)

60°0′0″N
60°0′0″N
30°0′0″N

30°0′0″N
0°0′0″

0°0′0″
30°0′0″S

30°0′0″S
Legend
SST (°C)
60°0′0″S

60°0′0″S
–2.0−3.0
3.1−10.0
10.1−17.0
17.1−27.0 0 2000 4000 8000 12,000

Introduction Chapter | 1
27.1−31.0 km

Source: NOAA_OI_SST_V2 data provided by the NOAA/OAR/ESRL PSD, Boulder, Colorado, USA.

FIGURE 1.3

5
6
Annotated Atlas of Coastal and Marine Winds
Sea surface temperature, March (averaged over 1982–2018)

60°0′0″N
60°0′0″N
30°0′0″N

30°0′0″N
0°0′0″
0°0′0″
30°0′0″S

30°0′0″S
Legend
SST (°C)
60°0′0″S

60°0′0″S
–2.0−3.0
3.1−10.0
10.1−17.0
17.1−27.0 0 2000 4000 8000 12,000
27.1−31.0 km

Source: NOAA_OI_SST_V2 data provided by the NOAA/OAR/ESRL PSD, Boulder, Colorado, USA.

FIGURE 1.4
Sea surface temperature, April (averaged over 1982–2018)

60°0′0″N
60°0′0″N

30°0′0″N
30°0′0″N

0°0′0″
0°0′0″
30°0′0″S

30°0′0″S
Legend
SST (°C)
60°0′0″S

60°0′0″S
–2.0−3.0
3.1−10.0
10.1−17.0
17.1−27.0 0 2000 4000 8000 12,000
km

Introduction Chapter | 1
27.1−31.0

Source: NOAA_OI_SST_V2 data provided by the NOAA/OAR/ESRL PSD, Boulder, Colorado, USA.

FIGURE 1.5

7
8
Annotated Atlas of Coastal and Marine Winds
Sea surface temperature, May (averaged over 1982–2018)
60°0′0″N

60°0′0″N
30°0′0″N

30°0′0″N
0°0′0″

0°0′0″
30°0′0″S

30°0′0″S
Legend
SST (°C)
60°0′0″S

60°0′0″S
–2.0−3.0
3.1−10.0
10.1−17.0
17.1−27.0 0 2000 4000 8000 12,000
27.1−31.0 km
Source: NOAA_OI_SST_V2 data provided by the NOAA/OAR/ESRL PSD, Boulder, Colorado, USA.

FIGURE 1.6
Sea surface temperature, June (averaged over 1982–2018)

60°0′0″N
60°0′0″N

30°0′0″N
30°0′0″N

0°0′0″
0°0′0″

30°0′0″S
30°0′0″S

Legend
SST (°C)
60°0′0″S

60°0′0″S
–2.0−3.0
3.1−10.0
10.1−17.0
17.1−27.0 0 2000 4000 8000 12,000

Introduction Chapter | 1
27.1−32.0 km

Source: NOAA_OI_SST_V2 data provided by the NOAA/OAR/ESRL PSD, Boulder, Colorado, USA.

FIGURE 1.7

9
10
Annotated Atlas of Coastal and Marine Winds
Sea surface temperature, July (averaged over 1982–2018)
60°0′0″N

60°0′0″N
30°0′0″N
30°0′0″N

0°0′0″
0°0′0″

30°0′0″S
30°0′0″S

Legend
SST (°C)
60°0′0″S

60°0′0″S
–2.0−3.0
3.1−10.0
10.1−17.0
17.1−27.0 0 2000 4000 8000 12,000
27.1−33.0 km

Source: NOAA_OI_SST_V2 data provided by the NOAA/OAR/ESRL PSD, Boulder, Colorado, USA.

FIGURE 1.8
Sea surface temperature, August (averaged over 1982–2018)

60°0′0″N
60°0′0″N

30°0′0″N
30°0′0″N

0°0′0″
0°0′0″

30°0′0″S
30°0′0″S

Legend
SST (°C)
60°0′0″S

60°0′0″S
–2.0−3.0
3.1−10.0
10.1−17.0
17.1−27.0 0 2000 4000 8000 12,000

Introduction Chapter | 1
27.1−34.0 km
Source: NOAA_OI_SST_V2 data provided by the NOAA/OAR/ESRL PSD, Boulder, Colorado, USA.

FIGURE 1.9

11
12
Annotated Atlas of Coastal and Marine Winds
Sea surface temperature, September (averaged over 1982–2018)

60°0′0″N
60°0′0″N

30°0′0″N
30°0′0″N
0°0′0″

0°0′0″
30°0′0″S

30°0′0″S
Legend
SST (°C)

60°0′0″S
60°0′0″S

–2.0−3.0
3.1−10.0
10.1−17.0
17.1−27.0 0 2000 4000 8000 12,000
27.1−34.0 km

Source: NOAA_OI_SST_V2 data provided by the NOAA/OAR/ESRL PSD, Boulder, Colorado, USA.

FIGURE 1.10
Sea surface temperature, October (averaged over 1982–2018)

60°0′0″N
60°0′0″N

30°0′0″N
30°0′0″N

0°0′0″
0°0′0″

30°0′0″S
30°0′0″S

Legend
SST (°C)
60°0′0″S

60°0′0″S
–2.0−3.0
3.1−10.0
10.1−17.0
17.1−27.0 0 2000 4000 8000 12,000

Introduction Chapter | 1
27.1−32.0 km

Source: NOAA_OI_SST_V2 data provided by the NOAA/OAR/ESRL PSD, Boulder, Colorado, USA.

