?" said the elder, triumphantly. "What did I tell
you? Not a thing on earth between them! Would she be tearing off with
another young man, first evening home? And isn't he cool as a cucumber?"

Miss Ellis's narrow little face seemed to ease visibly into looser lines
and she sighed. "Yes. You were quite right. Mr. Daragh's mind is on
higher things."

The other bridled. "Well, I don't know as you've any call to put it just
that way. I guess Jane Vail's a high enough thing for any man to think
of! And I guess the truth is, Jane Vail's got other fish to fry!"

Jane, meanwhile, into her tub, out of her tub, flinging herself once more
into urban silk and fine linen, doing her hair with swift craft, was
entirely happy. It was good to have gone away, at Michael Daragh's
rousing word, good to have stayed those sober weeks on the lean, clean
Island, good to have done good work and to have speeded Dan'l's parting
soul; and it was good to be back, to be going presently into the bright
warm world with Rodney Harrison; it was best of all to find her big
Irishman as she had found him. Her friend. Her _best_ friend ... best
for her. It was a solid satisfaction to have him tabulated and
pigeonholed at last and for all time. Michael Daragh was her best
friend. That was settled. And she had been a vain, light-minded goose to
fancy for an instant that he would misinterpret that foolish little
postscript on her last letter,--that he would _want_ to misinterpret
it. Michael Daragh had clearly obeyed the command to come apart and be
separate, and she should never worry for an instant about him again.

And while she flew into her most satisfactory frock and stood still for
Mabel's slow hookings and fastenings and then sent her down to tell the
gentleman she would be with him in two minutes, her best friend, newly
elected to that high estate, sat alone in his room on the third floor,
and there was in his thin face none of the calm which had helped Mrs.
Hills to carry her point with Emma Ellis.

There had been a little rite, the evening before, of burning such few
letters as he had allowed himself to keep, but he had snatched the last
one back from the blaze and cut off the final line, the postscript, with
his desk scissors, and put the narrow shred of paper into his wallet. And
now, hearing the sound of a taxicab in the street below, he approached
his window and looked down through the fast-thickening dusk of the late
fall evening. He could