ng's got
lamb in it, even the pastry and the coffee. I swear it has! I--I hate
lamb. Didn't know the Turks went in for it so much, did you, Kenny?
Jan computed a table of lamb percentages on the menu and I felt like
bleating. 'Pon my word I did. Menu's got a glossary and needs it.
Pilaf--that's rice. Lamb's something else. No, pilaf's lamb, and rice
is something else. Oh, hanged if I know. Lamb's lamb no matter how
you spell it."

"Come along with us," suggested Kenny. His kindliness of late had
startled more than one, accustomed to his irresponsible caprices.

"Please do!" said Joan; and Sid, delighted, and amazed as always,
repudiated at once his hatred of lamb. It was nourishing, he recalled
at once with a brazen air of sincerity, and the Turks disguise it in
amazingly enticing ways.

Joan laughed.

"Sid," she said, "you're a dear, blessed fibber and we want you with
us."

Her poise and adaptability were startling. Her simplicity won them
all. To the girls who lived in Ann's studio building she seemed all
laughter and happiness and breathless eagerness to please.

"She's just herself," said Peggy Jarvis, who lived with Ann and smiled
over the footlights each night in comedy that was comedy and to crowds
that were crowds, "She doesn't know that half the world is posing."

Joan spent an afternoon in Peggy's dressing room during a matinee and
came home with moist, excited eyes.

"Think, Peggy, think!" she exclaimed. "Once long ago that was my
mother's life."

Peggy kissed her and rummaged for cigarettes. Joan's eyes rested upon
her pretty face with troubled indulgence.

"Oh, Peggy," she pouted. "Why do you smoke?"

"Because," said Peggy honestly, "I like it. Does it shock you, dear?"

"It did at first," admitted Joan. "And even now I shouldn't care to
smoke myself. But then when that old painter Kenny likes so came here
with his wife, and her hair was so white and her face so kind, and she
smoked like a chimney--"

"Joan!"

"She did," insisted Joan. "Well, then, Peggy, I just stayed awake
that night and thought it all out. Peggy, do all painters' wives
smoke? I mean--" she flushed and stammered.

Peggy's eyes were demure and roguish.

"You ridiculous child!" she said. "Who's the painter?"

Joan turned scarlet and bit her lip.

"And what, sweetheart," begged Peggy with ready tact, "did you think
out?"

"If you smoke," said Joan, "because you really want to, Peggy, it's al