FIGURE 1.11

13
14
Annotated Atlas of Coastal and Marine Winds
Sea surface temperature, November (averaged over 1982–2018)

60°0′0″N
60°0′0″N
30°0′0″N

30°0′0″N
0°0′0″
0°0′0″

30°0′0″S
30°0′0″S

Legend
SST (°C)

60°0′0″S
60°0′0″S

–2.0−3.0
3.1−10.0
10.1−17.0
17.1−27.0 0 2000 4000 8000 12,000
27.1−31.0 km

Source: NOAA_OI_SST_V2 data provided by the NOAA/OAR/ESRL PSD, Boulder, Colorado, USA.

FIGURE 1.12
Sea surface temperature, December (averaged over 1981–2018)
60°0′0″N

60°0′0″N
30°0′0″N

30°0′0″N
0°0′0″

0°0′0″
30°0′0″S

30°0′0″S
Legend
SST (°C)
60°0′0″S

60°0′0″S
–2.0−3.0
3.1−10.0
10.1−17.0
17.1−27.0 0 2000 4000 8000 12,000

Introduction Chapter | 1
27.1−32.0 km

Source: NOAA_OI_SST_V2 data provided by the NOAA/OAR/ESRL PSD, Boulder, Colorado, USA.

FIGURE 1.13

15
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Chapter 2

Monthly wind patterns


General patterns of surface marine circulation, pressure, and winds

The most important factor other than latitude that governs sea surface temperatures is ocean circulation. Some parts of
the ocean experience circulation patterns from higher latitudes (i.e., areas closer to the poles) more frequently than cir-
culation from lower latitudes. Such places would tend to have colder water and lower sea surface temperatures than
their latitude might otherwise suggest. Likewise, other places may see more frequent circulation patterns from lower-
latitude (i.e., more tropical) areas than from higher-latitude areas. Such places would have warmer sea surface tempera-
tures than their latitudes might otherwise suggest.
So then why do such circulation patterns exist? Quite simply, the ocean circulation responds to the atmospheric cir-
culation. Winds drag surface ocean water. While the relationship becomes much more complex locally, especially in
coastal areas, because of basin configuration, depth and topography of the ocean basin floor (known as bathymetry),
outflow from streams, and influence of adjacent land covers, the global and regional circulation is certainly dominant at
the broadest scales, such as those shown by global maps.
But how does the broadest-scale atmospheric circulation drive the surface temperatures? The surplus of solar radia-
tion in the tropical latitudes causes air near the Equator to rise, particularly in the afternoons when the net radiation
brings the largest surplus. This rising air then moves poleward, toward the North Pole in the Northern Hemisphere and
toward the South Pole in the Southern Hemisphere, in the upper part of the weather layer of the atmosphere (known as
the troposphere). The poleward motion occurs because the Earth ocean atmosphere circulation system follows the
laws of nature by being a planet-sized heat engine that moves energy from places where it is more abundant to places
where it is less abundant. This is similar to the way that hot (i.e., more energetic) outdoor air in summer circulates into
a cooler home, even if windows are closed and walls are well-insulated.

However, the air that warmed above the Tropics and moves poleward aloft above Earth’s surface cools as it spends
time aloft, and never reaches the poles. Instead, mainly because it becomes cooler (and therefore denser) relative to the
surrounding air, it begins to sink. This occurs at around 30 degrees North and 30 degrees South latitude—about one-
third of the way toward the pole. When this air reaches the surface, much of it then moves back equatorward, to replace
the air that ascended near the equator.

Because the Earth is rotating, the circulation is a little more complicated than described above. The fact that the
Earth rotates at a different speed with latitude, from 25,000 miles (40,000 km) per 24 hours [which is more than 1000
miles (1600 km) per hour] at the Equator to only half that speed at 60 degrees North and 60 degrees South latitude, to
zero mph at the poles—a person standing at the poles would simply be turning around in place—means that the direc-
tion of motion is apparently deflected. A ball thrown from a moving car would be likely to go directly to a person in a
different moving vehicle, if both vehicles were moving at the same speed and direction. But if the vehicles were mov-
ing at a different speed and/or direction, the ball would appear, to both observers, to turn en route. The fact that the
Earth rotates at a different speed with latitude means that moving air is apparently deflected, to the right of the direction
of flow in the Northern Hemisphere and to the left of the direction of flow in the Southern Hemisphere. This apparent
deflection is known as the Coriolis effect, and it is stronger with increasing latitude and/or wind speed, and non-existent
at the Equator or when the wind speed approaches zero.

Annotated Atlas of Coastal and Marine Winds. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-820061-2.00002-X


© 2021 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. 17
18 Annotated Atlas of Coastal and Marine Winds

Because of the Coriolis effect, the air that moves back toward the Equator in the Northern Hemisphere moves from
northeast to southwest, instead of from north to south. This is because the turn to the right of the flow (i.e., the Coriolis
effect) actually appears on a map as turning to the left. This northeast-to-southwest flow is known as the Northeast trade
winds, or just Northeast trades. Unlike currents in the ocean, winds are named for the direction from which they blow.
By contrast, ocean currents are named for the direction to which they move. This confusion stems from differences in
the historical evolution of the terminology.

