lady, from Golden
(fascinating name!) which permitted her to act as if the whole train
were her private suite and all the porters servants of her person? She
was the most autocratic old lady Desire had ever seen and far younger
and more alert than the tired-looking daughter who accompanied her.
They were going to New York. They went to New York every year. Desire
wondered why.

She wondered, too, about the rancher's wife going home to Scotland for
the first time since her marriage. What did it feel like to be going
home--to a real home with a mother and brothers and sisters? What did
it feel like to be taking two dark-haired, bright-eyed babies, as like
as twins and with only a year between them, for the fond approval of
grand-parents across the seas? ... The rancher's wife looked as if
she enjoyed it. But women will pretend anything.

Desire's eyes shifted to the inevitable honeymoon couple who were going
to Winnipeg to visit "his" people. The bride was almost painfully
smart, but she was pretty and "he" adored her. Her mouth was small and
red. It fascinated Desire. She could not keep her eyes off it. It was
like--well, it was the kind of mouth men seemed to admire. She tried
honestly to admire it her-self, but the more she tried the less
admirable she found it. She wondered if Benis--

"What do you think of the bride?" she murmured, under cover of a
magazine.

"Where?" said Benis, in an unnecessarily loud voice, laying down his
paper.

"S-ssh! Over there. The girl in green."

"Pretty little thing," said Benis. His tone lacked conviction.

"Lovely eyes, don't you think? Nice hair and such a darling nose. But
her mouth--isn't her mouth rather small?"

"Regular 'prunes and prisms,'" agreed Benis.

"It is very red, though."

"Lipstick, probably."

"But I thought you liked small, red mouths."

"Hate 'em," said Benis, who had a shockingly bad memory.

Desire went to bed thoughtful. "I suppose," she thought as she lay
listening to the swinging train, "men like certain things because they
belong to certain people and not because they like them really at all."
This was not very lucid but it seemed to satisfy Desire for she stopped
thinking and went to sleep.

Morning found them on the top of the world. Desire was up and out long
before the mists had lifted. She watched the wonder of their going, she
saw the coming of the sun. She drew in, with great deep breaths, the
high, sweet air. The cream of her skin gl