“He’s a dirty dog,” she said.

The two girls looked at each other.  They knew every move in the game of life, and Lethway’s methods were familiar ones.

“What are you going to do about it?” Mabel demanded at last.  “Believe me, old dear, he’s got a bad eye.  Now listen here,” she said with impulsive generosity.  “I’ve got a scheme.  I’ll draw enough ahead to send you back.  I’ll do it to-morrow, while the drawing’s good.”

“And queer yourself at the start?” said Edith scornfully.  “Talk sense, Mabel, I’m up against it, but don’t you worry.  I’ll get something.”

But she did not get anything.  She was reduced in the next week to entire dependence on the other girl.  And, even with such miracles of management as they had both learned, it was increasingly difficult to get along.

There was a new element too.  Edith was incredulous at first, but at last she faced it.  There was a change in Mabel.  She was not less hospitable nor less generous.  It was a matter of a point of view.  Success was going to her head.  Her indignation at certain phases of life was changing to tolerance.  She found Edith’s rampant virtue a trifle wearing.  She took to staying out very late, and coming in ready to meet Edith’s protest with defiant gaiety.  She bought clothes too.

“You’ll have to pay for them sometime,” Edith reminded her.

“I should worry.  I’ve got to look like something if I’m going to go out at all.”

Edith, who had never thought things out before, had long hours to think now.  And the one thing that seemed clear and undeniable was that she must not drive Mabel into debt.  Debt was the curse of most of the girls she knew.  As long as they were on their own they could manage.  It was the burden of unpaid bills, lightly contracted, that drove so many of them wrong.

That night, while Mabel was asleep, she got up and cautiously lighted the gas.  Then she took the boy’s photograph out of its hiding place and propped it on top of her trunk.  For a long time she sat there, her chin in her hands, and looked at it.

It was the next day that she saw his name among the missing.

She did not cry, not at first.  The time came when it seemed to her she did nothing else.  But at first she only stared.  She was too young and too strong to faint, but things went gray for her.

And gray they remained—­through long spring days and eternal nights—­days when Mabel slept all morning, rehearsed or played in the afternoons, was away all evening and far into the night.  She did not eat or sleep.  She spent money that was meant for food on papers and journals and searched for news.  She made a frantic but ineffectual effort to get into the War Office.

She had received his letter two days after she had seen his name among the missing.  She had hardly dared to open it, but having read it, for days she went round with a strange air of consecration that left Mabel uneasy.