The air in the Southern Hemisphere that moves from around 30 degrees South latitude toward the Equator is
deflected to the left of the flow en route. This causes a flow of air near the surface from southeast to northwest—a
southeasterly wind—known as the Southeast trade winds, or Southeast trades. The Northeast and Southeast trades are
consistent features, both of the daily weather and the long-term climate, in the tropical parts of the Earth, virtually
worldwide. Notice again in Figs. 1.2 through 1.13 the pileup of warm water in the Caribbean and especially near
Indonesia (the latter of which is called the Maritime Continent). Imagine the role of the Northeast and Southeast trade
winds in creating these so-called warm pools by pushing the surface waters of the Tropics, warmed by the Sun, up
against these landmasses.

In the polar parts of the Earth, the atmospheric circulation is also important in controlling the ocean circulation and
sea surface temperatures. Near the poles, the bitter cold air is so dense that it sinks. Once the air sinks to the surface, it
moves in the only direction that it can move—toward the Equator. But en route, the air warms. As it reaches around
60 degrees North and 60 degrees South latitude—about one-third of the way to the Equator—it warms enough that it
begins to rise. After this air ascends to the upper part of the troposphere, it begins moving back toward the pole, to
replace the air that sank.

Again, though, the rotation of the Earth complicates this flow. In the high latitudes, the Coriolis effect is stronger
than it is closer to the Equator, so the surface airflow moving from the pole to about 60 degrees North latitude is
deflected so much that the flow becomes east-to-west, which is known as the polar easterlies. The polar easterlies cir-
cumnavigate the Northern Hemisphere and also the Southern Hemisphere from about 60 degrees latitude to the pole,
confining the coldest air in each hemisphere in a merry-go-round around the pole. Of course, this easterly wind steers
the surface ocean currents in the same direction.

The middle-latitude zone also has a distinctly preferred atmospheric circulation, which is influenced by the tropical
and polar circulations discussed above. Specifically, some of the near-surface air that sank near 30 degrees North
latitude moves poleward and attempts to replace the air that ascended near 60 degrees North latitude. But the Coriolis
effect turns this air to the right, by a moderate amount. The result is a preferred circulation in the Northern Hemisphere
near-surface mid-latitudes that goes from southwest to northeast, or from west to east, known as the mid-latitude
westerlies.
In the Southern Hemisphere, the air that sank near 30 degrees South latitude also moves poleward (i.e., to the south),
to replace the air that ascended near 60 degrees South latitude. But again, the Coriolis effect takes hold en route. In the
Southern Hemisphere, this deflection is to the left of the flow, which results in the near-surface northwest-to-southeast,
or west-to-east flow. Again, this produces the mid-latitude westerlies. Very little landmass exists to block or slow
down the westerly flow in the Southern Hemisphere, and therefore, the winds in the Southern Hemisphere centered on
40 50 degrees South latitude are particularly strong and consistent. These winds are known as the Roaring 40s.

As implied above, friction is also an important consideration as it affects winds. Friction is strongest when the wind
interacts with rugged terrain, but increased friction as air moves onshore is also noteworthy. Of course, the result is that
rougher surfaces have more friction, leading to weakened winds, all other factors being equal. Less apparent but equally
important, friction’s effect of slowing the winds also causes a weakening of the Coriolis effect, since Coriolis deflection
is proportional to wind speed. It will soon be apparent how this reduction of the Coriolis effect due to friction impacts
global wind and ocean circulation patterns that result from pressure patterns.

Average atmospheric sea-level-pressure patterns are shown for each month of the year in Figs. 2.1 through 2.12.
These average pressure patterns form as a result of the rising and sinking air described above. Air that rises around the
equatorial parts of the Earth generates relatively low surface pressure as its weight is lifted up off the surface. Notice
this belt of low pressure around the world in the Tropics. This zone is known as the Intertropical Convergence Zone
(ITCZ), because between the Northern and Southern Hemisphere Tropics (intertropical), the air from the Northeast and
Mean sea level pressure (hPa), January (1979–2018)

Monthly wind patterns Chapter | 2


19
FIGURE 2.1
20
Annotated Atlas of Coastal and Marine Winds
Mean sea level pressure (hPa), February (1979–2018)

FIGURE 2.2
Mean sea level pressure (hPa), March (1979–2018)

Monthly wind patterns Chapter | 2


21
FIGURE 2.3
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"You're doin' your best, Woods," she said, "an' I thank you for it. I'll get
the job someways, but not the way you think, an'—an' I thank you."

Only half-way to the corner she met the girl that lived across the hall
from her, Carrie Berkowicz, a homely, round-cheeked, brown-haired
Lithuanian Jewess, who worked in a shirtwaist factory on Tenth Street.

"Say, Katie"—Carrie prided herself on her colloquial English, as she


learned it in the night-classes in the Rand School—"were you still looking
for a job?"

Katie nodded.

"Well, say, I just this minute passed Emma Schrem, an' she says Cora
Costigan is quitting her job at the Lennox store to-day to be married to-
morrow. Why don't you pull up there and try for it?"

Try for it? Katie could scarcely stop to thank her rescuer before she had
turned northward. There was no longer left her even the five cents
necessary for carfare, and, though she was faint with hunger and shaking
with fear lest her tardiness should lose her this slim opportunity, she was
forced to walk. Facing a fine rain blown in from the Sound, she walked up
Second Avenue, and finally, turning westward to the shopping quarter now
crowded with salesgirls on their hurried way to work, she entered, by the
dark employés' door, the large department-store of Joshua N. Lennox,
merchant and philanthropist.

A dozen quick inquiries rushed her, wet and weary, but flushed by her
walk and radiant with the excitement of the race, into the presence of the
frock-coated, pale-faced, suave-mouthed Mr. Porter, the tall, thin man, with
the precision of a surgeon and the gravity of a Sunday-school
superintendent, to whose attention, it appeared, such pleas as hers must be
brought. Mr. Porter, who had gray side-whiskers, which he stroked with
white hands, listened in judicial calm to what she had to say.
"Just fill out this application-blank," he remarked as, breathless, Katie
ended her little speech.

