[BOOK ONE]
[CHAPTER I,] [ II,] [ III,] [ IV,] [ V,] [ VI,] [ VII,] [ VIII,] [ IX,] [ X,] [ XI,]
[BOOK TWO]
[ XII,] [ XIII,] [ XIV,] [ XV,] [ XVI,] [ XVII,] [ XVIII,] [ XIX,] [ XX,] [ XXI,]
[BOOK THREE]
[ XXII,] [ XXIII,] [ XXIV,] [ XXV,] [ XXVI,] [ XXVII,] [ XXVIII,] [ XXIX,] [ XXX.]
[TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE]

HALF LOAVES
——————
MARGARET CULKIN BANNING

HALF LOAVES

BY
MARGARET CULKIN BANNING
AUTHOR OF “THIS MARRYING,” ETC.
NEW YORK
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
COPYRIGHT, 1921,
BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
TO
A. T. B.

BOOK ONE

CHAPTER I

IT was dusk in the convent. All the stillness of the hour of prayer was deepened by the soft twilight coming through the narrow windows of the long corridor that led from the study room to the chapel. The statue of the Blessed Virgin above the holy-water font caught the last rays of light in the folds of her blue gown and dimly held them.

Cecily sat opposite the statue on the ledge of the window, and gravely watched the world darken. It was not quite time for Benediction and she had a great deal to think about. The convent was having a mission for its pupils and especially for the small class of girls who were to graduate next week. They had been exhorted to take the words of the missionary priest with great earnestness, for it would be his especial purpose to prepare these young souls for life in the world. The Jesuit, tall, spiritually emaciated, seethingly emphatic, had caught the spirit of his work. He had told them of temptation, of sin, of eternal life, of hope, of the grace of God, painting his pictures with a vividness of beauty and horror. And this afternoon in his last talk he had laid before them a choice of lives. There were three paths into which the life of a woman might direct itself or be directed, he had said. And the girls, hushed into immense seriousness and expectation, had hung upon his words.

The life of a woman in the world who did not marry—the life of a woman of the world who married—the life of a nun. One must choose, though it seemed that eternal salvation was possible along any of these roads. The unmarried woman must devote her life to saving her soul and, because she had no cares of home or children, she had more time than other women to devote to the salvation of other souls. The affection and care which she did not give to a husband and children she might devote to the alleviation of suffering, to the work of a lay woman in the church, or the care of an aged parent. To Cecily it somehow did not sound alluring—these women sinking into respected, dutiful cares—it did not sound alluring. The life of a nun—Mother Fénelon came along the corridor, her hands held together under the loose panel of her black robe, her face half concealed by the stiff fluted ruff around it, her step noiseless in her felt slippers. She smiled at Cecily and Cecily, slipping respectfully to her feet, smiled back. She loved Mother Fénelon. It was true what the priest had said. Nuns were happy—it was a beautiful, peaceful, sure life—a life of blessing and fun too. Perhaps, thought Cecily, it is because I am not a Catholic that I would not want to be a nun. Yet even the Catholic girls—even the devout Agnes, who spent an extra half hour in prayer every day, kneeling with her long body bent in real and voluntary discomfort over the back of a pew—even Agnes did not want to be a nun. Cecily took out of her memory the other choice of the priest. He had not placed it last. The life of a nun, highest in his estimation, had come as the climax of choices. But Cecily felt differently. The life of a married woman in the world—the life of a married woman—a little quiver of excitement ran through her imagination—a married woman. Yet the priest had not made it attractive.

No, he had seemed to make it deliberately rather unattractive. Sacrifice, pain, endurance of pain—these the lot of the married woman. He pictured her with her children, teaching them the love of God and devotion to Him. He pictured her bearing troubles which the children brought. And he had said, “Marriage is a sacrament which has for its purpose the establishment of a home and the bringing up of children. There are those in the world who will try to make you believe not only that marriage is not a sacrament and that it may be dissolved at will, but that the bodies and souls of little children do not belong to it. Who listens to such counsels willingly, who allows them to prevail upon him is in a state of mortal sin.”

And he had not said one word about love, thought Cecily. Lover’s love, that is. Perhaps because he did not know about it, not ever having been married. Or perhaps he thought all such things were sinful. Cecily reflected on love and the little thrill ran through her again. Decidedly he could not have shown marriage at its best. There was love—being made love to—and of course he did not know, could not be expected to know about such things as engagements and weddings. He did not know.

The girls began to come into the chapel, and jumping up again from her window ledge, she took from her pocket the black net veil, without which none of the students might enter the chapel, and pinned it on her hair. Between the black folds, falling on either side of her head, her face looked out charmingly. She was eighteen, but if it had not been for her tallness she would have seemed younger, for her eyes were depths of unsophistication and her hair swept back in soft brown waves as simply arranged as a child’s.

In the chapel Mother Barante began to sing softly the first hymn of the Benediction. It was the most precious hour of the day to many of the nuns as well as to the students. Mother Barante’s voice was one of the chief prides of the cloister and the nuns told with gentle satisfaction of the triumphs Mother Barante had been promised professionally, of the cathedrals which had wanted her for soloist and how she had preferred to sing like this—here in this white chapel at Benediction. Cecily had often thought that perhaps, after all, the singer had chosen wisely. Here in this exquisite chapel where everything except the high oaken stalls of the nuns and the seats for the students was spotlessly white and polished, where there were always flowers on the altar and soft reverential lights before the shrines of the saints, was a perfect setting. People came from great distances to hear Mother Barante sing, and, worldly and ostentatious as some of the girls were, they all took pride in the fact that none of these visitors saw the singer—only heard her glorious voice from the organ loft above them, where she stood, her glance always on the statue of the Mother of God.

Chapel was over. The mission was over. It was suppertime, and the girls filed in two long rows to the refectory hall. And, with the relief which came after the concentration of the mission, they were very gay. The nun who presided over the hundred girls was unexacting and the laughter echoed from the head table, where the older girls sat, down to the table where the littlest girls giggled and chattered over their gingercookies and preserves. The enormously fat sister who waited on table smiled at the children and left them an extra plate of cookies. Sister Loretta liked the little ones best and they loved her for she was as happy as she was fat, and always ready to find a hungry child something to eat. Not having enough education to aspire ever to become a mother of the order, Sister Loretta was completely content in being allowed to serve the others.

Cecily looked interestedly at Sister Loretta as she piled the dishes on her tray. What had made Sister Loretta choose the life of a nun, she wondered? She wished that she could ask her. She was anxious to find out more about this matter of choice of life—more especially why all these women had deliberately given up the life of a married woman in the world. There must be something more—there must be some objection which she did not know.

“Why do they choose to be nuns?” she asked reflectively, leaning one elbow on the table in a most forbidden way.

Agnes, sitting beside her, made the orthodox reply.

“It’s the holiest life—and the safest.”

“Safest from what?”

“Oh, temptations, troubles, sorrows.”

“Then I don’t see,” said Cecily, “why we don’t all just be nuns and make an end to it.”

There was a silence and then a giggle.

“Have to enlarge the convent some.”

“Be pretty dull outside.”

“Never get me to agree to that. Besides, there are reasons——”

Some of the reasons occurred to Cecily. She blushed a little and let the subject pass in a chorus of inconsequent and flippant comment. But later, in a corner of the recreation hall Agnes herself revived it. There were four of them—Agatha Ward, Madeline von Vlectenburg, Agnes Hearding and Cecily. They drew together in an earnest little group around the green shaded lamp by the divan and discussed it. For no one of them wanted that supreme choice of the Jesuit priest’s for a woman’s life—no one of them wanted to be a nun. Their faces were vivid with interest and excitement. Madeline, plump and blond and glowing, had already a personal interest in a man. She would see him when she got home again, and now that she was through school—she paused thrillingly. And Agnes began to talk of love with all the ardor that she threw sometimes into her sensuous enjoyment of religion. If she really loved a man, said Agnes——. Agatha was not so sure of love. She knew a woman who wrote and who had a flat of her own and who deliberately had not married. A life-work was sometimes better than marriage and more interesting. The girls listened seriously, for Mother Benedict herself had said that there was great talent in Agatha’s verses.

But Cecily contributed nothing. Deeper than the easy talk of the girls ran the message of the priest, and deeper still ran that strange adventurous wonder as to the solution of it all. The girls were choosing for themselves. They were not telling why one chose as one did.

Graduation week was busy. One had no time to think. The orderly days were crammed full and the life of the convent centered protectingly, admiringly, lovingly about the fifteen girls who were leaving it for the world. The simple parties, the award of the medal for composition, the medal for oratory, the coming of the parents, the special music for the last Mass, the unpacking of graduation dresses sent from home, the gentle flurry of the convent world absorbed the girls. It was only on the last night—the night before the final exercises—that Mother Fénelon, alone in the study room, looked up to see Cecily standing before her. Cecily’s eyes were frightened and fearful and excited and the nun drew the girl down upon a chair beside the desk, holding the nervous hands in the hollow of her own.

“It’s hard to go, Mother Fénelon, and I thought it would be easy. I thought, not being a Catholic, that so much of it wouldn’t matter. But it is hard. And I feel so afraid—and lost.”

“We keep you here in our hearts, dear—and you take us with you.” The old words, never tiresome, because always real.

“I know.”

“Is there anything especially bothering you, Cecily?”

“Yes,” said Cecily bravely, “the choice.”

“The choice?”

“You know. Of course I shan’t be a nun, but to marry—or not to marry.”

The nun did not smile. She had been cloistered in the convent many years and, perhaps because she had time to reflect upon them, was wise in the ways of the world. And she knew the reality of even the adolescent struggle.

“Cecily, dear, Father Aloysius called it your choice. It is yours. But only ultimately. Events, happenings which we cannot foresee but which come to us under the guidance of God, affect our choice in most matters. Do you see, dear—you can’t decide that now? You must wait and let events shape themselves—and only pray that your vision may be clear and your heart pure.”

