dlesticks are very beautiful," he said;
"the impression here is a little like that of a Catholic altar just
before the mass. I've always thought I'd like to have my meals served
in church, _Saint-Germain-des-Pres_ for instance."

"It is rather dim religious light." Nancy had no wish to utter
this banality, but it was forced from her by her desire to seem
sympathetic.

"Can we go to your place for a little while to-night?"

These were the words she had spent her days and nights hungering for;
yet now she hesitated for a perceptible instant.

"Yes, we can, of course. There is a friend of mine--Billy Boynton, up
there this evening. He is not feeling very fit, and phoned to ask if
he could go up and sprawl before my fire, so, of course, I said he
could."

"Oh! yes, Sheila's friend. Can't he be disposed of?"

"I think so. We could try."

But at Nancy's apartment they found not only Billy, but Caroline, and
the atmosphere was like that of the glacial regions, both literally
and figuratively.

"Hitty had the windows open, and the fire went out, and I forgot to
turn on the heat," Billy explained from his position on the hearth
where he was trying to build an unscientific fire with the morning
paper, and the remains of a soap box. There was a long smudge across
his forehead.

Caroline drew Nancy into the seclusion of her bedroom and clutched her
violently by the arm.

"I can't stand the strain any longer," she cried, "you've got to tell
me. Are you or are you not going to marry Dick Thorndyke for his
money, and is Billy Boynton putting you up to it--out of cowardice?"

"No, I'm not and he isn't," Nancy said. "What's the matter with you
and Billy anyway?"

"I haven't seen him for weeks before. I just happened to be in this
neighborhood to-night, and ran in here, and there he was."

"Why don't you take him home with you?" Nancy said.

"I don't want him to go home with me."

"Don't you love him?"

"Oh, I don't know. That isn't the point."

"It is the point," Nancy said; "there isn't any other point to the
whole of existence. There's nothing else in the world, but love, the
great, big, beautiful, all-giving-up kind of love, and bearing
children for the man you love; and if you don't know that yet,
Caroline, go down on your bended knees and pray to your God that He
will teach it to you before it is too late."

"I--I didn't know you felt like that," Caroline gasped.

"Well, I do," Nancy said, "and I think tha