roud?"

When he was out of sight around the stair corner she turned to
Jeffrey, who was standing beside her resting his hand on the end of
the banister.

"Are you tired, my dearest?"

Jeffrey rubbed the centre of his forehead with his fingers.

"A little. How did you know?"

"Oh, how could I help knowing about you?"

"It's a headache," he said moodily. "Splitting. I'll take some
aspirin."

She reached over and snapped out the light, and with his arm tight
about her waist they walked up the stairs together.

II

Harry's week passed. They drove about the dreaming lanes or idled in
cheerful inanity upon lake or lawn. In the evening Roxanne, sitting
inside, played to them while the ashes whitened on the glowing ends of
their cigars. Then came a telegram from Kitty saying that she wanted
Harry to come East and get her, so Roxanne and Jeffrey were left alone
in that privacy of which they never seemed to tire.

"Alone" thrilled them again. They wandered about the house, each
feeling intimately the presence of the other; they sat on the same
side of the table like honeymooners; they were intensely absorbed,
intensely happy.

The town of Marlowe, though a comparatively old settlement, had only
recently acquired a "society." Five or six years before, alarmed at
the smoky swelling of Chicago, two or three young married couples,
"bungalow people," had moved out; their friends had followed. The
Jeffrey Curtains found an already formed "set" prepared to welcome:
them; a country club, ballroom, and golf links yawned for them, and
there were bridge parties, and poker parties, and parties where they
drank beer, and parties where they drank nothing at all.

It was at a poker party that they found themselves a week after
Harry's departure. There were two tables, and a good proportion of the
young wives were smoking and shouting their bets, and being very
daringly mannish for those days.

Roxanne had left the game early and taken to perambulation; she
wandered into the pantry and found herself some grape juice--beer gave
her a headache--and then passed from table to table, looking over
shoulders at the hands, keeping an eye on Jeffrey and being pleasantly
unexcited and content. Jeffrey, with intense concentration, was
raising a pile of chips of all colors, and Roxanne knew by the
deepened wrinkle between his eyes that he was interested. She liked to
see him interested in small things.

She crossed over quietly and sat