be under his friend, Fanny Carr. "She'll be
my friend, and bring me in touch with whatever other people she likes.
I'll have to be nice to them--every one. And I'll live her life. Amy's
life." She looked at the large photograph over on Joe's chiffonier.
"Perhaps after all I shall be like her. How do I know what she was at
my age? As I grow older, all hemmed in, why not stop caring for
anything else?

"Oh, now do let's be sensible!" With an impatient movement of her lithe
beautiful figure Ethel was up off the bed and walking the room with grim
resolution in her brown eyes. Soon she was much quieter. She felt the
warm youth within her rise. There must be a way! So far, so good. But
the moment she tried to think what way, again at once she was off her
ground. What could she do or say to Joe? Her failure to manage him
that afternoon had shaken her confidence in herself. Ethel was only
twenty-five, and now she felt even younger than that. All at once in a
sickening way her courage oozed; she felt herself ignorant and alone.
Why did not Joe come back, she asked. Was he going to stay away all
night? And if he did, what would it mean? She remembered what he had
said when he left: "Then you and I are through, you know." All right,
then what was he going to do! "I don't even know how a man goes about
it, if he wants to get a divorce!" And panic seized her as before. "I
can't do this all by myself! I can't talk to him as I've got to
talk--not till I know just what to say! I bungled it so! I need sound
advice! Oh, for somebody to help me!" She thought of Dwight, but she
would not go near him! She loathed the very sight of him now! Why had
not he told her of those other affairs of his that could rise in this
way against herself? Why had he allowed her to do those few little
daring things, which looked so cheap and disgusting in the detective's
typed report? And besides, if she did want to see him, could she,
without being watched by some wretched detective? For the whole town
seemed bristling with detectives and police. And the city of New York
felt cold. As she lay on her bed, a sudden gay laugh from a
neighbouring window recalled to her mind that night long ago, her first
in New York, when she had listened excitedly and thought of all the
stories here, both sad and comic.

"Well, I'm a story now," she thought. "And I suppose I'm comic!" The
angry tears rose in I her eyes. Oh, for a real friend! There was Emily
Giles, of course,