lerie blushed scarlet;

"Rotten--choice?"

"Certainly. You know perfectly well what your position would be when his
family and his friends learned that he'd married his model. No girl of
any spirit would endure it--no matter how affable his friends might
perhaps pretend to be. No girl of any sense would ever put herself in
such a false position.... I tell you, Valerie, it's only the exceptional
man who'll stand by you. No doubt Louis Neville would. But it would cost
him every friend he has--and probably the respect of his parents. And
that means misery for you both--because he couldn't conceal from you
what marrying you was costing him--"

[Illustration: "Valerie's lips trembled on the edge of a smile as she
bent lower over her sewing."]

"Rita!"

"Yes."

"There is no use telling me all this. I know it. He knows I know it. I
am not going to marry him."

After a silence Rita said, slowly: "Did he ask you to?"

Valerie looked down, passed her needle through the hem once, twice.

"Yes," she said, softly, "he asked me."

"And--you refused?"

"Yes."

Rita said: "I like Kelly Neville ... and I love you better, dear. But
it's not best for you to marry him.... Life isn't a very sentimental
affair--not nearly as silly a matter as poets and painters and dramas
and novels pretend it is. Love really plays a very minor part in life,
Don't you know it?"

"Yes. I lived twenty years without it," said Valerie, demurely, yet in
her smile Rita divined the hidden tragedy. And she leaned forward and
kissed her impulsively.

"Let's swear celibacy," she said, "and live out our lives together in
single blessedness! Will you? We can have a perfectly good time until
the undertaker knocks."

"I hope he won't knock for a long while," said Valerie, with a slight
shiver. "There's so much I want to see first."

"You shall. We'll see everything together. We'll work hard, live
frugally if you say so, cut out all frills and nonsense, and save and
save until we have enough to retire on respectably. And then, like two
nice old ladies, we'll start out to see the world--"

"Oh, Rita! I don't want to see it when I'm too old!"

"You'll enjoy it more--"

"Rita! How ridiculous! You've seen more of the world than I have,
anyway. It's all very well for you to say wait till I'm an old maid; but
you've been to Paris--haven't you?"

"Yes," said Rita. There was a slight colour in her face.

"Well, then! Why must I wait until I'm a dowdy o