aving won him and being still in my first year of
marriage, I'm naturally jealous when he lets himself be drawn off by
them. The women who have tried to take Gilbert away from me I didn't
know, and they owed me no friendship. But you're different, and I can't
believe that you--"

Joan broke in with a peal of laughter. "Can't you? Why not? I haven't
got wings on my shoulders. Isn't everything fair in love and war?"

Alice drew back. She had many times been called prim and old-fashioned,
especially at school, by Joan and others when men were talked about,
and the glittering life that lay beyond the walls. Sophistication, to
put it mildly, had been the order of the day in that temporary home of
the young idea. But this calm declaration of disloyalty took her color
away, and her breath. Here was honesty with a vengeance!

"Joan!" she cried. "Joan!" And she put up her hand as though to ward
off an unbelievable thought.

In an instant Joan was on her feet with her arms around the shoulders
of the best friend she had, whose face had gone as white as stone. "Oh,
my dear," she said, "I'm sorry. Forgive me. I didn't mean that in the
least, not in the very least. It was only one of my cheap flippancies,
said just to amuse myself and shock you. Don't you believe me?"

Tears came to Alice. She had had at least one utterly sleepless night
and several days of mental anguish. She was one of the women who love
too well. She confessed to these things, brokenly, and it came as a
kind of shock to Joan to find some one taking things seriously and
allowing herself to suffer.

"Why, Alice," she said, "Gilbert means nothing to me. He's a dear old
thing; he's awfully nice to look at; he sums things up in a way that
makes me laugh; and he dances like a streak. But as to flirting with
him or anything of that sort--why, my dear, he looks on me as a little
boob from the country, and in my eyes he's simply a man who carries a
latchkey to amusement and can give me a good time. That's true. I swear
it."

It was true, and Alice realized it, with immense relief. She dried her
eyes and held Joan away from her at arm's length and looked at her
young, frank, intrepid face with puzzled admiration. It didn't go with
her determined trifling. "I shall always believe what you tell me,
Joan," she said. "You've taken a bigger load than you imagine off my
heart--which is Gilbert's. And now sit down again and be comfortable
and let's do what we used to do a