me!" she said. "Now you watch my dust!"

It was cold-blooded; it was as passionless as chess. And it was about
then that Cecille began to draw nearer and nearer in spirit, like a
bird hypnotized by a snake. The simile is hectic, I know. But it was
like that.

She tried to hold aloof. She used to wonder why she had not packed her
bag that night and got out. She used to shiver when she remembered
Felicity's dance. One couldn't touch pitch and not be denied. There
were, it seemed, an overwhelming number of such proverbs, and most of
them forbidding.

But she stayed on. More than that, she found herself after a time
stammering a question concerning each new cavalier as he appeared. And
each time Felicity's answer was unbelievably unconcerned and laconic.

"Nothing doing," she'd say. "He's hard boiled."

Familiarity breeds complacency oftener than contempt. But it was
neither the one nor the other which forced Cecille to ask, over and
over again. Once Felicity surprised in her eyes the light that
invariably accompanied the question.

"You're a queer kid," she added that time, after the usual answer. "I
sure don't get you."

Later she thought she had solved it.

"Don't you worry, Cele," she reassured her. "When the fall comes
you'll hear the crash. I'll slip you the returns a little ahead of
time so that you can get out from under."

"It--it wasn't that," protested Cecille quickly.

She wondered why she didn't pack up and get out.

But she was still there another night when Felicity finally came home
again with every lithe line of her body pulsing triumph. She was even
sitting up, which was unusual. An unusual occurrence accounted for it.

In the beginning Felicity had tried to share with the other girl those
prospects who, for one reason or another, were of no importance.

"Come on along," she often urged. "These guys mean nothing in my young
life except a dinner. And you needn't worry. Believe me, you'll be
shown the same respect as if you were out with your maiden aunt. They
know I'm refined and won't stand for anything else. And it'll do you
good."

Cecille did go, once. So far as her escort was concerned she found
that Felicity had spoken the truth. He was innocuous. He was, indeed,
quite entirely unaware of her presence most of the evening. That did
not displease her. She found him little stupider than a swain of the
same age might have been in her own home town, even though