A look of relief came over Cecily’s face. She nodded. But Mother Fénelon still held her hand.

“You are a pretty girl, Cecily,” she went on, “and the world rates prettiness very highly. There are people—there are men—who think it is all that matters—that pleasure is all that matters. Don’t believe them, dear.”

“What matters most—pain?”

“Neither pleasure nor pain.” The old nun transcended her philosophy in a phrase, “Life matters.”

CHAPTER II

THE Convent of the Sacred Heart was a curiously cloistral structure, situated in a manner quite unanticipated by its founders, in the spreading outskirts of the city itself. It was old as age went in Carrington—its wooden turrets and wasteful curves testified to that—and it had been built at a time when no one dreamed that the fields and pastures and wooded stretches which lay around the convent’s site would be filled within thirty years by prosperous looking residences, sleek lawns and neat hedges. But so it was. As the red brick of the convent walls grew tawny brown with age, the city crept up around them and only the great expanse of its own grounds and that five-foot wall remained to keep the peace of the cloister. But the wall was high and the pine trees within it thickly green in both winter and summer, and the convent, growing richer every year as its property increased in value, gave as little recognition as possible to the modernity outside its gates. It had abandoned its huge windmill for modern plumbing, gradually gas had supplanted lamps and electric wiring supplanted gas—but there the obvious changes stopped. The parlor was still the severe old Victorian parlor of its first furnishing, the study hall still had desks with lid tops and the stone flagging of the corridors was hollowed with the footsteps of thirty-five years. Its shabby permanency gave it peace and aristocracy and this atmosphere was breathed by the nuns themselves, for they, like the place, were cloistered. There were those among them who had been in the convent precincts for thirty years—those whose only voyage outside had been the most inconspicuous and hurried progress from one convent to another, when the Order had transferred them. There were those who came from France, where, until the exile of priests and nuns, they had taught the children of the aristocracy in high walled convents like this one; those who had come from England; and those who in the early part of their lives must have been simple American children. But no matter where they had come from, they were bound together by the same experiences and qualities now—tremendous religious devotion, a gentle love of seclusion and a fine, faint flavor of aristocracy of birth and education, for the order was no common order. It demanded a background of breeding and learning in its novices, and indeed a substantial dowry for them. All this because it devoted itself to the bringing up of ladies and could not risk the wrong kind of instruction for them.

The city, in a worldly, not too serious, way, was proud of its convent. It was proud of its cloistral bearing, of its aristocratic refusal to market even the smallest of its lots, as a tightfisted money maker may respect and be fond of some unworldly old lady who refuses to measure the world by his measure of dollars and cents. The esteem in which the convent was held was regardless of creed. Catholic and Protestant alike with pride pointed out the walled domain to visitors—and Catholics and Protestants alike tried to enter their daughters into its limited classes, if they or the daughters had a taste for that sort of education.

But the classes were limited and the work, after all, not college preparatory, so the convent did not compete seriously with the smart High School displaying itself, a quarter of a mile away, in the middle of its well kept lawns and two tennis courts (supported by private subscription). The High School did not consider the convent at all a competitor any more than the convent would have considered itself one. The flavor of the convent was lost in the general breeziness and bustle of the High School. From October until June its halls and classrooms swarmed with life, with restlessness, with innovations in everything from hair dressing to pedagogy. Its daily six hour-periods were jammed with the efforts of teachers and supervisors and the propagandists of some cause or other, and distinguished visitors and class leaders came, too, to impress facts and emotions upon eight hundred boys and girls. From Monday until Friday it seethed with excitement, and on Saturday the basket ball games in the perfectly equipped gymnasium or the crowds cheering the football games in the field at the back, and the parties in the evenings kept the school humming.

One period of the academic year, of course, transcended all others in interest and in holiday excitement. That was the week before Commencement, when the festivities attendant on that event threw the whole building into confusion and anticipation. Commencement week had the evil habit of being preceded by a week of “exams”—a rather nerve-racking time for all the classes, for a great deal of information had to be investigated in the bright and facile young minds under the High School’s control. Study became very real for a week or so, scholarship took on new dignity, and the amazing cleverness of both teachers and students showed through the blur of distractions. In spite of all their other interests, the students seemed to have learned a great deal about very definite subjects and they wrote, for the most part, very creditable examination papers and took due pride in them. Then the week passed and the spirit changed. The academic standard fell by the wayside among the things that counted not. What counted was to be pretty, to be attractive, to be a football hero (or at least on a class team), to be a good dancer, to have had the greatest number of “bids” to the Commencement dance or to the dance the Juniors gave to the Seniors, or to have a part in the class play.

On the night when Mother Fénelon talked to Cecily and soothed her vague nervousness about marriage, the great High School building, half a mile away, was ablaze with light. It was the occasion of occasions in the school social year—the Senior dance. On the wide macadam street automobiles were parked in long lines and through the open windows of the second floor gymnasium an orchestra was playing indefatigably. Young girls in gay taffeta dance frocks, made scrupulously like the fashionable evening dresses of older women, and boys in well brushed and pressed clothes were dancing, and dancing well, with a spirit and abandonment to enjoyment lacking in many an older party. Yet, in the midst of all the color and gayety a few of these adolescents struck a higher note of brilliance than the rest, and the most conspicuous was a girl in a cerise frock. Her dress was cut a little lower than the others, and her hair, bunched low over her ears like most of the rest, managed to make itself individual by being drawn tightly across her pretty forehead, accentuating its whiteness and height. She had one other triumph of individuality. She had a feather fan, as cerise as her gown, and completely out of keeping as it was, it still made her an irresistible picture. The mammoth fan, the short, brilliant little skirt, the restless feet and ankles and great bunches of black hair made her a model for a poster. She seemed fully conscious of her effect and of her overcrowded program of dances, for it was as if her laugh and vivacity led the others by natural right. It was one of her moments of triumph and she never wasted them.

Florence Horton, commonly known as “Fliss,” had gone through High School on sheer strength of wit. She was the only child of rather inconsequent parents whom she ruled completely. They had given her no social position so, in her early teens, she had set about making one for herself. And so far she had done it. “Fliss” went everywhere with the girls of her age who came from wealthy and exclusive families, used their automobiles, dined at their homes, was a favorite with their fathers and mothers, and called their servants and chauffeurs by their first names. She did it by sheer virtue of the color in her which, like the color in the cerise dress, was outrageous, unsuitable and immensely stimulating.

In her academic work she was invariably in difficulties. There was not a teacher who was not perfectly aware that Fliss studied practically not at all. She “bluffed” continually. But her bluff was so skillful and sometimes approximated so closely to real intelligence on the subject involved that it was impossible to drop her altogether. Now and then she failed in an examination, tutored frantically and made the work up again, and here she was, graduating with the rest, though there had been some dubious hours in this last week when it had taken several consultations between the chemistry teacher and his assistant to decide to give her passing credits. She was through with school. College was an impossibility from the standpoint of work, even if she could have afforded to go, and the only thing which might have allured her—a year at some fashionable Hudson River boarding school—was quite out of her range as being even more expensive than college. So Fliss made the best of it and declared that she was glad to be through with books forever, and that she meant for the rest of her life to have a good time.

It appeared that there would be plenty of people to give it to her. She had already managed to get the attention of several young men who were well past the High School age, and, though she danced and coquetted with the younger boys too, she was more interested in those slightly older than herself. Old and young, and brilliant, she was a perfect type of the woman who matures early and ages so imperceptibly that her reign is long.

She was out in the hall now with Gordon Ames and they sat on the top of the oiled stairs in semi-darkness. The music had started but Gordon ignored Fliss’s impatient little toe tapping on the step beneath her.

“I wish I didn’t have to go to college,” he grumbled.

“Why?”

“Because you’ll stay here and flirt with every boy in town.”

“Aren’t you horrid, Gordon Ames!” Fliss pouted with great pleasure.

“You know you will—and then some day somebody’ll marry you and there I’ll be off at college.”

“I might have something to say about that,” said Fliss, “and I haven’t any intention of getting married. I don’t want to marry. I’m going to stay home, and after a while, maybe I’ll do something—or go on the stage.”

“You’d better keep away from that,” said Gordon with much meaning and manly wisdom in his voice.

“I think I’d like it maybe.”

“Yes, you would.” He changed the subject impatiently. “Fliss, will you wear my frat pin?”

Fliss patted her knee with the ostrich fan, and regarded the pin. It was set with pearls in the most extravagant manner that a fraternity pin could be. But she hesitated.

“You know what that always means to everybody—all the girls laugh and talk——”

“That’s what I’d like it to mean—that we’re engaged.”

“Oh, I don’t want to be engaged.”

“I suppose it would have to be awfully indefinite. But it doesn’t have to mean that we’re engaged, just to wear my pin. Lots of girls wear them when they don’t mean a single thing. Please.”

She took the pin from him yieldingly, with a graceful little smile of pleasure and gratitude playing about her mouth. The boy was watching her closely and his face flushed suddenly at her smile.

“And because it’s our last night,” he whispered awkwardly, “you’ll let me kiss you——”

But he did not wait for permission. Most of the boys did not with Fliss. Fliss might not give you the kiss you wanted when you wanted it, but she could be kissed and they knew it. Usually they were silly enough, little giggling kisses, but to-night there was a new quality in Gordon. Fliss felt it and pulled herself away, a little abashed. But most of all Gordon seemed to feel it himself, for he released her and stood up suddenly, flushed and silent.

“I think this is what it is to be in love—really,” he said, soberly.

But she had recovered her gay little self.

“If you act like that another time, I’ll stop speaking to you, Gordon,” she said, “and I’m going down to dance.”

They went down into the crowded hall, but the boy did not dance again. Going home later, he crowded into the back of a big touring car with Fliss and three other couples of boys and girls, all excited and laughing, sitting on each other’s laps and indulging in foolish little caresses and rebuffs. He did not touch Fliss.

And Fliss, still later, sat on the edge of the bed in the room of a friend where she was spending the night. It was a rather luxurious room and the two girls made a lovely picture against its background. They discussed the dance and the boys.

