ople and I love you.

"ROSALIE DENE."

"How funny," mused Geraldine. "She's dropped Jack Dysart's name already
in private correspondence.... Poor child!" Looking up at Kathleen, "We
must ask her, mustn't we, dear?"

There was more of virginal severity in Kathleen. She did not see why
Rosalie, under the circumstances, should make a convenience of
Geraldine, but she did not say so; and, perhaps, glancing at the wistful
young girl before her, she understood this new toleration for those in
dubious circumstances--comprehended the unusual gentleness of judgment
which often softens the verdict of those who themselves have drifted too
near the danger mark ever to forget it or to condemn those still adrift.

"Yes," she said, "ask her."

Duane looked up from the perusal of his own letter as Kathleen and Scott
strolled off toward the greenhouses where the latter's daily
entomological researches continued under glass and the stimulous
artificial heat and Kathleen Severn.

"Geraldine," he said, "here's a letter from Bunny Gray. He and Sylvia
Quest were married yesterday very quietly, and they sailed for Cape Town
this morning!"

"What!"

"That's what he writes. Did you ever hear of anything quicker?"

"How funny," she said. "Bunny and Sylvia? I knew he was attentive to her
but----"

"You mean Dysart?" he said carelessly. "Oh, he's only a confirmed
debutante chaser; a sort of social measles. They all recover rapidly."

"I had the--social measles," said Geraldine, smiling.

Duane repressed a shiver. "It's inevitable," he said gaily.... "That
Bunny is a decent fellow."

"Will you show me his letter?" she asked, extending her hand as a matter
of course.

"No, dear."

She looked up surprised.

"Why not? Oh--I beg your pardon, dear----"

Duane bent over, kissed her hand, and tossed the letter into the fire.
It was her first experience in shadows cast before, and it came to her
with a little shock that no two are ever one in the prosier sense of the
theory.

The letter that Duane had read was this:

"Sylvia and I were married quietly yesterday and she has told me
that you will know why. There is little further for me to say,
Duane. My wife is ill. We're going to Cape Town to live for a
while. We're going to be happy. I am now. She will be.

"My wife asked me to write you. Her regard for you is very high.
She wishes me to tell you that