They were in a dim, bare office under the street, the man at a roll-top
desk lighted by a green-shaded incandescent lamp, the girl standing beside
him. Mr. Porter indicated a writing-shelf along the opposite wall, where
Katie found a pile of the blanks, and pen and ink. While she struggled with
the task assigned her, Mr. Porter verified, by brief, sharp inquiries through a
telephone, her statement of the approaching marriage of Miss Cora
Costigan.

Katie, meanwhile, was giving her age, her parentage, her birthplace, the
name of the firm that had last employed her—she mentioned the candy-
shop for that,—was cheerfully agreeing to join the "Employés' Mutual
Benefit Association," and was putting a "Yes," which she intended promptly
to forget, to the question that asked her to become a spy on her co-workers:
"If you saw a fellow-employé doing anything detrimental to the interests of
the firm, would you consider it your duty to report the same?" It was only at
one of the last questions that she hesitated.

"Please what does that mean?" she asked.

Mr. Porter deigned to walk across the room and, close to her shoulder,
examined the question. It was the simple one: "Do you live with your
parents?"

"That," said Mr. Porter, "is inserted because the firm wishes to have
only nice girls here, and those with good home influences are considered—
most trustworthy."

Mr. Porter had the type of emotionless eyes that can say one sort of
thing far better than the eyes of more temperamental people, and he now
met Katie's steady gaze with a stare of considerable significance.

Katie was rather sure that she understood.

"So that," she said, "if I didn't live with my people, I couldn't have the
job?"
"So that," Mr. Porter corrected, "if a girl does get a position and lives
with her family, she will be better cared for, and we will know that she is
safe at home evenings."

Katie hesitated no longer. She took the pen and, opposite the query,
wrote a quick "Yes." To be sure she was, on that account, obliged to invent
the kind of work done by her father and the amount of the family wage; but
she so needed the position that her active wit at once supplied the answers.
More or less truthfully, she put a word in reply to the remaining questions,
signed her name, and wrote her address.

Mr. Porter took the paper in his white fingers, read it slowly, folded it,
indorsed it with several hieroglyphics, and placed it in a pigeon-hole.

"I am filing this with our other applications," he said. "As soon as your
name is reached, I will see that you are notified."

Katie's jaw dropped.

"But I thought," she began, "I thought I was to get the job now. I—isn't
Cora leavin', thin, after all?"

"Miss Costigan is leaving us, I understand," said Mr. Porter, stroking his
whiskers; "but there are others—nearly a hundred—on the list ahead of
you."

Katie was hungry, and hunger finds it hard to think of justice. She had
borne all that she could bear. The waiting, the walking, the hope and the
hopelessness had gnawed the string of her courage. Something snapped
inside of her, and she began to sob with Irish unrestraint.

Mr. Porter was embarrassed. He frequently had to deal harshly with


other employés of his philanthropic employer—it was, in fact, upon the
performance of such duties that his living almost depended—but he did not
like to have tears shed in his office: it did not look well for the reputation of
the establishment.
"My dear Miss—Miss Flanagan," said he, first consulting the
application-blank for the forgotten name, and putting one of his white hands
toward the face now hidden in a crumpled handkerchief.

"You mustn't—really, you must not!"

"But everything depends on me gettin' this job!" sobbed Katie in an


Irish wail. "The rent's due; me family's all sick; the milkman won't leave no
more milk, an' I've eaten nothin' for Heaven knows how long!"

In a rush of words her story, including that of her resurrected father,


leaped from her. What effect it would have had upon Mr. Porter had it been
calmly told is beyond guessing; but it was told by no means calmly, and
Katie's voice rose to a pitch that forced him to surrender out of mere fear of
a prolonged scene. Grudgingly, but unconditionally, he laid down his arms.
He took the telephone and called again Miss Isaacs, the buyer of the
women's hosiery department, which Miss Costigan was to leave on the
following day, told as much of Katie's story as he thought necessary, and
obtained consent to a trial of the girl. He informed Katie that she might
take, on the next morning, the place to be vacated by Miss Costigan, but he
took care to impress upon her mind the fact that he was doing her an
exceptional favor, which she was not to mention to her friends, who might
try to profit by her unusual experience.

Katie was on the point of calling all the saints to bless him when she
bethought her of a practical inquiry theretofore, in her eagerness to secure
any sort of work, neglected.

"An' what's the pay?" she inquired.

"You will receive," replied Mr. Porter in the tones in which his
employer announced the gift of a small fortune to a large college, "four
dollars and fifty cents a week."

Katie forgot the saints.

"Four—" she began. "But, Mr. Porter," she concluded, "will you be
tellin' me how I'm to be livin' on all that?"
Mr. Porter's calm eyes came again into significant play.

"You have said in your application, you may recall," he dryly remarked,
as he reached for that document, "you have said that you lived with your
father."

For a moment her glance probed his.

"But for all that," she said, "I have to support meself entirely."

Mr. Porter was still looking at her with his emotionless, appraising gaze.
He saw a girl with pretty, piquant features, with glossy black hair, with
cheeks that bloomed even in privation and blue eyes that were beautiful
even in tears.

"Miss Flanagan," said he, "most of the girls that start at these wages in
department-stores are partly supported by their family or have some friend
to help them out."

Katie flushed, but she kept her outward calm.