“Oh, they are just boys,” said Fliss, somewhat slightingly. “You’ll see a different type in the men who come to college dances, I suppose. Real men.”

“I wish you were coming to college, Fliss.”

“Too much work.”

“But if you stay on here you’ll probably just marry——”

Fliss grew suddenly angry. “That’s the second time I’ve been told that to-night and it is perfectly absurd. Why should I marry just because I don’t go to college?”

Her friend ruminated a little. She was a pretty girl herself and a thoughtful one.

“I thought you might like to,” she answered simply. “And when there’s nothing much else to do, the girls all seem to——”

“Because they are stupid,” flashed Fliss, “of course they do. Like Dorothy Maynard. And then they have babies and get fat and stop dancing and don’t care about anything except babies and food. If I get married I won’t do that sort of thing anyhow. I won’t get married unless I’m sure I won’t have to. Anyway who could I marry?”

“You’d probably find some one.” The other girl slipped into her bed. “My feet are tired,” she added, “but I wish I could dance to that orchestra forever.”

Fliss did not answer. She sat, watching her image in the pier glass opposite her. It was a strangely young image for one possessed of such crowding thoughts.

CHAPTER III

CECILY’S mother had been married twice. That was as it should be, for she had not managed to get much happiness out of her first marriage. Allgate Moore, Cecily’s father, had been handsome and brilliant and well placed socially and his young wife, so very charming, so very much in love, had surely expected—must have expected—that all the good things of the world were to be laid at her feet. The wedding had been staged with considerable ceremony, as a picture of Mrs. Moore in the midst of banks of stiff white bridal satin still showed. But the aftermath had been less brilliant. The future prophesied for Allgate Moore had not come to pass and instead a great deal of dissipation and debt as well as a cherubic but upsetting Cecily had come to crowd young Mrs. Moore’s life.

It was fortunate, people soon said, that nothing seemed to disturb or harass Mrs. Moore greatly. She had an air of moving among her own troubles as if they concerned some one else to whom she was lending every aid and sympathy. And there was no trace of hysteria to be seen by the casual observer even when her young husband died of pneumonia three years after they were married and left her nothing but a somewhat soiled memory and some badly tangled financial affairs.

The debts were settled as scrupulously as they could be and there were several relatives and friends who opened their doors to Mrs. Moore with a real sincerity in their wish that she would make her home with them. But that, it seemed, was impossible to her. With her baby Cecily, she did a little visiting in various cities at first, but, wearying of that, took a small apartment in Carrington and managed somehow to pay her rent, satisfy her dressmaker, and tide over the three years during which she was rejecting proposals of marriage. She probably had more than the usual pretty widow because she had seemed to come so unscathed through the business of marriage once. To look at her cool, unlined face and watch the graceful slimness of her movements was to doubt that harassing affair of Allgate Moore entirely. But it must to some extent have made Mrs. Moore afraid, for she refused several offers of homes and fortunes which almost any woman might have felt too valuable to lose. Or perhaps she was more tired than any one knew or than she confessed even to herself. When she did decide to marry again she chose as complete a contrast to her first husband as could have been found. Allgate Moore had been the handsomest man of his group. Tall, dark, magnetic, he could ride, dance, or convince a stupid woman that the plans he had made for building her a mansion were perfection, with equal ease. He had flashes of brilliance in his work as an architect, but with his brilliance went an unscrupulousness, a readiness to cheapen himself by passing off inferior work, which had kept him from going very far. The man his widow chose as his successor was so deliberate a contrast to him as to be almost a repudiation of his memory unless it showed simply the versatility of her affection. She married Leslie Warner, a successful business man of forty who had distinguished himself by indefatigable work and unerring business judgment. He had in addition a keen sense of humor, a real kindliness of spirit and of manner, and a leaning towards fine solidity in his possessions. Why he married Mrs. Moore after forty years of bachelorhood was a puzzle to many people, but his emotions were as inscrutable as hers and certainly gave the public a chance for nothing more than conjecture. They built a spacious imitation Colonial house shortly after they were married and Mrs. Warner furnished its large halls and sunny rooms with quiet luxury, utterly disregarding the bizarre colorings and furnishings which had characterized her first home. Subsequently the Warners had two children, both boys.

Cecily admired her mother more than she found it easy to say and was as fond of her stepfather as he deserved. But perhaps, because she had come ready-made into the big white Colonial house, or perhaps because that curious characteristic aloofness had descended to her from her mother, there was something more than the difference in Cecily’s surname to remind people that she was the child of Mrs. Warner’s first marriage. She was four years old when her mother married Leslie Warner. When she was ten her mother, at a loss for proper schooling for her, dissatisfied with a succession of inefficient governesses and unwilling to let Cecily go to public school, had decided to try the Convent of the Sacred Heart. There were no Catholics in the family, but it was apparent to Mrs. Warner that these well-bred nuns would make no effort to proselytize her daughter and with confidence she intrusted Cecily to them as a boarding pupil, that being the only way they would take students. And so it was the convent rather than her home which had made the deepest impress on Cecily during the years of her adolescence. To be sure, she had come home for vacations, but the sense of permanency had always been connected with her life in the convent—with the going back to the quiet halls and definite routine rather than with the vacationing which had so kindly but so deliberately been made pleasant for her. She wondered what she was going to do with all her time at home. Perhaps her mother had been wondering too, for after the few first days of Cecily’s return, she came into the girl’s room one night and somewhat uncertainly seemed to settle herself for a talk. Mrs. Warner was still a very lovely woman, not quite forty, and Cecily looked at her with the irrepressible admiration she always felt.

“I wish you’d show me how to do my hair like yours, so that I’d know always which way it was going to wave,” said the girl.

Mrs. Warner smiled. “It’s much prettier to see yours as it is,” she answered. “Cecily, I’ve been thinking about you a good deal. Now that you are through school we must arrange things so that you will be happy. Later on we may travel, but this year your father is tied down in Carrington for most of the year, so I can’t see much ahead except a few weeks in New York with me this fall, a month in the South in the spring and after we get back from New York I thought I had better give a rather large party for you so you could meet people and become an orthodox débutante. Would you like that?”

Cecily looked a little perturbed, but what fear there was seemed to be overlaid with delight.

“I think I’d like it,” she said, “but, mother—you know I don’t dance very well—or know a thing about society.”

“The dancing we shall arrange and the other is no drawback.”

Cecily’s mother came over to lay her slim white hands on her daughter’s shoulders. “Were you happy in the convent?”

“So happy.”

“I want you to be happy outside of it, too. There’s no reason why you shouldn’t be. And I want you to be rather close to me until you marry, Cecily. I want you to marry the right sort of man, one who will care for you and protect you.”

“I’ve been thinking about marrying,” said Cecily ingenuously.

Her mother looked at her aghast. “Marrying whom?”

“Oh, just marrying.”

“You mustn’t think about it at all, dear. I want you to marry some time. But put it out of your mind until the time comes. Just be happy and then, when the time comes when you want to choose a man, let me know him a little first.”

“Of course,” Cecily became judicious, “I may never marry at all.”

Mrs. Warner smiled and closed the conversation rather rapidly.

“We can let that rest, dear.”

She lingered to look over Cecily’s wardrobe, criticizing with severity the frocks which Cecily put before her. Heretofore there always had been three new black Peter Thompson suits, a blue mohair and a white net dress each year. Now it seemed all the standards were to be changed. Even Cecily’s loved blue sweater was cast into the discard. She was to have new things, an appalling amount.

She lay wide awake, too happy to sleep, while her mother went into the library and sat down before her husband with a gesture of mock despair.

“Cecily frightens me to death,” she declared. “Here she is, all grown-up and absolutely terrifying. She is full of a kind of wiseness which I suppose reflects the nuns. Imagine, she has just been talking about marriage. Said she had been thinking about it.”

Mr. Warner reflected her own dismay and question. “But where did she meet any men?”

“That’s just it—she hasn’t. She thinks about marriage in general. I didn’t encourage the subject. Imagine, at eighteen, coolly contemplating it without a giggle.”

“Cecily doesn’t giggle much. I wonder if she has a sense of humor.”

“She doesn’t giggle at all. But I think she has humor. She’s not stupid. She’s puzzling.”

Mr. Warner smiled in a kind, wise fashion of his own. It was interesting to hear his wife reflect on herself as exemplified in her daughter—and funny—and pathetic.

“You were puzzling too, my dear—you are puzzling.”

She did not share his smile.

“She is like me—and I won’t be able to get close to her because she is. I tell you that she frightens me, Leslie. If I thought she had to go through some things——”

“She won’t, my dear. We’ll take jolly good care of that. She shall be cared for.”

He rose a little heavily. “What we shall have to do now is to knock some of the sanctity out and replace it with gayety. I think I’ll teach her to smoke and play poker.”

So Cecily’s secular education began; with her stepfather’s wonderful and surprising gift of a saddlehorse which she must learn to ride at once to please him; with her mother’s new and fascinating interest in her clothes and her own awakening interest in them too; with dancing lessons which made her quickly forget the two-step and Virginia reel of the convent; with a new kind of world to watch and explore and adjust to. She startled herself. In her mirror she saw not the girl in black sailor suits, to whom she was accustomed, but a new figure, a slim, lovely, dark haired girl, with wondering eyes and glowing cheeks, to whom every new frock seemed the most becoming. She was not alone in being startled. Her mother had much the same sensation, having not realized Cecily’s possibilities until recently. She seemed very proud to take her daughter about with her. So Cecily was initiated into a new routine. Instead of rising in the chilly dormitory and hurrying down to a breakfast of oatmeal porridge, toast and milk and then to an early class in French, she still rose early, but to go horseback riding with her stepfather and come back to a sunny breakfast-room where, over shining silver dishes and a great bowl of fruit, she and her mother planned the course of the day. Perhaps they would shop in the morning or sometimes attend some morning lecture which was attracting attention from society and lunch with friends at a city tearoom or go to a more formal luncheon to be followed by a matinée. This in place of lessons or basketball in the convent garden or chapel attendance. It was not a riotously gay life to which Mrs. Warner introduced her daughter. She had far too good taste for that. It was wholesome and the hours were as pleasantly regular as they had been in the convent. Cecily felt it the gayest of existences and it was not until much later that she discovered from how much cheapness and excitement her mother had shielded her at first, or how carefully chosen her pleasures had been. But Mrs. Warner saw to it that the city became conscious of Cecily as a new star on the social horizon, and that she was kept remote only added to her prestige.

