n another story
altogether, even though, for more than six months, she and Mr. and Mrs.
Roger Sands never heard each other's names, nor saw each other's faces.

It was in the April after her marriage that Mrs. Sands came upon an
advertisement in a newspaper. Moreton and Payntor were making a splash
about their lately started department for antique furniture. They had
obtained "eight magnificent, unique pieces of satinwood furniture
painted by Angelica Kaufmann, bought by a representative of Moreton and
Payntor, from a titled family in England."

Beverley Sands (her husband called her "Bev") loved painted satinwood,
when it was good. How she knew that things were good or bad, Roger
sometimes wondered: but she did know. Roger had taken a house at Newport
which had come into the market, and Beverley was picking up "beautiful
pieces" with which to furnish it. The house would, they hoped, be ready
to move into by June.

When she read Moreton and Payntor's advertisement, Beverley decided to
see the satinwood suite and buy it if genuine. Her present wealth
emphasized her astonishing, incredible happiness. "He gives me
everything I want, he trusts me to do everything I like," she thought.
Life was wonderful. Slowly she was coming out from under the cloud of
fear, and had ceased to be afraid of Something terrible that might
happen.

Roger went every morning to the offices of the firm which had his name
at its head. She had breakfasted with him in a kind of super-dressing
gown which Roger said was like an opal seen through a sunrise mist. As
her maid hooked up her frock she sang for happiness. She wished she
could earn it by making someone else happy. Roger didn't count in that
way. The credit would be to do things for a person you didn't love.

"To the first creature I meet to-day, who needs help, I'll give it," she
said to herself. "I'll do something big ... like sacrificing on an
altar."

She went out in Roger's latest present, a limousine car, so silent and
so swift that it travelled like a cloud-shadow. Outside the car was dark
blue; inside, the pale azure of a robin's egg. Beverley told the
chauffeur to drive to Moreton and Payntor's, avoiding traffic because
she was in a hurry. To do this, he approached the shop by passing
through a side street in which was the entrance for employees, as well
as that leading to minor departments, and so connecting with the main
shop. It was comparatively a quiet street, but to-day t