the first night of his illness, had come only from a mind keyed up? How
much of his promise would he remember? Men sick and men well are in
separate worlds. She could not speak of it to Joe, for the doctor had
forbidden it.

At the end of another month, however, Joe was up and about again; and
soon, in spite of the doctor's instructions, he was back at his office
hard at work. This of course looked ominous. What was he doing? She
could not discover. For his partner, over the telephone, was far from
satisfactory. Now that he had Joe back again in that beloved office of
theirs, his manner toward Ethel seemed to her to be gruff and
unfriendly, to say the least. "Stand-offish to the last degree--as
though he believed he could handle Joe all by himself!" she thought in
annoyance. At last she sent for him one day and gave him quite a piece
of her mind; and although not fully successful, she at least made him
acquiesce in the plan she and Sally had concocted for a little gathering
to take place one night the following week. It was nearly seven o'clock
upon the evening in question; and in her room, at her dressing-table,
Ethel was completing her toilet. They were going to dine with the
Crothers', and Joe was nervous about it.

"Come on, Ethel, hurry up!"

"Yes, love, I'm almost ready now. Are you sure the car is at the door?"

"It's been there nearly half an hour!"

"That's good. Just a minute more."

As he angrily lit a cigarette, she looked in the glass at him and
smiled. "How he dreads it, poor dear," she was thinking, as he strode
into the living-room, "meeting Sally and all his old friends." She
frowned. "Heaven knows I dread it myself. What am I going to say to
them all? And suppose they don't care for me in the least? . . .
Well, it will soon be over." Presently Joe popped in at the door:

"Look here! If you're not dressed enough--"

"I'm all ready now," was her placid reply. "Don't you think I look
rather nice?"

"Oh, yes. You'll do."

"Thank you, dear. Aren't you going to kiss me!"

"No! Yes! . . . Now come on!"

She threw back her head and laughed at him.

"It's beginning so well," murmured Sally to Ethel, as they went in to
dinner. "Steady, my child."

"Oh, I'm all right!" was the reply, and Ethel smiled excitedly. The
chorus of exclamations that had greeted Joe and herself had been so warm
and gay and real. There had been no time for awkwardness. In a moment
after their entrance, the hubbub of t