CHAPTER IV

THERE was a well-bred society in Carrington—new perhaps in the sense that Carrington itself was young, but though the aggregate society might be new, most of its members were not novices in the enjoyment of beautiful things or in the traditions of manners. They came from a great many places in the United States, settling in Carrington for the “business reasons” of their sons or husbands or sons-in-law, and they went back whence they had come, on visits, establishing valuable rapports between the cities of their genesis and the one of their habitation. The women went to New York to shop, if their incomes were large enough, and, also, Carrington had its spring colony in California and its winter colony in Florida. All these interchanges were useful. They made of the mid-western city a place less provincial and less conglomerate. Carrington could indeed bear its social head with more pride and real distinction than many a larger place, overrun by parvenus. Bluffing was difficult. A newcomer always found persons who knew people of consequence in his former city, persons from his college who would easily place him. Yet, for all that, where bluffing was not involved to the point of being obnoxious, Carrington was tolerant and allowed the newcomer every chance to make good; was not too cruel in its comments, too exacting as to previous records. It had the laxities of the great world and many of the fine distinctions of the smaller worlds which revolve around the life of old cities. On the whole, a gracious place—the kind of place that Europeans too rarely credit to the United States.

Cecily was high enough on the social ladder to be unconscious of any rungs to climb. And it had never been suggested at the Convent of the Sacred Heart that it was a modern and edifying pursuit to watch people swarming up from the ground and struggling to maintain a foothold on that ladder. So it never occurred to her that it meant a great deal to Fliss Horton to meet her, or that Fliss marked the day that she did meet her as a red-letter one of social success.

Cecily had been singing at a musicale at the home of one of her mother’s friends. She had sung two short songs in French and she had been both worried and diffident about her performance. Still she did it admirably and looked delightful, dressed in a soft silk velvet dress of black, with only a silver cord to set off the exquisite lines of the frock and of her slenderness. Fliss had been invited to the musicale. Invitations came with reasonable ease to these semi-charitable affairs and they could be made extremely useful. She listened to Cecily singing, but her heart was in her eyes instead of her ears, watching Cecily’s clothes and undoubtedly shrewdly guessing at their cost, for Fliss shopped much with her lips in places where she could not at all afford to buy. Later she met Cecily and told her how much she had enjoyed the singing. Cecily actually blushed with pleasure.

“I was frightfully nervous,” she said. “It was the first time I had ever sung anything in French without going over it with one of the French nuns, you see. You imagine you are sure of your French until you have to do something like that, absolutely on your own. Then you get so scared for fear some one who really knows French will be listening.”

“I don’t know much about it, but it certainly sounded beautiful and you didn’t seem the least bit frightened.”

Cecily smiled her thanks again and they moved off together, talking. There were more older than younger people at the musicale and Fliss was quick to seize on the other girl’s temporary lack of companionship. She herself was looking very pretty—less overdressed than usual—and though any of the older women might have criticized the high tan kid shoes and the tight, short tan suit-dress, Cecily only admired its effect and found herself interested in the new girl, who, it appeared, lived in town, not far from her own house, who was the friend of other girls she knew—as Fliss skillfully brought out—and who had an air of piquancy about her that was very interesting and even charming. What Fliss thought about did not matter. She was working hard to make an impression, to be remembered if an occasion should arise on which she would want Cecily to remember her. And there was a certain effectiveness in the conversation between herself and the beautifully dressed convent girl, of which Fliss was far too clever an artist to be unconscious. Cecily might make her suffer in a way by the contrast—but it would always be “in a way.”

It was late afternoon and a few men came in, most of them calling for their wives by previous arrangement, with two or three who recognized the occasion as a social one or had been called upon especially to come with their checkbooks and charitable consciences. Bachelors came, too—past the age of fearing such feminine social affairs, most of them—and then one who came unexpectedly, for no expressed reason. The older ladies beamed at the sight of him; the dark eyes of Fliss took on a more excited radiance; and the slow color crept up into Cecily’s cheeks as a tall figure singled itself out from the rest and Dick Harrison made his way—his popular, friendly way—across the room to her. He was good looking. Every one admitted that his brown hair, which would curl even at thirty, and his athletic figure were in his favor. But Cecily was beginning to see more than that. She had been meeting him for a month now at one place and at another—dances, dinners, theater parties. Dick was always an addition to any party, always desirable—she had quickly discovered that people thought that. Partly it was because he was wealthy and handsome; and because Carrington and Carrington’s affairs were closely identified with all his interests; he was truly a favorite son. No mother frowned upon any attentions he paid her daughter unless she felt they were over-slight, and few daughters were altogether indifferent. Dick was excused for dalliance with years of freedom, because as a bachelor he was so desirable.

As for Dick himself, he had a good time and believed in his business, which had to do with promotion of mining interests and the development of the city, and had fairly tolerant political views, and lived with his worldly-minded mother in a thoroughly pleasant house which seemed to him far pleasanter than any of the apartments of most of his married contemporaries. He had no desire to get married at all. That is, he had had no desire until he met Cecily. He met her one night at her mother’s house, and after that he sat back and let all the conventional things happen to him, enjoying each one of them extremely. He thought about her continually; he arrayed a new ideal of woman with all of her attributes; he freshened up all the old phrases about purity and love—about men not being fit for decent women. He could not keep his mind off possible scenes in which he and she participated alone and he blushed hotly and secretly at them—and recurred to them. He wanted to do all the things that men have ever done to win women, and to enjoy his winning of her.

So he had seen Cecily even oftener than she guessed and he had aroused a little whirlpool of comment around himself and her which he rather gloried in. In the eyes of the city there was no possible objection to any love-making which he might see fit to carry on, except a possible reservation that a girl of nineteen was very young for marriage. But with these two young people there was so much to make marriage easy that it was hard to make an objection out of youth, especially when Dick’s ten extra years were added to Cecily’s youth. Dick’s mother was highly in favor of seeing her son married. Even Cecily’s mother——.

Cecily’s mother said very little. She put Dick next to herself at dinner whenever he came to the house and talked to him about all kinds of subjects, always making him talk a little more than she herself. She did not mention him to Cecily except incidentally and not at all as a subject for discussion. Now, as she saw him cross the room to her daughter, she crossed too, most casually. That to the mixed glory and discomfiture of poor Fliss.

Mrs. Warner smiled at Dick and the two girls and it became obvious that she did not know who Fliss was. If Fliss had been of the slightest consequence, Mrs. Warner would have known. As it was, she acknowledged her introduction with great graciousness.

“Have you, like Cecily, just finished school? Where have you been studying?”

It hurt Fliss to admit that sum total of High School, but she was far too wise not to be frank.

“I’ve just finished High School,” she answered. “There was no use sending me anywhere else. I wasn’t nearly clever enough.”

“She’s the infant prodigy when it comes to dancing, though,” said Dick lightly.

After all, it was a great moment for Fliss. She was part of an intimate group which was peerless socially—Cecily Warner, Mrs. Warner, Dick Harrison—and then the moment passed. With what was almost a gesture of dismissal, Mrs. Warner withdrew her daughter.

“We must hurry, dear. There are to be guests for dinner. Are you riding with me or walking? Did you get any exercise to-day?”

Dick cut in lightly, taking Cecily’s arm, “She hasn’t had any exercise, I’m sure. Let me walk her home, Mrs. Warner. And I’ll get her home in lots of time because I have to speed on and get dressed myself if I’m to get any of your dinner to-night.”

Fliss slipped out of the group a little awkwardly and, moving past the indifferent hand of her hostess, found herself in the street. The motors for the guests were gliding skillfully up and down before the house. Here and there, a group before the open door of a limousine were still gossiping, or three or four people turning away for a brisk walk home. The little tan figure, drawing a modish, unpaid-for fur about her trim little neck, stood for a moment on the steps, seeming to look on at the spectacle of her own social inconsequence. Then she too slipped into the shadows and on towards her own home.

A year ago she had prevailed upon her parents to take an apartment, for the old, brown-porched house in which she had been brought up had been almost intolerably shabby. It had seemed a very fine change to Fliss at first. She liked the nouveau art touches in the apartment living-room, the frescoed grapes in the dining-room, the mirrored door of the small, inconvenient bathroom. But the glamour had largely gone by this time. And to-night it was rather more faded than usual. To drive up to the apartment house door in some one’s limousine was not so bad. To walk down the stupid street by which she must approach the house was different. It was depressing. Fliss, who seldom knew depression, had the visible lines of it around her mouth as she pushed open the door of the tiny hall and smelled the frying grease of the lamb chops in the kitchen. She stood before the hall mirror, taking off her hat and putting it away carefully, hanging her suit coat up carefully too, with the fur draped over it. Her mother came in to watch her.

“Did you have a good time, dearie?”

“As good as I expected.” The girl’s tone was rather pathetically tired.

“Any one bring you home?”

“No, I walked—for exercise.”

Her mother heard no sarcasm. “It’s a nice night out,” she said. “I just came in myself. I went to the White Sale at Barney’s and then dropped in at the Majestic—Dorothy Danby in ‘Other Men’s Wives,’ you know. It wasn’t very good—not worth a quarter.”

Fliss must have had a swift vision of the women who did not go to see Dorothy Danby—of Mrs. Warner dealing at long range with her dinner parties. Her face was dark and bitter.

“I hate this not being anybody—why aren’t we somebody?” she broke out.