"An' what if they haven't got a friend?" she inquired.

Porter's cold eye never wavered.

"They find one," he said; "and I may add, Miss Flanagan, that you
should experience no difficulty in that direction."

Poverty will do much for most of us. For Katie it succeeded in curbing a
temper that, in better times, was never docile. Beggars, she reflected, cannot
afford to look too closely into the source or significance of the alms they
have asked. She swallowed her wrath.

"Will you advance one week's salary now?" she asked.

Mr. Porter was distinctly surprised.

"I—why, certainly I won't!" he stammered.


"Why not?"

"But, my dear Miss Flanagan, I have nothing to do with the payment of


the salaries. Besides, this firm doesn't know you; it does not even know that
you will come to-morrow; it does not know that, if you do come, you will
remain."

Katie smiled insidiously, and Katie smiling through her tear-curled


lashes was insidious indeed.

"Och, now, Mr. Porter," she protested. "That's all well enough for the
green girls; but you an' I know that you're the boss in matters of this sort.
Lend me two an' a quarter."

Mr. Porter, pleased in spite of himself by her flattery, protested, but


Katie remained unconvinced. She declared that she knew he was the real
authority and that she could not bear to hear him underestimate himself.
And the upshot of the discussion was that, though Mr. Porter could, in his
official capacity, do nothing so unbusinesslike as to make her an advance,
he would, personally, be glad to oblige her with a dollar and a half, and
oblige her, adding a fatherly pat to her pink cheek, he ultimately did.

"Thanks," Katie responded as she took the money, and turned to go. "I'll
report to-morrow, then, at a quarter of eight, Mr. Porter."

"At quarter to eight," repeated Mr. Porter, slowly closing the door
behind her.

But, out in the wet street, Katie was saying what she had refrained from
saying in the darkened office.

"An' as for the pay," she concluded, "I can't buy no automobiles with me
loose change; but I think you'll find, you limb of Satan, that I can keep body
an' soul together without a friend in the wor'rld!"
X

ANOTHER SPHERE

That same evening, his crisp brown mustache hiding the meaning of his
mouth, and his drooping lids concealing the purpose of his steel-gray eyes,
Wesley Dyker, from the rooms he had rented in an East Side Assembly
district, took a cab northwestward through the rain to Riverside Drive. He
was dressed precisely as he dressed to go to the house of Rose Légère, but
he was bound for the house of Joshua Lennox.

There he had plainly been expected. The liveried, tight-lipped servant,


who opened the iron grill-work door for him, showed him deferentially
down a long tiled hall and into, not the formal white and gilt reception-
room, but a comfortable, dimly-lighted apartment, a smoking-room, hung
with fading mediæval tapestries, the floor covered with deep rugs of the
Orient, and the chairs wide, broad-armed, and upholstered in soft leather.

"Miss Lennox will be down in a moment, sir," said the servant. "May I
bring you anything, Mr. Dyker?"

Wesley shook his well-shaped head.

"No, thank you, Charles," he answered, and then, nodding to a decanter


that, under a wide, soft-shaded lamp, stood upon a corner table: "Irish?" he
asked.

Charles bowed, brought a tray, and, when Dyker had poured the
whiskey, added some seltzer, and lighted the cigarette that the guest had
taken from a wrought silver box on a nearby tabouret.

"That is all, Charles," said Dyker, and the servant silently left him alone.

Wesley sank back in his chair with a sigh of comfort. He liked the house
of the philanthropic merchant so well that he could have wished its master
liked him better, and when, within a few minutes, the master himself
chanced into the room, Dyker was prepared to be diplomatic.
Joshua N. Lennox was the explanation of that Mr. Porter who held so
much power under him. The latter was tall and thin, the former short and
compact, but there all physical differences ended: Mr. Porter had found his
model in his employer. Here was the source of the seneschal's gray hair and
side-whiskers, his trap mouth tortured to the line of benevolence, his calm
gaze and his manner that combined the precision of the surgeon with the
gravity of the head of a Sunday-school. Mr. Lennox, in fact, conducted the
second largest Bible Class in New York. He knew its textbook from the first
chapter of Genesis to the twenty-second chapter of the Revelation, and he
believed in the literal inspiration of every verse of the original and of every
syllable of the English translation.

It was in the voice in which he habitually addressed his Bible Class, the
voice of one uttering a benediction, that he said:

"Good-evening, Mr. Dyker."

Wesley put down his glass and rose to his feet.

The man before him was the perfection of that noble work of Heaven, a
Prominent Citizen. Joshua Lennox endowed Bowery chapels with organs
and meat-supplies; he contributed heavily to missions among the benighted
Japanese; he assisted in arbitrating strikes wherein his fellow-employers
were concerned; he always served on memorial committees; and he
regularly subscribed to the campaign funds of all movements toward
municipal political reform.

If his climbing wife insisted upon having liquor in the house, Mr.
Lennox never touched it. If she served tobacco, he did not smoke. If she
took in a Sunday paper, written and printed on Saturday, he would read no
news until the appearance of the Monday journal merely written and printed
on Sunday. And if his mercantile establishment sold poker-chips under the
pseudonym of "counters," he was aware only that it did not sell playing-
cards. The business he considered as his creation had grown beyond the
limits of his power, and though, a good man and sincere, he might have
done something by keeping a closer eye upon his work, he was in reality as
much the creature of conditions as his worst-paid cash-boy. The great
Frederick complained that a monarch could not know all the evil done in his
kingdom: Joshua Lennox was so busy benefiting mankind that he had no
leisure to observe in his own shop the state of affairs that made his
philanthropy financially possible.

