Chapter XXXI - Page 2

was the answer.

"Come out to dinner to-morrow," she invited irrelevantly. "Mr.
Higginbotham won't be there. He's goin' to San Leandro on
business."

Martin shook his head, but he had failed to keep back the wolfish,
hungry look that leapt into his eyes at the suggestion of dinner.

"You haven't a penny, Mart, and that's why you're walkin'.
Exercise!" She tried to sniff contemptuously, but succeeded in
producing only a sniffle. "Here, lemme see."

And, fumbling in her satchel, she pressed a five-dollar piece into
his hand. "I guess I forgot your last birthday, Mart," she mumbled
lamely.

Martin's hand instinctively closed on the piece of gold. In the
same instant he knew he ought not to accept, and found himself
struggling in the throes of indecision. That bit of gold meant
food, life, and light in his body and brain, power to go on
writing, and - who was to say? - maybe to write something that
would bring in many pieces of gold. Clear on his vision burned the
manuscripts of two essays he had just completed. He saw them under
the table on top of the heap of returned manuscripts for which he
had no stamps, and he saw their titles, just as he had typed them -
"The High Priests of Mystery," and "The Cradle of Beauty." He had
never submitted them anywhere. They were as good as anything he
had done in that line. If only he had stamps for them! Then the
certitude of his ultimate success rose up in him, an able ally of
hunger, and with a quick movement he slipped the coin into his
pocket.

"I'll pay you back, Gertrude, a hundred times over," he gulped out,
his throat painfully contracted and in his eyes a swift hint of
moisture.

"Mark my words!" he cried with abrupt positiveness. "Before the
year is out I'll put an even hundred of those little yellow-boys
into your hand. I don't ask you to believe me. All you have to do
is wait and see."

Nor did she believe. Her incredulity made her uncomfortable, and
failing of other expedient, she said:-

"I know you're hungry, Mart. It's sticking out all over you. Come
in to meals any time. I'll send one of the children to tell you
when Mr. Higginbotham ain't to be there. An' Mart - "

He waited, though he knew in his secret heart what she was about to
say, so visible was her thought process to him.

"Don't you think it's about time you got a job?"

"You don't think I'll win out?" he asked.

She shook her head.

"Nobody has faith in me, Gertrude, except myself." His voice was
passionately rebellious. "I've done good work already, plenty of
it, and sooner or later it will sell."

"How do you know it is good?"

"Because - " He faltered as the whole vast field of