t school at night and talk about
ourselves. We've both changed since those days, haven't we?"

"Have we? I don't think I have." Joan took another cigarette and went
back to her chair. Her small round shoulders looked very white against
the black of a velvet cushion. If there was nothing boyish or
unfeminine about her, there was certainly an indefinable appearance of
being untouched, unawakened. She was the same girl who had been found
by Martin that afternoon clean-cut against the sky--the determined
individualist.

Alice sat in front of her on a low stool with her hands clasped round a
knee. "What a queer mixture you are of--of town and country, Joany.
You're like a piece of honeysuckle playing at being an orchid."

"That's because I'm a kid," said Joan. "The horrible hour will come
when I shall be an orchid and try and palm myself off as honeysuckle,
never fear."

"Don't you think marriage has changed you a little?" asked Alice. "It
usually does. It changed me from an empty-headed little fool to a woman
with oh, such a tremendous desire to be worthy of it."

"Yes, but then you married for love."

"Didn't you, Joany?"

"I? Marry for love?" Joan waved her arm for joy at the idea.

Alice knew the story of the escape from old age. She also knew from the
way in which Martin looked at Joan why he had given her his name and
house. Here was her chance to get to the bottom of a constant puzzle.
"You may not have married for love," she said, "but of course you're
fond of Martin."

Joan considered the matter. It might be a good thing to go into it now
that there was an unexpected lull in the wild rush that she had made to
get into life. There had been something rather erratic about Martin's
comings and goings during the last week. She hadn't spoken to him since
the night at the Ritz.

"Yes, I am fond of him," she said. "That's the word. As fond as I might
be of a very nice, sound boy whom I'd known all my life."

"Is that all?"

Joan made a series of smoke rings and watched them curl into the air.
"Yes, that's all," she said.

Alice became even more interested and curious and puzzled. She held
very serious views about marriage. "And are you happy with him?"

"I don't know that I can be said to be happy with him," said Joan. "I'm
perfectly happy as things are."

"Tell me how they are." There was obviously something here that was far
from right.

Joan was amused at her friend's gravity. She had always been a