"I hope you are going with us to the opera, Mr. Lennox," said Dyker.

The old man shook his silvered head.

"No," said he in the slow, deliberate utterance that he had acquired with
his first million of dollars; "I am on my way farther down town than that."

"But you had better come," urged Wesley, knowing that refusal was
certain. "This is the last performance of the season."

"On the contrary," the merchant chuckled kindly, "I think you had better
let Marian go to the opera alone and come along with me. I am going to the
first performance of a new season."

"Where's that?"

"To the Municipal Improvement Mass Meeting at Cooper Union."

That made it Dyker's turn to smile.

"Oh, but I couldn't do that," he said. "I'm on the other side, you know."

"Against good government?" The elder man manifestly enjoyed this


mild thrust.

"Against irregularity, Mr. Lennox. There never has been and there never
can be any lasting reform from the outside. We must clean our own houses.
That is why I have moved to my present address. I believe in reform from
within the party, and I believe that to effect this we want men of your sort to
help us indoors and not to attack us from the street."

The merchant's cold eye looked hard at the speaker, but Dyker's lowered
lids betrayed nothing.
"Yes," replied Lennox, dryly; "I heard that when Tammany Hall first
came into power, but I have never seen any trace of reform from the inside.
What I have seen is the spectacle of most of these inside reformers
developing into leaders of the machine. If you will take an older man's
advice, you will withdraw while there is yet time."

Wesley's reply sprang ready to his lips, but, before he could utter it,
Marian Lennox came into the room.

Something of herself the girl received, no doubt, from her climbing


mother; something, probably, from her satisfied father, and more than she
guessed from a narrow environment. Nevertheless, four years at college had
cultivated in her what seemed to be a spirit of independence, and a brief life
in the city had confirmed in her what she was certain were opinions of her
own.

She was tall and moved with assurance. Her full throat rose above the
ermine of her cloak, supporting a delicately carved head, the head of a
Greek cameo, held rigidly erect. The hair was a rich chestnut, the eyes large
and brown, and the mouth at once firm and kindly. Her skin was very fair
and her gloved hands long and slender.

She caught her father's concluding words.

"While there is yet time," she paraphrased, "Mr. Dyker will withdraw
from this room and get me to the opera-house before the overture has
ended. I am so unfashionable as to want my music entire."

She was used to commanding her parents in their own house, and she
thought that she was used to commanding Wesley everywhere, so that she
dismissed Lennox and secured Dyker's entrance into her waiting limousine
with almost no delay whatever.

"There," she remarked as she settled herself comfortably for their drive;
"I rather fancy that I rescued you from a sermon."

Dyker laughed shortly.


"Oh, I don't know," he said. "I esteem your father so much that I should
like him to like me."

"But you think that he doesn't like you?"

"I think that he is slow to see that two persons may differ on a question
of political tactics and yet remain, both of them, honest men."

"And may they?" bantered Marian.

"Well," he lightly accepted the challenge, "I shall take the specific case.
There is no doubting your father's sincerity; there is no doubting the
sincerity of nearly all the men that will, with him, to-night try to launch
another of these municipal-reform parties which, if they ever get started at
all, are sure to run on the rocks at last."

"And on the other hand," said the girl, "I suppose I must generously
refuse to doubt the sincerity of Tammany Hall?"

"On the other hand you must justly refuse to doubt the sincerity of a few
young men who have seen that reform-parties always end in violent
reaction within the city and, if briefly successful, weaken the party in the
next national campaign. You must refuse to doubt the sincerity of these
young men when they go into the heart of the East Side to live and work
among the people that make up the organization's fighting-strength. You
must believe in them when they try to get nominated for even the smallest
offices on the machine-ticket. And you must have faith that, if they can
work themselves at last into places of power, they will reform the party in
the only way that will keep it reformed."

"Dear me," sighed Marian, "it seems that it was father that I rescued
from a sermon."

"Well," said Dyker, "you asked me why your father and I should not
mistrust each other, and there you have the reason. You know what I am
trying to do; I have told you my plans as I haven't told them to another
human being—and you should know that I am not to be suspected."
There was a ring in his voice that touched her.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I beg you'll forgive me. Only really, you know,
you can't expect father to be with you: he would have to break the habit of a
lifetime."

"I don't ask him to be with me; I only ask him to believe that a man can
work with the organization and yet have pure principles."

"He can't even go so far as that; he says that every system is the
reflection of the men that make it, and he says that the system you support
battens on horrors."

"But it can't be the system. The horrors existed long before the system.
Is he such a conservative as not to be able to see that?"

"He isn't a conservative; he is the one unprogressive thing in nature: the


liberal of a preceding generation. Only the other day I mentioned something
I have been thinking about doing—something that several of my most
conventional friends have been doing for ever so long—and he was so
dreadfully shocked that, though I'm now resolved upon my course, I can't
guess how he'll take it."

Dyker's curiosity was easily piqued.

"If you proposed it," he said, "I can't imagine that it was such a very
terrible thing."

"Oh, no; it was merely that I want to be of some use in the world and so
have made up my mind to go in for settlement-work."

Wesley Dyker was one of those rare animals, a human being whose
parents, though they could have arranged it otherwise, permitted him to be
born in New York. He had been reared, at least during the winters of his
earlier life, within the Borough of Manhattan, and his views were, like those
of most of his even less acclimated neighbors, just as wide as that narrow
island, and no wider. Indeed, so far as were concerned his views of the
proper sphere of his own womankind, he limited them entirely to an
extremely small portion of the city.

