MISS FLOTSAM AND MR JETSAM
SHE had scarcely closed the door of her room when the electric lights went out. She was, however, prepared for this emergency, which was not rare; in fact she had caused it to happen once or twice herself while adjusting little devices for cooking and laundering. She groped her way to the bureau and lighted a candle always ready there, and instead of feeling annoyed, she was at heart innocently pleased by the diversion and by the flickering candle light. Then, just as she would hurry to the window at any unusual sound in the street, or would join any crowd, she went out into the passage, to lean over the balustrade. It was not curiosity that impelled her, but the terrible desire of her lonely and forgotten spirit to plunge into life. She wanted to see, to hear any one, anything.
Looking down the well of the staircase, she saw all the lodging house black and still. With a little sigh she turned back, and noticed that the door of the room next her own was open, showing in the dark interior the glowing end of a cigarette; she hesitated, struggling with one of those impulses which had given her so much trouble. Often as she had been rebuffed, hurt, derided, she could not stifle that violent longing to approach beings.
"No, I won't!" she said. "I won't . . ."
But it was too strong for her. Half she approached the open door.
"Would you like a candle?" she asked.
A suave and weary voice replied, amiably.
"Thank you. But unless this is going to be more or less permanent, it doesn't matter."
"Well, you never know . . ." she said, mendaciously, for she did know well enough that a new fuse would promptly be installed. "I've got a lot of extra candles. . . ."
Decency compelled the man to say that he would like a candle, and she went off to fetch it. When she returned, he was standing in his doorway, a slender young fellow with a fastidious and melan-
