er of all that had happened
since their separation, quite as if they had not once seen each other in
the interval.

It might have been thought, when their remarks finally became far
spaced, as they did between two and three of the morning, that this
happened because the streams were running dry as well as because the
talkers were growing sleepy; but no such thing. Each had loads more that
she might have told; but each, as had not been the case in the old days,
was keeping back something from the other. Each locked in her breast a
secret.

There had naturally been talk of Gerald. Estelle was immensely nice
about him, and Aurora appeared immensely frank, but yet both knew that
he was to be a delicate subject between them thenceforward, and that
thoughts relating to him could not be exchanged without reserve.

There had been laughter over Estelle's subterfuges in order not to let
it be learned from her, and this without directly lying, that Aurora was
actually living at Gerald's. "It's a case of a cold," she had explained
her friend's non-appearance upon one occasion, without mentioning whose
cold.

The details of Busteretto's illness and danger had caused him to be
reached for in the dark and kissed and cuddled anew.

"My, but it's nice to have you back!" Estelle said in the morning,
fixing a bright, fond gaze upon her friend across the little table in
the bedroom, where they sat in their wrappers eating breakfast. "A penny
for your thoughts, Nell. What are you thinking about?"

Nell smiled rather foolishly, then, putting Satan behind her in the
shape of a temptation to prevaricate, said:

"I was thinking what they were doing over there. Whether Gerald has had
a good night, and about Giovanna, and what it's all like without me.
It's hard for me now to think of the place without me. I miss myself
there."

"I suppose you'll be driving round to inquire sometime in the course of
the day," Estelle said, with true generosity; at which Aurora tried to
look as if she were not sure; she would think about it.

With arms around each other's waists they went through all the rooms for
Aurora to renew her pleasure in them after absence. They came to a
standstill before her portrait in the drawing-room.

"There's no mistake, he's talented," Estelle admitted good-humoredly,
after a considerable silence. "That's a fine portrait."

Aurora did not say she thought so, too. Alone in her room later, while
Estelle was dressing to