"Of course you're joking," he said.

"I am in cold earnest," she assured him.

"But that's absurd. You've—why you don't know what settlement-work


means!"

"I know quite well what it means," said Marian. "I have friends engaged
in it, as I told you, and I've been visiting them and seeing their life at close
quarters."

"And you really mean——"

"I really mean that here we are at the Metropolitan, and that we can't
talk on our way upstairs, and we won't talk while there is music to listen
to."

Slowly their car had taken its grudged place in a long procession of its
fellows, one by one unloading the human freight before the brilliantly
lighted doorway. The pavement and the steps were a tossing sea of silk hats,
colored scarfs, and glittering headdresses. Into this they plunged, hurried to
the crowded elevator, traversed a lighted corridor, passed through a short,
dark passage and came out to the Lennox box in the great, glaring
horseshoe of the opera-house.

Dyker, baffled by the sudden stop that had been put to his protests,
looked moodily upon the familiar picture. Below them, climbing to the rail
behind which was massed the orchestra, was the pit, white bosoms and bare
shoulders, too distant to present, to the unassisted eye, any hint of
individuality. Above rose the teeming galleries, line above line of peering
faces. And to right and left swept the great curve of the boxes splendid with
lace and feathers and jewels.

He saw no more than that during the entire performance and, as Marian,
even in the entr'actes, would talk of nothing but the music to which he had
refused to listen, he heard less. The opera was "Lucia," and as Wesley, with
a taste worthy of a more discerning critic, considered that work nothing but
a display of vocal gymnastics devised for a throat abnormally developed, he
would probably have been, in any case, bored.

His father, who had what his friends called "family," had married what
everybody called "money," but had managed to invest that commodity with
a talent for choosing failures, and, when both parents had died, Wesley,
fresh from the Columbia Law School, had amazedly found himself in a
position where he would actually have to turn his education to practical
account. For five years he held a thankless, underpaid and unmentioned
partnership in a well-known firm of corporation-lawyers. He drew their
briefs, and developed a genuine talent for the task, but he was never given a
chance to plead. The worm of necessity spun its cocoon in his brain, but the
emerging butterfly of ambition could find no way to liberty.

One day, however, he was commissioned to prepare the case in defense


of a large contractor, quite justly accused of fraud. It happened that, when
the young lawyer brought the results of his week's work to his chief, the
client in whose interests the work had been done was closeted with the head
of the firm, and, Dyker being presented, that contractor learned of Wesley's
service. At the ensuing trial the client was acquitted, and remembered the
service. He lived on the East Side and made most of his money from
political jobs. The rest followed simply enough. Dyker was introduced to
the powers of his patron's district, and, thinking that he saw here the
opportunity of which he had begun to despair, he had left his former
employers and was already shouldering his way forward among his new
friends. His former acquaintances mildly wondered what the devil he was
after; his latter ones began to regard him as a clever fellow, and the
newspapers printed stories of him as a young society man that gratuitously
gave his legal talents to the help of the poor.

For his own part, Dyker was quite certain of what he was and of what
he would be. He had seen, beneath his lowered lids, that a clever man could
gain both fortune and power through political prestige, and he meant to use
that means to his end. He had also, while still with the firm of corporation-
lawyers, been presented to Marian Lennox by her opportunely-met,
socially-aspiring mother, and was, whatever his relation with other
members of her sex, quite as much in love with her as he could be with
anybody. Realizing the power of her father's fortune and the beauty of the
girl herself, he had determined to marry her with as little delay as possible.

Until to-night he had delayed all open pursuit, because there had not
been lacking signs to free him from fear of all male rivals; but that Marian
should thus suddenly develop a purpose in life meant that he was to have a
rival of a far more formidable sort. He set his teeth under his crisp
mustache, folded his arms across his heart, and sat stolidly through the
interminable opera: as soon as it was over, he meant to play his first lead.

He did play it—played it as soon as their car had crept up in answer to


its electric-call and whisked them away into the night. As they shot up the
flaming street, her clean-cut profile was almost as distinct as it had been in
the box, and the girl, still thrilling with the memory of the music she so
passionately loved, was close to the mood best suited to his own.

"May I talk now?" he asked ruefully.

She smiled.

"You mean to ask if you may argue," she answered. "No, you may not
argue against my determination, and I am a good deal surprised that a man
of your sort should want to."

"I don't intend to argue," he protested, leaning the merest trifle toward
her. "I mean only to ask you if your determination is quite fixed."

She bowed her splendid head.

"Quite fixed," she said.

"So that argument would not shake it?"

"So that no argument could shake it."

"Nor any persuasion?"


His voice had sunk only a semi-tone, but her feminine ear noted the
change.

"Nor any persuasion," she replied.

"Then suppose I presented to you neither argument nor persuasion, but a


condition?"

"But there is no conceivable condition that could arise to change me.


You refuse to understand that I see this thing as a duty."

A lamp stronger than its fellows threw a quick ray full upon her face;
her brown eyes were charmingly serious, her lips dangerously sweet.

"What I understand," responded Dyker, "is that there is one situation in


which a woman may find herself where there arises a duty that crowds all
others from the board."

His hand, in the semi-darkness, sought and found her own, its glove
withdrawn, cool and firm and unretreating.

"You know the situation I mean," he said. "I love you. I love you so
much, Marian, that I am jealous of any work that would take you from me; I
want so much of your love that I can spare none of it—none even for the
poor and suffering."

In that tight grasp her hand fluttered a little, but she did not answer: she
could not answer, because, while her brain was telling her that a love so
rapacious was necessarily niggardly, her heart was crying out that this was
the love it wanted most of all.

