egiment, visiting
at fashionable houses. Can't you imagine how his hostesses would stare
if he asked them to call upon me here, in this poky room! And if he
loves me, if I interest him more than the butterflies of Society, if he
wants to know me better, what is he to do? Tell me that, my dear,
before you blame me for taking a little bit of fun when I get the
chance!"

But Claire had no suggestion to make. She herself had been strong
enough to refuse a friendship on similar lines, but she had been living
a working life for a bare four months, while Cecil had been teaching for
twelve years. Twelve years of a second-hand life, living in other
women's houses, teaching other women's children, obeying other women's
rules; with the one keen personal experience of a slighted love!

The tale of close on four thousand nights represented a dreary parlour
and a pile of exercise books. For twelve long years this woman had
worked away, losing her youth, losing her bloom, cut off from all that
nature intended her to enjoy; and then at the end behold a change in the
monotony, the sudden appearance of a man who sought her, admired her,
craved her society as a boon!

The tears came to Claire's eyes as she put herself in such a woman's
place, and realised all that this happening would mean. Renewal of
youth, renewal of hope, renewal of interest and zest...

"I don't know! I don't know!" she said brokenly. "It's all wrong,
somehow. You ought not to be forced into such a position, but I don't
blame you, Cecil. It's the _other_ women who deserve the blame, the
women who are better off, and could have opened their houses. You have
been so drearily dull all these long years that you would have been more
than human to refuse. But now, dear, now that you are engaged, surely
he has some friends to whom he could introduce you?"

Mary Rhodes shook her head.

"Not till his people know. It might come round to their ears, and that
would make things more difficult still; but I am hoping it won't be
long. Now, Claire, I've told _you_, because you are such a kind
understanding little soul, and it's a comfort to talk things out; but
I'll kill you if you dare to breathe a word to another soul--Sophie
Blake, or Mrs Willoughby, or even your mother when you write to her.
You can never tell how these things are repeated, and Frank would never
forgive me if it came out through me. Promise faithfully that you'll
never mention his name in c