Her mother looked daunted. “I’m sure you go everywhere you want to—going to stay at the Spragues’ to-morrow night, out all this afternoon, and there’s that swell dance at the Mortons’ next week—I think you have a good time. It’s not my fault your father hasn’t more money.”

“It’s nobody’s fault—nothing is. But that doesn’t make it easier. A girl can’t do it all alone—she needs houses, automobiles, if she is to get anywhere.” She stopped and looked at the stupid figure in front of her, which could not seem to understand its own failure as a mother. “It’s just that I’m tired and I think I’m getting a cold and it’s so darn lonesome with all the girls away. That musicale was the deadest thing you ever saw.”

She went to the kitchen and watched the chops sizzling, drearily, but none the less with a certain interest. After all, the walk home had been exercise.

CHAPTER V

BUT it seemed rather unimportant, except to three rather frowzy, struggling persons, what was happening to Fliss. The important thing was what was happening to Cecily—what did happen during those next three marvelous months of her life. However much Dick might have been willing to drift along through a prolonged love-making and slow courtship, however much Cecily’s parents might have wished for such developments, it was soon obvious that they were impossible. The young freshness, the rarity, of Cecily attracted other men. There was one, one desperately in earnest older man, who even spoke to Cecily of marriage and drove her, white and trembling, to her mother. After that, a new diffidence, a new hesitation in her manner towards Dick puzzled him and stimulated him.

“I see nothing to do except let Dick Harrison try,” said Mrs. Warner rather sadly to her husband. “I don’t want any of the rest of them to take the bloom off Cecily with a lot of coarse, commonplace love-making. She’s too young, but she’s also too attractive. And it will come to Dick sooner or later, if she cares anything at all about him. I feel curiously helpless.”

“Dick fills the bill pretty well, after all, doesn’t he? He has a good record, a clean bill of health, and they would live here in town so that you could keep an eye on her.”

Dick found things made easy for him—opportunity easy, that is. His love-making was no easier for him than a man’s serious love-making ever is. He felt it was a time which harrowed his very soul, a time when a new character and a new psychology seemed to grow up in him, decrying everything he had ever done in his life—a time of strange humilities and reverences, soaring plans and queer discouragements. But the night came when he did ask Cecily to marry him and at the fright in her eyes regained his own courage.

Cecily did not answer him at once. He had laid his hope before her with a simplicity that surprised himself, for he had been full of fine phrases the day before. And then, when the moment came, he could only hold out his arms in helpless appeal and plead, “If you’ll marry me, Cecily, I’ll spend the rest of my life trying to make and keep you happy. I will—truly.”

Cecily only looked at him, drawing away a little from his eagerness. A moment before she had been all gayety. But the very word “marry” stirred depths in her which were frightening. And again she was in the convent, listening to the Jesuit priest, hearing him tell them of the choices before women. She was afraid and allured—and stirred. Those same choices pressing upon her—Dick no longer just a companion, just fun to be with, but Dick wanting to marry her! It was enough to make her spirit draw back as it did. Dick could get no answer. And he had grace enough not to press for one. But Cecily’s mother, seeing what had happened in the new awkwardness between Dick and her daughter, knew that the time for interference had come. She found Cecily sitting in her room, looking into space, much as Mother Fénelon had found her on the last day of the retreat. Cecily took her mother’s hand as she sat down beside her and held it, and the simple gesture affected Mrs. Warner greatly.

“Trouble, Cecily?”

“Dicks wants me to marry him,” said Cecily, without classifying.

“Dick loves you,” her mother answered.

“But—marrying—ought I to get married, mother?”

“Surely not unless you want to.”

“I don’t—not want to. And he—Dick makes it seem possible. But I don’t know anything about it, mother. I wouldn’t know how to be married.”

There were tears in her mother’s eyes now.

“A little of marriage I can tell you about, Cecily dear—but the rest you learn from your husband—the rest you and he learn together. And that’s why it’s hard to help you now, dear. If Dick is the person you want to learn with, you should marry him. But I can’t tell whether he is or not. If he isn’t, he mustn’t be your husband. As far as an outsider can tell—yes, even I must be an outsider here—he would be a good husband for you. But unless you want him, unless you want him badly, there’s no good in it.”

The reserved, the aloof Mrs. Warner had broken some barrier to talk like that. She seemed to feel the unaccustomed mood and changed quickly—again Cecily’s quiet, controlled mother.

“Go to bed now, Cecily,” she finished. “When you see more of Dick you can tell better. And I won’t let him hurry or worry you. And I want you to have a good rest.”

They all made it as easy as possible for Cecily. As easy as possible. Dick did not harass her. Her mother would have prevented that even if he had had the inclination. Mr. and Mrs. Warner took her away for a few weeks to New York, and, if she thought of the decision before her, she did it without their pressing it upon her. As a matter of fact she did think about it constantly. She found she missed Dick and in her deft, direct, mental way knew that meant a great deal. Then there was a memory which clung to her consciousness and would not be detached. It was the memory of Dick’s embrace the night he had asked her to marry him. It was a unique memory. When she thought about it it was not like recalling a single happening. It was like looking backward and forward over the whole of her life—as if all life had been leading up to this, as if all life would point back to it. But still the indefinable fear, the indefinable threat of the priest who had seemed to be deliberately making marriage hard, persisted. She thought a great deal in the gaps between shopping and theater-going in New York.

They came back to Carrington after three weeks and Dick came to see her at once. He looked a trifle thinner—a trifle more eager even—and he was obviously impatient of the presence of others. When he and Cecily were finally alone, a throbbing silence settled over them. Then Dick put out his hands and took hers.

“Have you thought about me at all, Cecily?”

“Almost all the time I thought.”

“And—you—how do you feel about it now? Not afraid any longer? Ready to trust me—to let me love you, Cecily—Cecily?”

She lifted her eyes to his and let him decide.

After that it became much different and nearly all joy. Suddenly all the ominousness, the queerness, the vague fears disappeared. It was partly knowing Dick so much better, of course; partly becoming used to the gay, adoring laugh he had for her and more than that, to the touch of his arms and the rapture in his voice when he and she were alone and he could make love to her; it was partly meeting the approbation of every one, seeing in the eyes of girls and of women that they thought she had something which they would like to have, and partly the gay excitement of plans and arrangements. Dick was impatient now. He wanted to be married at the first possible moment; he had all sorts of contradictory plans and suggestions for a home and he was full of enthusiasm which would scarcely bear restraining. But Cecily’s marriage would, under her mother’s guidance, have neither haste nor incongruity. There was Cecily’s wardrobe, Cecily’s house and the marriage itself to be attended to in due course. Dick might plan, but he had no deciding voice in any of these matters.

The marriage was to take place in the early summer, and then, too, the house would be ready for occupancy. The house itself was the gift of the Warners. It was not new and it was not at all the sort of place which most brides began with, for it was large and had much more space inside and out than the usual bridal apartment. Its red brick walks surrounded the long, gray shingled house and garage neatly, and there were flowers and shrubs and trees. When Cecily first saw the house, new sensations woke in her. She turned to Dick with a strange sense of proprietorship for the first time. It was as if suddenly she saw a responsibility of her own in marriage. Thereafter came interviews with decorators and painters and upholsterers and visits to furnishers’ shops. Happiest of all was Mrs. Warner. Cecily’s house was to be a radiant place, full of sunshine and happy color. Cecily’s bridal wardrobe was to be exquisite and simple and beautiful. Cecily’s wedding——

Cecily’s wedding fell upon one beautiful day in June. The sun had been shining all day so that the evening was permeated with a softness and clearness that seemed left over from the radiance of the day. In the church great banks of green set off the tall candles, burning with flames that went straight up, and faintly fragrant, yellow pink roses filled the niches in the walls. It was one of those esthetically religious weddings in which the religion depends largely on the success of the esthetic effect. Cecily visualized the place as a chapel and wished that she could have heard the cloistered nuns singing as she approached. But the wish was vague. The plans were very completely made and she must carry them out to the satisfaction of herself and everybody. Then, as she went down the aisle she saw Dick—strange, familiar, Dick crowding out every one else. She realized suddenly that she and Dick were responsible for the future; she remembered that she was going away with Dick to-night, and she had two immense, sudden desires in conflict—one to run out of the church and hide herself where she would never be found and one to get close to Dick for comfort. But her mind was telling her how to act. She was going down the aisle, catching a fleeting glimpse of her new mother-in-law, standing beside her stepfather, repeating words which she had memorized, hearing Dick repeat them too, though he sounded strangely far off. She was going out of the church now and forgetting to look up and smile as she had said she was going to. Almost at the back of the church she remembered. She looked up and her eyes met the curious, envying eyes of Fliss. Cecily smiled. She had asked her mother to ask Fliss to the wedding for she had seen her a few times after the musicale and always been interested. She smiled and passed on. Fliss drew a long breath and turned to the man beside her.

“Beautiful, wasn’t she? And she has everything in the world—everything ahead of her!”

Everything ahead of her. So Cecily felt in the dim confusion of the Pullman. Curtains swung from the berths already occupied when she and Dick finally boarded their train. The electric lights seemed strangely dull after the brightness of the house she had left. She was alone in their drawing-room waiting for the porter to bring in their bags. Their bags—Dick’s too, of course. She wished he would come—would stay away—would come.

He came in marshaling a smiling, well-tipped porter. Then the porter was gone again and her husband, with a strangely timorous look on his face, was standing by her. He lifted her hand to his lips and then, as their eyes met wonderingly, dropped to his knees with his curly head in her lap.

CHAPTER VI

EVEN the unhappy, disillusioned man or woman who looks back at a wrecked marriage with cynicism or disgust or who does not look back at all because it is too painful, will, none the less, carry about with him until the end of his life a few poignant memories which never lose their power to thrill him anew, though desire to relieve them may be gone or the companion of his memories have become ludicrous. It is the fat dowager still able to blush at her daughter’s teasing inquiry about the time father asked her to marry him, it is the faded, washed-out woman who sobs in the movies as the heroine tells the hero that she is going to have a child and they fade out in an embrace, it is the old gentleman who grows sentimental over a popular song, who bear this out. Troubles, bitternesses, grief—temporary drama, mock drama they may be—but the drama of undying poetry is in love and not in disillusion or hate.

