only because her
love had been slighted and her hospitality abused, but because everything
she had undertaken had failed. Americanization--what was it? For to Marie
she had given every good thing in her power--and Marie had used her as
long as she could be of service, and then had gone back to her own life,
to her own people.

CHAPTER XX

SHE PROVES HER PRINCIPLE

All of Eveley's friends, realizing the loneliness and the sickness of
heart which possessed her, united to plan little entertainments and bits
of amusement for her. And Eveley accepted their plans gratefully, and
acted upon their suggestions gladly, but the bitterness remained in her
heart.

"I loved that girl," she would say to herself. "How could she do such a
thing to any one who loved her? It isn't as if I had only tried to do
what was right and kind by her. She owed me something for all that love."

One evening she went to Eileen's for a rollicking dinner with the twins
in clamorous evidence. Eileen's home was a new creation; every day, she
said frankly, was a new cycle of life. Her years of sober, studied
business had not at all prepared her for the raptures and the
uncertainties and the annoyances and the thrills of a household that had
young twins in it.

"Billy bosses Betty unmercifully, and I do not believe in the dominance
of men," she told Eveley. "And Betty charms Billy into submission, and I
do not approve of the blandishments of woman upon man. And yet my
sympathies are with both of them, and I adore them both. And I can never
find anything when I want it, and when I do find it there is something
wrong with it, and they both talk at once and I have to talk at the same
time or I never get anything said, and yet we have wonderful times."

"You are certainly doing your duty by those babies," said Eveley
tentatively.

Eileen took it quickly. "Um, not a bit of it. I am just fulfilling the
desire of my heart. So you may take it that I am proving your theory if
you like."

"At least you are proving my exception," said Eveley, with a smile.

"What is the exception?" Eileen questioned eagerly. "It seems to get all
the proving, doesn't it?"

"It used to," said Eveley gravely. "But I have lost faith in it for
myself. It worked for everybody else, but it failed for me. Now let's
talk of something else."

They were in the midst of a merry game with the children, when the bell
rang, and Eveley was called to the door, to look into the f