“No.  He scarcely knows Penrhyn Cardemon.  His family and Cardemon are neighbours in the country, but the Nevilles and the Collises are snobs—­I’m speaking plainly, Valerie—­and they have no use for that red-faced, red-necked, stocky young millionaire.”

Valerie sat thinking; Rita, nursing her knee, brooded under the bright tangle of her hair, linking and unlinking her fingers as she gently swayed her foot to and fro.

“That’s how it is,” she said at last.  “Now you know.”

Valerie’s head was still lowered, but she raised her eyes and looked straight at Rita where she sat on the sofa’s edge, carelessly swinging her foot to and fro.

“Was it—­Penrhyn Cardemon?” she asked.

“Yes....  I thought it had killed any possibility of ever caring—­that way—­for any other man.”

“But it hasn’t?”

“No.”

“And—­you are in love?”

“Yes.”

“With John Burleson?”

Rita looked up from the burnished disorder of her hair: 

“I have been in love with him for three years,” she said, “and you are the only person in the world except myself who knows it.”

Valerie rose and walked over to Rita and seated herself beside her.  Then she put one arm around her; and Rita bit her lip and stared at space, swinging her slender foot.

“You poor dear,” said Valerie.  Rita’s bare foot hung inert; the silken slipper dropped from it to the floor; and then her head fell, sideways, resting on Valerie’s shoulder, showering her body with its tangled gold.

Valerie said, thoughtfully:  “Girls don’t seem to have a very good chance....  I had no idea about Cardemon—­that he was that kind of a man.  A girl never knows.  Men can be so attractive and so nice....  And so many of them are merciless....  I suppose you thought you loved him.”

“Y—­yes.”

“We all think that, I suppose,” said Valerie, thoughtfully.

“Other girls have thought it of Penrhyn Cardemon.”

“Other girls?”

“Yes.”

Valerie’s face expressed bewilderment.

“I didn’t know that there were really such men.”

Rita closed her disillusioned eyes.

“Plenty,” she said wearily.

“I don’t care to believe that.”

“You may believe it, Valerie.  Men are almost never single-minded; women are—­almost always.  You see what chance for happiness we have?  But it’s the truth, and the world has been made that way.  It’s a man’s world, Valerie.  I don’t think there’s much use for us to fight against it....  She sat very silent for a while, close to Valerie, her hot face on the younger girl’s shoulder.  Suddenly she straightened up and dried her eyes naively on the sleeve of her kimona.

“Goodness!” she said, “I almost forgot!”

And a moment later Valerie heard her at the telephone: 

“Is that you, John?”

* * * * *