Porgy had opened his door at the first outcry and sat on the sill trying to get the import of the disturbance. Now, as the group passed close to him, he looked up. The woman had ceased her outcry, and was looking about with vague, unseeing eyes. As they walked past his doorway, so close that he could have touched the nearest officer with his hand, she looked down, and her gaze focussed upon the sitting figure. Her body stiffened, and her head lifted with the old, incongruous gesture of disdain.
"Bess!" called Porgy once very loudly; and again, in a voice that sagged, "Bess!"
One of the policemen paused and looked down upon the speaker. But the woman turned deliberately away, and he hastened to rejoin the party. Then the wagon clanged down the darkened street.
§
Under the gas light that supplemented a far, dusty window in the Recorder's Court, stood Bess. She swayed, and her face twitched ocasionally; but her glance was level, and her head erect.
Behind a high desk sat a man well past middle age. His florid complexion caused
