on my part
to decide that his presence here today at Marcia's request had broken
some agreement between them. Mere surmise, of course, but interesting.
Marcia was stubborn and showed her defiance of Jerry's wishes by
retaliation at Una's expense. But by this time other people who had
come in from the fishing had joined Una's group by the window where
the intruder seemed to be oblivious of Marcia and quite in her
element. Indeed for the moment Marcia was out of it and her
conversation with Jerry having apparently reached an _impasse_, she
rose, leaving the tea-table to Christopher's ministrations and
advanced valiantly to the attack.

Una promptly made room for her on the window sill, a wise bit of
generalship which forced the enemy at once into polite subterfuge.

"It's _so_ nice to see you, Una dear. How did you manage to escape
from all your tiresome work at the Mission?"

"I could do it very nicely this week-end," said Una cheerfully. "Why
haven't you been to any of the committee meetings?"

"It has been _so_ warm. And of course while _you_ are in charge we all
know that everything _must_ be going right."

"It's kind of you to say so. You know, wonderful things have been
happening at the Mission. We're building a day nursery on the next
block to help the working women. Jerry has been awfully kind. Of
course you knew about it."

"Yes, of course," said Marcia, not turning a hair.

She lied. I knew that Jerry had kept the matter secret even from
Marcia. I figured that the revelation must have been something of a
shock to one of her intriguing nature, but she covered her grievance
skillfully.

"Jerry is very generous," she said sweetly. "Do tell me about it."

Here Jerry blundered in rather sheepishly. "Oh, I say, Una, that's a
secret, you know."

"Oh, is it?" said Una innocently. "I can't see why. Marcia knows.
Everybody ought to. It was such a splendid thing to do."

"Jerry is so modest," said Marcia.

"The plans are simply adorable," Una went on quickly. "You know,
Jerry, we simply had to have that open-air school on the roof. You
know, you didn't object--"

"N--no--of course," said Jerry, shifting his feet.

"And the ward for nursing babies--we _did_ put those windows in the
west wall. You know we were a little uncertain about that."

"So we were," echoed Jerry dismally.

This was merely the preliminary skirmish with Una's outposts holding
their positions close to the enemy's lines. But Marcia wa