"Marian"—his voice shook now with the emotion that was tugging at its
leash—"you've known for some months that I loved you; all last winter you
must have seen this coming; you can't be unprepared to answer me!"

He possessed himself of her other hand, and pressed her inert palms
between his own.
But the girl's determination loomed large to her. Through her entire life
she had been shut away from the real world, behind rich curtains and amid
soft lights, until, fired with the unrest of a partial education, she had
chanced upon a glimpse of classmates working in what they called the
slums, and now, with all the enthusiasm of youth, she had resolved to join
them. A maturer woman would not have taken so seriously a sudden
impulse to engage in work for which she had no training, but Marian was
young.

"I am not unprepared," she answered. "I did know. But I know too that
there are things that can make even love a finer, a better emotion."

The words reminded her of some speech she had once heard in a play,
and, entirely in earnest as she was, the sound of them from her own lips
strengthened her. She was in love with Wesley Dyker, but she was more in
love with renunciation.

The man, however, shook his head.

"No," he said, "love is something ultimate. You can't paint the lily; you
can't part it and share it; you must either cherish it or kill it. Which do you
mean to do?"

The car had turned into the smoother way of Riverside Drive, where the
lights are far fewer and less bright than Broadway's. He could not see her
face, but he could not doubt the resolve that was in her voice as she
answered:

"I mean to take up the work that I have told you of."

"But that's folly, Marian!"

He had chosen the wrong term of description, and, the moment he


uttered it, he knew that he had erred. "Folly" is the word that youth most
resents.

Marian withdrew her hands.


"It is strange," she said, "to hear you, of all men, laugh at an attempt to
help the poor."

"I am not laughing; I'm too serious to laugh. I am so serious that I can't
pick and choose phrases. I meant only that you can't help these people
without training——"

"I can get training."

"Without knowing them?"

"The only way to know them is to go to them."

"But even then, you can do so little. These settlements accomplish


practically nothing. They are fads for the people that run them and
playthings for the people they are intended to help. I can speak with
authority, and I tell you that the young men and women, the boys and girls,
that go to them, drop in only when they have nothing else to do, and all the
rest of the time go their own ways."

He forgot that he had said he would not argue. He used all his power to
convince and to persuade; but if there is one human being that cannot be
moved from a purpose, it is a young girl with a romantic ideal, smarting
under what she conceives to be ridicule, and for the first time tasting what
she believes to be the bitter-sweets of sacrifice. Even when the verbal war
had been carried into her own house, he could bring no concession from
her. If he was helping his neighbors, then he should be all the more anxious
that she, as the woman he wanted to be his wife, should have precisely the
experience that the settlement would supply her.

"Then you mean," he asked, "that you do care—that you care at least a
little?"

He put out his hands, but she did not seem to see them.

"I mean," she answered, "that we must wait."


XI

UNDER THE LASH

It was on the day following her eavesdropping upon Rose that Violet
was awakened early—as early as eleven o'clock in the morning—by a
sudden cry. The sound was one of some pain and more terror, beginning in
the high note of horrified amazement and ending in an attenuating moan of
despair.

Violet had been living in a highly charged atmosphere: she sat up in


bed, sleep immediately banished from her brain. She remained still and
listened. She heard Rose's now familiar footstep. She heard a door open and
close. She heard that cry frightfully begin again, and then she heard it more
frightfully stop in mid-power, cease in abrupt and hideous silence.

There came a discreet tapping at her own door.

"Are you alone, my dear?"

It was the deep, contralto voice of English Evelyn, and, as Violet replied
in the affirmative, the woman softly entered.

Her tall, almost thin, figure was draped in a soiled pink kimona; her
yellow hair seemed merely to have been tossed upon her head and to have
been left precisely as it happened to alight; her blue eyes were dull, and her
hard, narrow face, with its spots of high color over the cheek-bones, showed
more plainly than common, the usually faint little red veins that lay close
below its white skin.

"My Gawd," she sighed, as she sank upon the bed and curled up at its
foot, "there are some things I can't get accustomed to, and that"—she
nodded in the direction whence the cry had come—"that's one of them."
She spoke in a weary voice, a voice with almost no animation, but with
a curious mixture of the cockney of the New Yorker and with a rising
inflection that saved what she said from monotony.

"What was it?" asked Violet.

"You ought to know. It was another of them."

"You mean——" The question trailed into nothingness on Violet's


whitening lips.

"Yes," said Evelyn, seizing a pillow and snuggling her broad shoulders
against it. "Got a cig?" And then, as her hostess produced a box from under
the mattress: "It does so get upon my nerves. Why, sometimes they come
here young enough to play with dollies. This time there was no more sleep
for boiby. Had to run downstairs and rig a B. and S., and then come up to
girlie here for company."

"How—how did this happen?"

"How the deuce do you suppose? One story is pretty much all of them,
my dear, and one about as narsty as the others."

"But this?"

"Oh, this broke me up just because I had the bad luck to hear the details,
though I must say I've heard the same details often enough before. Her
people lived in a tenement in Essex Street, where it's so crowded that the
men have to come outside every evening while their wives cook the dinners
—three nine-by-seven rooms, no barth and no privacy; four children from
eighteen to ten in one room; pa, ma, the boiby, and the seven-year-old in the
second, and the cot in the kitchen-living-room rented to the lodger. The
lodger was the wiggly snake under the apple-tree."

"He brought her here?"

"Gave her, as you might say, the general directions. But she'd have
come along of her own self sometime."

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