gh her. It died down. She held herself very firmly.
It was true. She knew that she was only defending herself.

"I don't know," she said, in a false, aggrieved voice. "How do I know?"

"You do. He knew you were out. He very likely woke up and felt
frightened."

"Felt thirsty, more like it!" Jenny exclaimed.

"Well, you did wrong," Emmy said. "However you like to put it to
yourself, you did wrong."

"I always manage to. Don't I!" Jenny's speech still was without
defiance. She was humble. "It's a funny thing; but it's true...."

"You always want to go your own way," Emmy reproved.

"Oh, I don't think _that's_ wrong!" hastily said Jenny. "Why should you
go anybody else's way?"

"I don't know," admitted Emmy. "But it's safer."

"Whose way do you go?" Jenny had stumbled upon a question so
unanswerable that she was at liberty to answer it for herself. "I don't
know whose way you go now; but I do know whose way you'll go soon.
You'll go Alf's way."

"Well?" demanded Emmy. "If it's a good way?"

"Well, I go Keith's way!" Jenny answered, in a fine glow. "And he goes
mine."

Emmy looked at her, shaking her head in a kind of narrow wisdom.

"Not if he sends a chauffeur," she said slowly. "Not that sort of man."

v

For a moment Jenny's heart burned with indignation. Then it turned cold.
If Emmy were right! Supposing--just supposing.... Savagely she thrust
doubt of Keith from her: her trust in him was forced by dread into still
warmer and louder proclamation.

"You don't understand!" she cried. "You _couldn't_. You've never seen
him. Wait a minute!" She went quickly out of the kitchen and up to her
bedroom. There, secretly kept from every eye, was the little photograph
of Keith. She brought it down. In anxious triumph she showed it to Emmy.
Emmy's three years' seniority had never been of so much account.
"There," Jenny said. "That's Keith. Look at him!"

Emmy held the photograph under the meagre light. She was astonished,
although she kept outwardly calm; because Keith--besides being obviously
what is called a gentleman--looked honest and candid. She could not find
fault with the face.

"He's very good-looking," she admitted, in a critical tone. "Very."

"Not the sort of man you thought," emphasised Jenny, keenly elated at
Emmy's dilemma.

"Is he ... has he got any money?"

"Never asked him. No--I don't think he has. It wasn't _his_ chauffeur. A
lord's."

"There! He knows lords.... Oh, Jenny!" Emmy's