lse. You can go on being friends. _I_
sha'n't care. Only don't you go saying I came between you--that's all."

At that Winny fired.

"As if I'd do any such a thing! I don't know what can have put it into
your head."

Violet laughed.

"You should see _your face_," she said. "Why--any one could tell you
were gone on him. They've only got to look at you."

There are some insults, some insolences that cannot be answered.

"You can believe that," said Winny, "if you like--if it makes you any
happier. But your believing it won't make it true."

She walked slowly, in her small dignity, to the chair where she had
thrown down her hat. She took up the hat and put it on, deliberately,
with a high bravery, before the glass.

Then she turned to her friend and smiled at her.

"It's all right," she said, "though you mightn't think it. Good-by."

Whereupon Violet rushed at her and kissed her.

"It isn't your fault, and it isn't mine, Winky," she whispered. "It's
got to be, I tell you."

She drew herself from the embrace, erect and rosy, in a sudden passion
that had in it both triumph and despair.

"Wild horses couldn't have torn him and me apart."

* * * * *

And Winny didn't blame her; even in the pain of the night that followed,
when she lay awake in the bed she shared with Maudie Hollis, stifling
her sobs lest she should waken Maudie, clutching the edge of the
mattress where she had writhed out of Maudie's reach. For at the first
sound of crying the proud beauty had turned to her friend and put her
arms about her, and held her in a desolate and desolating embrace.

"Don't cry, Winny; don't cry, dear. It isn't worth it," had been
Maudie's consolation. For, though Winny hadn't said a word to her, she
knew. And she had followed it up by declaring that she hated that Violet
Usher; and she hated Ransome; she hated everybody who made little Winky,
little darling Winky, cry.

But Winky didn't hate them. It had to be. Nothing could be more
beautiful in its simplicity than her acceptance of the event.

And she didn't blame them. She didn't blame anybody. She had brought it
on herself. The thing was as good as done last summer, when she had
stopped Ranny making love to her. She had stopped it on purpose. She
knew he couldn't afford to marry her, not for years and years; she knew
he had been trying to tell her so; and it didn't seem fair, somehow, to
let him get worked up all for nothing. Th