"You ought to be taking care of her, too."

He had looked rather crestfallen at that, and before he went out he

offered a half-sheepish explanation.

"I'd tell them where I go," he said, "but you'd think a pool room was on

the direct road to hell. Take to-night, now. I can't tell them about it,

but it was all right. I met Wallie Sayre and Leslie at the club before

dinner, and we got a fourth and played bridge. Only half a cent a point.

I swear we were going on playing, but somebody brought in a chap

named Gregory for a cocktail. He turned out to be a brother of Beverly

Carlysle, the actress, and he took us around to the theater and gave us

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a box. Not a thing wrong with it, was there?"

"Where did you go from there?" she persisted inexorably. "It's half past

one."

"Went around and met her. She's wonderful, Elizabeth. But do you know

what would happen if I told them? They'd have a fit."

She felt rather helpless, because she knew he was right from his own

standpoint.

"I know. I'm surprised at Les, Jim."

"Oh, Les! He just trailed along. He's all right."

She kissed him and he went out, leaving her to lie awake for a long

time. She would have had all her world happy those days, and all her

world good. She didn't want anybody's bread and butter spilled on the

carpet.

So the days went on, and the web slowly wove itself into its complicated

pattern: Bassett speeding West, and David in his quiet room; Jim

and Leslie Ward seeking amusement, and finding it in the littered

dressing-room of a woman star at a local theater; Clare Rossiter

brooding, and the little question being whispered behind hands,

figuratively, of course--the village was entirely well-bred; Gregory

calling round to see Bassett, and turning away with the information that

he had gone away for an indefinite time; and Maggie Donaldson, lying in

the cemetery at the foot of the mountains outside Norada, having shriven

her soul to the limit of her strength so that she might face her Maker.

Out of all of them it was Clare Rossiter who made the first conscious

move of the shuttle; Clare, affronted and not a little malicious, but

perhaps still dramatizing herself, this time as the friend who

feels forced to carry bad tidings. Behind even that, however, was

an unconscious desire to see Dick again, and this time so to impress

herself on him that never again could he pass her in the street

unnoticed.




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