er advancing rival. Don't copy me--no
matter how Steve may prosper in years to come, do you understand? Oh,
I'm not so terrible or abnormal as you people think. I'd have done
quite well if my father had never earned more than three thousand a
year and I had had to put my shoulder to the wheel. But don't ever
start to be a Gorgeous Girl--stay thrifty and be not too discerning of
handmade lace or lap dogs. You know, there's no need to enumerate.
Stay the woman who won my husband away from me--and you'll keep him.
What is more, I think you will make him a success--in time for your
golden-wedding anniversary! There, that's as fair as I can be."

"Quite," Mary said, softly.

"Once you admit to him there is a craving in your sensible heart to be
as useless as I am--then someone else will come along to play Mary
Faithful to your Gorgeous Girl." There was a catch in the light, gay
voice. "I don't want him," she added, vigorously. "Heavens, no, we
never could patch it up! I shall always think of this last twelve
months as _l'annee terrible!_ My Tawny Adonis was a far more soothing
companion than Steve. Nor do I envy you and your future. I don't
really want Steve--and you deserve him. Besides, we women never feel
so secure as novelists like to paint us as being in their last
chapters! So I'm giving you the best hint concerning our mutual cave
man that a defeated Gorgeous Girl ever gave a Mary Faithful. As far as
I am concerned the thing is painless. I shall have a ripping time out
West, and some day perhaps marry someone nice and mild, someone who
will stand for my moods and not spend too much of my money in ways I
don't know about--a society coward out of a job! The thing that does
hurt," she finished, suddenly, "is the fact that I'd honestly like to
feel broken-hearted--but I don't know how. I've been brought up in
such a gorgeous fashion that it would take a jewel robbery or an
unbecoming hat to wring my soul."

"Thanks," Mary said, lightly. "I may as well tell you I've determined
never to marry Steve, for all your good advice."

"Why?" All the tenseness of her nature rushed to the occasion. This
was decidedly interesting, since it resembled her own whims. She felt
almost friendly toward the other woman.

"Because," Mary answered, handing the psychologists another problem
for a rainy afternoon.

Beatrice nodded, satisfied at the answer and the eternal damnable
woman's notion inspiring it, for it was just what she would