The hesitation of the first steps of marriage, the explanation of love, the abandonment, the amazing tendernesses, the secret rivalry in affection for each other—those are the moments of greatest dramatic intensity. Stories give us, as is natural for them, perhaps, the odd cases—the ill-matched couples—but for the great number of people who follow nature and are led by her there never comes again greater poignancy in life than steeps the wedding night and the hour of the birth of their children. More excitement, more pleasure, more joy at other times perhaps—but it is then that human life sounds its depths. It is the memory of such times which may account, more than the pressure of society or the weight of habit, for the strange fidelities of men to unworthy women and of women to unworthy men.

Cecily stored her memory with very beautiful things during the first days of marriage. There were times when she walked in an exalted dream. She had become immensely conscious of herself. It seemed to her that she could not walk unnoticed on the street—the glory of her happiness must show to other people. Fear, the strange fears in her contemplation of her marriage, the nervous fears during the ceremony had been blown away in a very wind of happiness. She had no care, no thought except Dick and their amazing joy in each other. They had gone to New York and then, after a few days, motored up the Hudson, keeping to the State road only as the fancy took them and wandering off for half days along country by-ways, leading through valleys of farms and steep little towns set on hills. Through the long evenings of slow twilight they drove by the river, and when it was dark there was some hotel or road house transformed by the magic of the journey into a hospitable inn for wayfarers. And night came and they were in strange rooms but always with the new warmth of intimacy contrasting with the strangeness of the setting and making them closer together. So on through a golden month—a month which held moments of sacredness, of steady joy, of sheer laughter.

Dick was making himself real to Cecily and enjoying her as he had never enjoyed anything before. There was not so much glamour for him as for her, partly because he was a man and partly because the world kept its proportions for Dick almost always. As a lover and a suitor he had done exactly what a lover and suitor should do—tortured himself with feelings of unworthiness and with doubts and lain awake with his hopes. As a husband, his feelings changed. He was no longer doubtful, no longer bothered about unworthiness. He was Cecily’s husband and radiantly, boyishly satisfied. Marriage was accomplished in his life and it was all that was delightful. And Cecily was the most beautiful and charming of women. His feeling was partly inspired directly by his wife; also it went with the code of men in marriage. There was room in his mind for other things, too—for business plans, for politics.

Cecily had no code. To her all that had happened had happened to her first and singly, of all women in the world. She could not conceive of grouping her experiences or sharing them with all women. Nor did she have thoughts which did not concern Dick. He had suffused her mind. She was very innocent and her husband, entering her mind and heart, had taken complete possession. She thought through him, and it never occurred to her that she was subordinating herself. She wanted to share everything in the world with him and to identify herself with him. Into her first month of marriage she brought exactly the elements to make it perfect and if she failed to establish exactly the proper basis for a modern marriage she built for herself and her husband a perfect memory and dropped an anchor thereby.

Dick had glimpses of insight. “I wonder if you are really very innocent or very wise,” he said laughingly to her. “Sometimes I guess one and sometimes the other. You avoid disagreeable things so—so exquisitely. Most women are so controversial nowadays.”

“I’ve nothing to be controversial about. Besides I don’t like controversies.”

“Wonderful woman!” admired Dick.

He enjoyed making Cecily presents, took delight in the almost childish pleasure she showed over his thoughtfulness and over new possessions. And he liked to see people admire her, as people invariably did.

They had planned on a month of vacation and then were to join Cecily’s mother and stepfather in New York for a few days before going home. Cecily’s mother awaited that meeting with some anxiety. In the days before the wedding she had kept close to Cecily, a little shyly, as if she wished to compress into those days a closer companionship than they had ever had before. But it was too late, perhaps, to create a feeling that grows naturally with years. They admired each other immensely, but they were not intimate.

Mrs. Warner’s manner, with its unaccustomed trace of nervousness as she stood with her husband before the gates of the train yards, was not reflected in him. He was the first to catch a glimpse of Dick and Cecily and chuckled.

“There they are”—he waved boisterously—“and they don’t see us; they aren’t even looking at us. Like to know what we came for to break in on that—if we could break in!”

They came along the platform, absorbed in something they were discussing, and with one glance at Cecily Mrs. Warner’s face lost its anxiety. Cecily walked regardless of the world. Dick must have been very good to her and very gentle to make her look like that. Then the young people saw the elder ones and hurried to them.

There was something fairly humorous in Cecily’s new sophistication. She felt much older, much more learned, thoroughly admitted to the class of married women. Even her mother smiled. And her stepfather teased her.

“She swaggers when she gives her name,” she said. “Did you hear her tell the clerk that the order was for Mrs. Richard Harrison? He grew pale at the august name. You mustn’t be such a snob, Cecily. Almost anybody can get married.”

“Not to Dick,” said Cecely, unperturbed.

“No—not without some penalty as things stand now,” admitted Mr. Warner.

Such swaggers—Dick sported his complacencies too—amused the Warners and delighted them. Dick had a proprietary way of deciding when Cecily was tired and the note in his voice as he said “my wife” reflected the superiority of Cecily’s “Mrs. Harrison.” The older people showed their pleasure in all this by spending a great deal of money and being willing to postpone their Atlantic City trip still further. But Cecily demurred. She wanted to get back to Carrington now to take the final step that might prove to be the happiest—to begin her home.

When by night they reached Carrington she felt she was right. No one met them, for they had told no one of their coming and Dick put his wife into a taxi and gave the magic address of their home. It was ready for them, they knew, and Mrs. Warner had already installed a servant to keep it open and comfortable.

Dick threw open the door and drew his wife inside. To him it was a glorious adventure, but Cecily’s face reflected more than adventure. She was very grave. Instinctively she felt that her part of things was beginning. Until now it had been Dick’s game—Dick was responsible for what they did and she had been happily content to leave things in his hand—but now her share in the responsibility of marriage began.

“You look so solemn,” said Dick. “It’s a house, not a church, you know.”

“It feels like a church. I never felt so subdued—and holy—in any church before.”

“Why, Cecily, dear!” Dick did not let her maintain that tone. She was tired and he was afraid she was a little overstrained. He made her laugh, led her on a triumphal tour of the house, gave a graphic description of himself caring for a furnace. She met his gayety with gayety, but underneath the gayety persisted that feeling of responsibility and—holiness. It was like a church, her mind kept persisting.

With the next morning came a bustle that drove those thoughts away. Cecily assumed command of her household and Dick went to his office. The telephone began to ring persistently. The maid appealed to Cecily for decisions about food and the housekeeping machinery. Cecily went about using all her new dignity to its best advantage, and repeating to herself under her breath, “This is mine—my home,” with unfading wonder that it was so. She would pause to look about her in admiration, justified admiration, for the sunlight pouring into the big simple living-room, gleaming on the brasses before the fireplace, bringing out the dull colors of the upholstery, made it a very charming room. The living-room and her bedroom were the rooms she liked best, for they both caught the sunlight more than any other rooms in the house, and her bedroom was peaceful as well as beautiful, most of its color concentrated in the Chinese rug which covered the floor and set off the ivory colored furniture and walls. It was all spacious and exquisitely clean and orderly. Housekeeping instincts crowded to the front of Cecily’s consciousness.

She lunched alone that day, for she and Dick had decided, Dick guiding, that it was better for him not to attempt to come home for lunch and lose two hours in the middle of the day. Cecily had agreed with him, but lunching alone, as she tried it, seemed to her a waste of time. And the hours hanging a little heavy on her hands after that first lonely luncheon, she took out the little coupé which had been her stepfather’s wedding gift to her and manufactured a shopping list.

In one of the shops she met Fliss Horton. Fliss was standing in an attitude of reflection before the blouse counter, pretending to the clerk that she was unable to decide which blouse to choose and actually wondering desperately if her father’s account was too large and too long unpaid to justify the purchase of a twenty dollar blouse, reduced from forty. She was idly speculating on the practical use of the blouse and the possible occasions for wearing it when Cecily stopped beside her.

“I thought,” said Fliss, “that brides didn’t need to buy clothes for years and years, especially brides who have just come from New York.”

“They wouldn’t have to if their trousseaux were a little more practical. I have any number of afternoon clothes and pictorial blouses and traveling things with long sleeves. What I need above all and haven’t is a short-sleeved smock to work in mornings.”

“There again I thought all brides wore trailing negligees until noon.”

They laughed together and felt very well acquainted.

“Not brides who keep house. I shall find plenty of ways to assist my maid and I need a good bare arm to do it.”

Fliss, buying the twenty dollar “bargain” of chiffon, was looking enviously at Cecily, who was inspecting cotton smocks at three dollars and ninety-eight cents. Fliss didn’t buy working clothes. She worked in the morning with her mother, hating it, but she and her mother wore “old things” that had to be worn out.

“Are you all settled?”

“Mother and I did that before we went away and so there was nothing to do but enter the house when we came back. You must come to see me.”

“I want to.”

They lingered, talking casually, and Fliss gained several advantages, being seen by half a dozen people with Cecily and finally being asked to ride home in the new coupé. She spoke to every one she knew from the window of the car and Cecily marveled openly at the number of people she knew and at the number of hats that were lifted from handsome masculine heads as Fliss smiled and nodded at them.

“You know every one,” she commented.

Fliss laughed with much pleasure. “I’ve met a lot of people during this last year,” she admitted. “If you and your husband don’t scorn the Assembly and Club dances you’ll see all these people there.”

“Indeed we won’t scorn them. I think I had cards to the Assembly once or twice last winter, but mother thought I was a bit young.”

“Now that you are married you aren’t too young for anything, are you?”

Cecily caught a hint of mockery in the tone and looked surprised. “Well, I shall be twenty in a few months and that’s pretty old. You see I was nearly nineteen when I finished the convent.”

