"He wrote that he was coming home this week," said Pennoyer.  
"Did he?" asked Florinda indifferently.
 
"Yes. Aren't you glad?"
 
They were still watching her face.
 
"Yes, of course I'm glad. Why shouldn't I be glad?" cried the girl with .
 
They grinned.
 
"Oh, certainly. Billie Hawker is a good fellow, Splutter. You have a particular right to be glad."
 
"You people make me tired," Florinda retorted. "Billie Hawker doesn't give a rap about me, and he never tried to make out that he did."
 
"No," said Grief. "But that isn't saying that you don't care a rap about Billie Hawker. Ah, Florinda!"
 
It seemed that the girl's throat suffered a slight . "Well, and what if I do?" she demanded finally.
 
"Have a cigarette?" answered Grief.
 
Florinda took a cigarette, lit it, and, perching herself on a , which was secretly a coal box, she smoked fiercely.
 
"What if I do?" she again demanded. "It's better than one of you , anyhow."
 
"Oh, Splutter, you poor little kid!" said Wrinkle in a sad voice.
 
Grief searched among the pipes until he found the best one. "Yes, Splutter, don't you know that when you are so frank you defy every law of your sex, and wild eyes will take your trail?"
 
"Oh, you talk through your hat," replied Florinda. "Billie don't care whether I like him or whether I don't. And if he should hear me now, he wouldn't be glad or give a hang, either way. I know that." The girl paused and looked at the row of plaster casts. "Still, you needn't be throwing it at me all the time."
 
"We didn't," said Wrinkles indignantly. "You threw it at yourself."
 
"Well," continued Florinda, "it's better than liking one of you dubs, anyhow. He makes money and——"
 
"There," said Grief, "now you've hit it! Bedad, you've reached a point in where if you move again you will have to go backward."
 
"Of course I don't care anything about a fellow's having money——"
 
"No, indeed you don't, Splutter," said Pennoyer.
 
"But then, you know what I mean. A fellow isn't a man and doesn't stand up straight unless he has some money. And Billie Hawker makes enough so that you feel that nobody could walk over him, don't you know? And there isn't anything jay about him, either. He's a thoroughbred, don't you know?"
 
After reflection, Pennoyer said, "It's pretty hard on the rest of us, Splutter."
 
"Well, of course I like him, but—but——"
 
"What?" said Pennoyer.
 
"I don't know," said Florinda.
 
Purple Sanderson lived in this room, but he usually dined out. At a certain time in his life, before he came to be a great artist, he had learned the gas-fitter's trade, and when his opinions were not identical with the opinions of the art managers of the greater number o............