pping into a chaise lounge encircled her knees
with her arms, staring with troubled eyes at her guest.

"A mess? I should say it was--worse than a mess--a catastrophe. You know
what Alan is--isn't--" She floundered off into silence.

"Oh, yes," said Tony, the more tranquil of the two. "I know what he is
and isn't, better than most people, I think. I ought to. But I love him.
I just discovered it to-night, or rather it is the first time I ever let
myself look straight at the fact. I think I have known it from the
beginning."

"But Tony! You won't marry him. You can't. Your people will never let
you. They oughtn't to let you."

Tony shook back her wavy mane of hair, sent it billowing over her
rose-colored satin kimono.

"It don't matter if the whole world won't let me. If I decide to marry
Alan I shall do it."

"Tony!"

There was shocked consternation in Carlotta's tone and Tony relenting
burst into a low, tremulous little laugh.

"Don't worry, Carlotta. I'm not so mad as I sound. I told Alan he would
have to wait a year. He has to prove to me he is--worth loving."

"But you are engaged?" Carlotta was relieved, but not satisfied.

Tony shook her head.

"Absolutely not. We are both free as air--technically. If you were in
love yourself you would know how much that amounts to by way of freedom."

Carlotta's golden head was bowed. She did not answer her friend's
implication that she could not be expected to comprehend the delicate,
invisible, omnipotent shackles of love.

"Don't tell anyone, Carlotta, please. It is our secret--Alan's and mine.
Maybe it will always he a secret unless he--measures up."

"You are not going to tell your uncle?"

"There is nothing to tell yet."

"And I suppose this is the end of poor Dick."

"Don't be silly, Carlotta. Dick never said a word of love to me in
his life."

"That doesn't mean he doesn't think 'em. You have convenient eyes, Tony
darling. You see only what you wish to see."

"I didn't want to see Alan's love. I tried dreadfully hard not to. But it
set up a fire in my own house and blazed and smoked until I had to do
something about it. See here, Carlotta. I'd like to ask you a question or
two. You are not really going to marry Herbert Lathrop, are you?"

A queer little shadow, almost like a veil, passed over Carlotta's face at
this counter charge.

"Why not?" she parried.

"You know why not. He is exactly what Hal Underwood calls him, a poor
fish. He is as c