“I’m twenty now.”

“You look about seventeen.”

“Because I’m small. I was in High School five years, because they cruelly flunked me one year. But High School was fun.”

“Yes,” said Cecily vaguely. She was watching some one in the passing crowd and suddenly with a smile she blew her horn and pulled up beside the pavement. “There’s my husband,” she added.

Dick came smilingly to the side of the car.

“It’s exciting meeting your wife on the street,” he said gayly. “I’ve been wondering how soon I could cut and run for home, despite my self-respect as a business man.”

“Oh, come now,” begged Cecily.

She, too, found it exciting to meet her husband on the street. A delicious sense of intimacy underran all this casualness. It made her flush and the flush was becoming. Fliss looked at her, leaning forward towards her husband, with that abandon of interest and affection. It was a new way with men for Fliss. Fliss made them fight for favors and interest—mock battles, no doubt, but well staged.

Dick yielded.

“I will go home now. The house has probably gone to rack and ruin in my absence,” he said, getting in beside Fliss, who had moved to the back seat. They kept up a gay banter, throwing an occasional remark at Cecily, who was driving. The slight embarrassment Fliss sometimes showed when talking to Cecily had vanished now. Fliss was sure of her ground instinctively with men. Hers were methods as old as woman and as deft—flattering, piquing, stimulating.

They dropped her at the door of the apartment house, still smiles and coquetry.

“Funny little thing, isn’t she?” said Dick, climbing over to Cecily’s side. “Where did you pick her up, sweetheart? She doesn’t seem like your kind.”

“I’m always half sorry for her and quite interested.”

“Oh, she’s just a little climbing gutter-pup. Smart—and pretty. She’ll land a man with a million some day if she plays it right.”

“She’s not as bad as that, Dick, and she can’t help it if she’s poor and wants things.”

“All right, Mrs. Charity. Be as good to her as you like. Only don’t blame me if she doesn’t measure up. She’s been going around to dances for years with men twice her age. She’s decent enough, but sophisticated—sophisticated as you never will be.”

“You sound very condemning.”

“No, I didn’t mean to. But I’ve lost my taste for chickens. I prefer—swans.” And he slipped an arm around her, regardless of her driving.

The house was very lovely in the late afternoon light. The door was open, welcoming them into the softly darkened hall.

CHAPTER VII

FLISS, opening her eyes reluctantly, found them resting on a fat gray roll of dust under her bureau. It made her uncomfortable and discouraged. She closed her eyes and shifted her position in bed, but waking on the other side was just as bad. Her window curtain hung saggily in soiled folds to greet her. She hated to see such things, not that they aroused in her any ambition to remedy the particular phases of slack housekeeping and tawdry living, but they emphasized her dislike of her home and all that surrounded it. She thought it utterly unjust that she should have to live in such an environment when there were so many girls her own age awaking to pleasant, clean, beautifully furnished rooms, and her ambition was not to reform the things about her but to discard them as quickly as possible. In this revealing morning hour Fliss usually faced her problems. There was no occasion for bluff since she was alone and her background gave her no advantages. Last night at one of the club cotillions she had worn a yellow malines scarf about her head and yellow satin slippers and never for a moment lost her rôle of gayety incarnate. This morning the yellow slippers poked their toes out from under a chair, streaks on them showing only too plainly that they had been dyed and the yellow scarf lay abandoned on her bureau, its charm and crispness gone forever. Her mood matched her wrecked finery. The crispness and charm had gone out of her too.

For nearly a year and a half now she had been out of school, searching in her vague, unskilled way for a chance to establish herself more securely and comfortably. A year and a half might not be long for a débutante, but Fliss knew that she could not take her own time. It was hard enough now to maintain her place, such as it was, without letting people tire of her. Also the time had sharpened her sense of values. She was not yet quite sure of what she wanted, but she knew most definitely what she did not want. Marriage for the sake of marriage had not the least appeal for her. She knew too much about the sordid parts of domesticity for that. There were too many girls who had a brief career of local popularity and were now wheeling baby carriages and making over last year’s hats; too many young men who, unmarried, had danced and flirted their gay way through society only to become preoccupied, somewhat shabby, hard-working flat-dwellers after their marriage. Fliss had no intention of making any blunder which would land her in such an existence. She was nice to all men. That was because it was wise, lest they become malicious, and because it kept her in practice. But she was more chary with her kisses than she had been in High School and she had learned many new ways of getting without giving.

She had learned too how to take snubs with considerable grace; not humbling herself too much, but rather ignoring them, pretending not to see what for the sake of her scrap of dignity she could not afford to see. But she did see. It was one thing to be a popular girl in High School, to hold the record for the number of invitations to dances, to be the best dancer and the most sought after girl—and another to be left when the school circles broke up and resolved into the social groups to which their families belonged, to be a girl without family backing or a college education, who was determined not to be “dropped.” There were many parents who had found Fliss an attractive little girl, but now saw no reason to include her in their parties for their daughters. Their daughters were young women with futures to be planned for, who must take their places in the community, and Fliss was a social anomaly, pretty but nondescript. People were less cruel, of course, than forgetful. Fliss “didn’t occur to them.” They were full of interests in which she could not share for lack of money, for lack of direction and chaperonage.

Working, as an alternative to marriage, was quite as distasteful to Fliss. She felt that working, especially at the things she could do, would put her definitely in the wrong class and out of the reach of the people to whom she pinned her ambitions. She preferred to be classless rather than to be in the wrong class. To her idleness her parents did not really object. Mr. Horton had little enough to give his wife and daughter, but he expected to give them what he had and to live in shabbiness and self-denial himself. He had suggested once that Fliss learn stenography, but at her scornful protest had dropped the matter, assuming that he did not, as Fliss said, “understand.” The suggestion had been made merely because he felt that Fliss must have time heavy on her hands, and not that he had any theory about her being a wage earner. Like millions of men of all grades of strength and success, he expected to be eternally liable for the women he accumulated in his family, and to be subject to them. Mrs. Horton had educated him in domestic life. He took it mildly as a blend of disorderly bedroom, where his possessions were crowded into the smallest possible space by an array of unattractive feminine things over which inevitably hung the smell of face powder, thick and sweet, a dining room in which food and service were inferior to his quick lunch place and a living-room in which he might sit unmolested, unless Fliss or his wife wanted him out of it, which often happened. When they did, he went to the moving picture house on the corner and saw the program through twice.

It was hard for Fliss to find the slightest interest in her parents. She might have been thrown with them casually, instead of sharing one of the closest of ties. Perhaps it was equally hard on the parents to be even semi-responsible—responsible as far as she wished to allow—for a bit of cold, hard brilliance like Fliss, whom their easy-going philosophy could never hope to comprehend. Mr. Horton would have been satisfied with the most commonplace of sons-in-law and Mrs. Horton delighted merely to have Fliss attain the vague dignity of marriage. How was it possible for them to imagine the scheming and plotting, the steps and retreats which filled the mind of their daughter? She did not bother to tell them about her status with different men—even when the men asked her to marry them. She had had three proposals in this year and a half. One was from a handsome young man who worked in a broker’s office in the daytime and danced and flirted in the evenings with as much abandon as did Fliss. She gave little thought to his offer. The frivolity which had stood him in such good stead as a companion on many an evening was absolutely against him as a candidate for husbandhood. And added to this was the fact that he was an unknown young man who came from another city, presumably from obscurity, and without money.

The second offer was a curious one, made half in jest and half in earnest by one of the city’s wealthiest and most dissipated young men. He was a young man whom Fliss might have handled to advantage had she taken his laughing proposal seriously, but she did not choose to take it so. She merely laughed at him, shrewdly gauging behind her mirth the difficulty of living with dissipation even if it were guarded by wealth. Fliss was in pursuit of solidity. That she might have found in some measure in the repeated boyish offers of Gordon, her High School companion. Gordon’s position was unassailable and in each college vacation he followed Fliss about with a devotion which was unremitting and should have been touching to her. He wanted to leave college and marry her—wanted to run away with her—but she held him off too, not quite so definitely as the others. There was a good chance that Gordon would always be useful to her. But he was very young and entirely dependent on his parents.

What Fliss was anxious for now was some definite opportunity to present itself. She was vaguely conscious that her technique was fairly perfect, but that she must have something to work on soon. The roll of dust, more obnoxious every morning, the torn window curtain, the dyed slippers, and, most of all, the sound of her mother’s voice in the other room, engaged in some interminable conversation over the telephone, filled her with an almost unbearable desire to do something about her situation soon.

The voice ceased, the receiver clicked and she heard her mother’s footsteps turned towards her room.

“Not up yet, Flissy?” Her mother came in a little apologetically. “I suppose you are tired after last night I heard you come in and then the cuckoo struck two. That’s pretty late.”

“I can’t very well come home by myself, can I? I’ve got to stay until things are over whether I like it or not. There’s no limousine waiting my orders every night.”

Her mother did not take up the point. She moved heavily about the room, picking up the strewn finery of the night before, settling things into a kind of order.

“Would you like a cup of coffee in bed? I can heat it up in a minute.”

Fliss yawned. “No, I’ll get up. I’d sooner eat anywhere than in this room. I should think father could make that landlord decorate these rooms. They’re like a slum.”

“They won’t do a thing for you. Rents are terrible and they just tell you to take them or leave them. Mrs. Nesbit is looking for a flat and she said——”

“I can repeat what she said without hearing it,” interrupted Fliss, not without a glint of humor. “Come have some coffee with me, mother.” She had an occasional lazy affection for her mother when she was not too much irritated by her. Also she was company when there was no one else.

Mrs. Horton poured the coffee and set it on the edge of the near-mahogany dining table, while Fliss hung languidly over the gas stove making toast. She was an untidy little figure now—negligee trailing, hair straggling, but her eyes, deep and soft from sleep, made up for the rest of her unattractiveness. They sat down and emptied the coffee-pot, cup after cup, a kind of lazy planlessness about them which was characteristic of their usual mornings. But Mrs. Horton roused herself into attempted action sooner than she usually did.

