thinking
about that funny brawl of years before, which had not been so funny
after all--wondering if----

It was past twelve that night when Miriam Burrell's door was pushed
softly open by a slim white figure which hesitated on the threshold;
but the night-light was still burning upon the table. Barbara stood
for a moment, staring at her friend, who was sitting bolt upright in
bed.

"Then you aren't asleep," she faltered. "Are you--reading?"

The older girl turned and gazed, half blankly, at the dark-eyed face in
that mist of loosened hair.

"Yes," she drawled, for all that her hands and hunched-up knees were
bookless. "Yes, I'm reading. I'm having a little squint at this
puzzle-scroll they call Life."

She made a peremptory gesture and Barbara crept in beside her.

"I--may I turn off the light?" she asked.

Miriam snapped the button.

"I couldn't sleep," Barbara began presently, in a quaintly small voice.
"And I--I wanted--Miriam, I've acted so like an unschooled, half-grown
girl to-day that it has perplexed and worried me! From the moment when
I first recognized him and became so--tangled up--I've just chattered
and chattered. You don't think I'm utterly frivolous and unstable, do
you?"

"Haven't you always been famed for your poise?" came back the
uncompromising voice she knew so well.

"Are you--you aren't laughing at me, are you?" she hesitated. "Because
I don't think I am in the mood to be laughed at. And I have poise. I
am not a child. But looking back now, I can't quite account for all
my--shall I call it cordiality? Don't you believe, Miriam, that it was
because I wanted to make up, a little, for the way I treated him when
he was a boy?"

"Maybe!" agreed Miriam, unenthusiastically.

"Because I did treat him abominably," went on the drowsy voice. "And,
do you know, all day, even when we seemed so--such good friends, I
still felt as though he was on guard against any repetition of such a
slight. I wouldn't want him to feel that way, but it was there just
the same, even in the way he received the invitation to my party. It
was on the tip of my tongue to tell him that there are men who--who'd
almost charter a liner to come--if I'd invite them. It would have
sounded conceited, but I wanted to _jolt_ him! And he just said he'd
come if he could!"

"He has his work," Miriam answered, and into her voice crept that
wearied, indescribably hard note which the younger girl couldn't
underst