“I suppose you’ve forgotten, haven’t you, that the bridge club meets here to-day, Fliss?”

“Lord, mother, not those terrible women again!”

“Don’t talk so, Fliss. They’re all nice women. Just as good as we are.”

“Well, I shan’t be here.”

“Now, please, Fliss. You know how they talk. If you aren’t here they’ll think it’s awfully funny. I don’t care about your being here all the time, but to help with the refreshments anyway. There’s no one who can serve them as you do.”

“You know how I hate that crowd. Sitting around retailing gossip about women who wouldn’t know them on the street. Backstairs stuff! Oh, why don’t you drop them?”

“Now, you mustn’t be so snobby, Fliss. I’ve known these women for years. Mrs. Ellis——”

“Don’t tell me again that Mrs. Ellis assisted at my birth. Maybe that’s one thing that’s wrong with me.”

“You’ll stay in and help me, won’t you, dear?”

“Washing dishes all afternoon?”

“No, you won’t have to do that sort of thing. I’ve called up Ellen and she will come in at three to help. She’s working now but she asked for an afternoon off.”

“Ellen,” echoed Fliss with deeper gloom.

“Ellen’s a nice girl,” said her mother with an unusually defensive note.

“Of course she’s nice. She’s a lot nicer than the members of your club. But it is tough to have a cousin who’s a servant.”

“What else can the poor girl do? She has to earn her living and she can’t choose. She gets much better money than she would clerking.”

“I suppose.”

Ellen was a sore point. She was a cousin of Mrs. Horton’s who had been brought up on her father’s farm and been a person of some consequence in the farming district. Her father had died and Ellen had sold the farm, finding it heavily weighted with mortgages, and come to the city to work. She knew how to do housework and housework suited her, so she went into service quite simply and without feeling herself depreciated in the least. The aggressiveness of the city servant had been left out of her, and while she did not feel herself at all the equal in position of the ladies she worked for, she had no feeling of common interest with the city servant class, so slavishly imitating their mistresses, so insolent of manner and cheap of ideal. Ellen chose her employers with discretion, and always managed to pick ladies. She treated them not as if they were above her, but merely as if they were engaged on a different sort of job, social as well as economic, and in so doing solved the servant problem in her own small way. But she was an unavoidable cause of suffering to Fliss. Every time she came to see the Hortons—and they could not help being glad to see her, for she brought not only presents to Fliss, but an atmosphere of comfort and devotion into that chaotic apartment—she was a torturing reminder to Fliss that her own social position was founded on nothing and that she ate at the table with a person who served at the tables at which she wished to sit. But she somehow did not say anything to Ellen about the way she felt. There was a quiet dignity about the farm girl as well as a generosity that kept Fliss’s complainings in check.

Another thing was that Ellen always had ready money. She was extremely well paid, spent very little on herself and was always ready to finance some small extravagance for Fliss. The Hortons never had enough ready money and it was a satisfaction to Fliss to possess a blouse or an expensive pair of gloves which were really paid for before she wore them. There was physical comfort, even if mental rancor, in being a cousin of Ellen’s.

Mrs. Horton was bringing out that very point now. “Ellen said she’d stop at Scott’s and get some cream cheese and we can have brown bread sandwiches with the salad and coffee. And she said if she bought a lobster there would be lots of time to cook that after she got here. She works so fast and they are sure to play until five, anyway. Coffee, salad, brown bread sandwiches and cake, and your father can just piece on what’s left over, when he comes home.”

The telephone interrupted them. Fliss answered it in the omnipresent hope of something interesting, and it seemed to galvanize her drooping spirits. As if it were necessary to touch up her appearance in order to get her spirits into action, at the first words she heard she twisted back her hair and drew her negligee around her with her free hand. Her face, so listless a moment before, began to sparkle—to live again—and her voice changed from its discouraged tone into one which fairly sang with interest and desire to please and to coquet.

“Of course you didn’t get me out of bed—no, not tired at all, thought it was fun—I’m glad you liked to dance with me—so do I—I’d love to. What do you suggest?—The music there is good, but the food really too terrible—why I think so, who else is going?—to-morrow night, then, about eight-thirty—yes, you can find it easily enough if you can read numbers. We’re flat dwellers, you know—cliff dwellers, you might say—208 Gladstone Street, Flat H. That’s three flights up—if you groan I’ll meet you with a glass of water—all right—good-by.”

Smiling still, clinging to the atmosphere of jocularity, Fliss hung up the receiver. Her mother watched her without questioning. It was curious that there was not any of the eager curiosity in her face which animates most women in contemplation of their daughter’s flirtations. Mrs. Horton had been well trained to keep out of things. Perhaps she felt that even her daughter’s successful marriage would mean nothing to her. She would be organized and managed through the proper things to do, but there would be no confidence, no dependence. So she waited for Fliss to speak.

Fliss did, though more in reflection than as if anxious to produce any effect on her listener. “Funny—I didn’t know he was at all taken with me. I only met him last night. Mother, I’ve simply got to have that red georgette mended before to-morrow night. I haven’t a rag to wear and maybe if that were fixed up a little—it isn’t dressy at the Palladium and with my black hat I could make the georgette do.”

“Maybe Ellen can do it for you to-night before she goes.”

“I’ll ask her. The sleeves ought to be shorter too, you know. Maybe she could cut them and I’ll help her with the sandwiches if she does and wipe the dishes for her.”

They seemed to forget that Ellen’s labors at Mrs. Horton’s party were given as favors. Mrs. Horton’s face had brightened at her daughter’s new tone of co-operation. She even ventured a question and was answered without rebuff.

“Who was it, Flissy?”

“Why, it was Matthew Allenby. You wouldn’t know, mother, but he is the hardest man in town to get to notice you. He’s not a boy, you know. The man must be nearly forty and a bachelor. I’d never met him till last night; Owen introduced him and we had three dances. He dances horribly and is perfectly crazy about it. He’s a mining man—scads of money—and lives alone somewhere. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if——”

She was really rather pathetic and almost sweet as she fell into her dream, mercenary as it was, for she wanted only things of beauty and she had no cruelty developed in her yet—no deliberate cruelty; unconscious disregard of other people perhaps was the worst of her. She sat dreaming her dream of advancement as most girls of her age dream of love and she did love the things of which she dreamt.

“Come, Fliss, please dress. It’s getting on towards noon and I want to clear this room out.”

Fliss went her way to her room and thence to the little bathroom, where she lay in the tub, from which the enamel was peeling, and wondered just how she would handle Matthew Allenby. Then she dressed for the bridge party, for it was after noon and she knew that her mother’s guests arrived early and stayed late. Her oldest afternoon dress served for them, but with her black fringe of hair setting off the softness and whiteness of her skin, she was so pretty even in her old dress that her mother, bustling into corsets in the next room—she and Fliss always omitted lunch if possible—looked at her with an expression of pride. It meant a good deal to show off Fliss to her friends. She had so little chance.

“But don’t expect me to fill in at a bridge table if any of the old prize-hunting harpies don’t come, because I won’t. I’m going to talk to Ellen and plan the best way to fix over my georgette. By the way, where is Ellen working, now that the Grangers have gone to California?”

Her mother did not know. She knew that Ellen had just taken a new place.

Ellen arrived a little later. She came in heavily burdened with brown packages and bags, having added to the cream cheese and lobster an extra fresh head of lettuce and a small steak for Mr. Horton, so that he wouldn’t “have to eat all that sweet stuff that men hate.” That was like Ellen and they were rare days for Mr. Horton when she came. Broiled steak for him, who was used to a thin sirloin, pounded and fried. Ellen deposited her packages on the kitchen table and looked with admiration at her young cousin.

“My, but that’s a pretty dress, Fliss.”

“This old thing? Just fit for the ragbag.”

Ellen herself was not a person to be ashamed of as far as appearance went. She had no variety in her clothes, but her neat dark blue suit was well-pressed and well-fitted (by Ellen herself). She was quite tall and pleasant-faced, her complexion a trifle steamed into floridness by much cooking, but her hands were as soft and well-kept as those of Fliss. Ellen had her few prides, and her hands were one of them. Seen on the street she looked like a pleasant, middle-class young matron. In markets and shops where she was not known she was invariably called “Mrs.,” the obvious domestic capability in her manner bringing forth that title. The tradespeople always liked to deal with her. She knew what to buy and permitted no extortions or frauds, but she was friendly and uncomplaining and businesslike.

Going about the kitchen of the flat she made a new place of it. It became a hospitable place, a pleasant workshop, with the lobster unwrapped and lying on a platter, the mayonnaise quickly beaten to yellow smoothness, the sandwiches beginning to pile up on two plates and Ellen herself bustling about, but lending an ear of interest to the tale of the red georgette.

“What you want to do with those sleeves, Fliss, is to slit them and then hemstitch them around the corners. I’ll turn them up this evening, slit them and to-morrow all you’ll have to do is to take them into the hemstitching shop down on Third Street and they’ll finish it for you. They won’t charge more than a quarter for that, though if I were you I’d rip off the lace yoke and we’ll turn that in and run a couple of lines of hemstitching around there and then, with that little organdy collar you wear on your velveteen, it’ll look like a new dress.”

Fliss beamed. She knew that it would look like a new dress. She sat on the edge of the shelf, swinging her feet and really admiring Ellen. She liked Ellen’s lack of pose too, just as she liked the lack of pose in Cecily. It was so glorious not to have to pose or pretend. Meanwhile the little girl in her, the really often undernourished girl, was vastly enjoying the sandwiches which Ellen pressed upon her now and then.

“Where are you now, Ellen?”

“Nicest place I’ve ever been. I didn’t mean to take any more general work—just cooking—but I was asked specially to go to this place by Mrs. Granger and I like it. Just a bride and groom. Such a nice young couple and she is lovely to me. Helps me with the work wherever she can and so considerate.”

“What’s her name?”