know," Beulah said; "perhaps he has. I hadn't thought of it
that way."

"It's the way to think of it, I know." Margaret's eyes filled with
sudden tears. "But whatever he's done it's past mending now. There'll
be no question of Peter's backing out of a bargain--bad or good, and
our poor little kiddie's got to suffer."

"Beulah took it hard," Gertrude commented, as they turned up-town
again after dropping their friend at her door. The two girls were
spending the night together at Margaret's. "I wonder on what grounds.
I think besides being devoted to Eleanor, she feels terrifically
responsible for her. She isn't quite herself again either."

"She is almost, thanks to Peter."

"But--oh! I can't pretend to think of anything else,--who--who--who--are
our boys going to marry?"

"I don't know, Gertrude."

"But you care?"

"It's a blow."

"I always thought that you and David--"

Margaret met her eyes bravely but she did not answer the implicit
question.

"I always thought that you and Jimmie--" she said presently. "Oh!
Gertrude, you would have been so good for him."

"Oh! it's all over now," Gertrude said, "but I didn't know that a
living soul suspected me."

"I've known for a long time."

"Are you really hurt, dear?" Gertrude whispered as they clung to each
other.

"Not really. It could have been--that's all. He could have made me
care. I've never seen any one else whom I thought that of. I--I was so
used to him."

"That's the rub," Gertrude said, "we're so used to them. They're
so--so preposterously necessary to us."

Late that night clasped in each other's arms they admitted the extent
of their desolation. Life had been robbed of a magic,--a mystery. The
solid friendship of years of mutual trust and understanding was the
background of so much lovely folly, so many unrealized possibilities,
so many nebulous desires and dreams that the sudden dissolution of
their circle was an unthinkable calamity.

"We ought to have put out our hands and taken them if we wanted them,"
Gertrude said, out of the darkness. "Other women do. Probably these
other women have. Men are helpless creatures. They need to be firmly
turned in the right direction instead of being given their heads.
We've been too good to our boys. We ought to have snitched them."

"I wouldn't pay that price for love," Margaret said. "I couldn't. By
the time I had made it happen I wouldn't want it."

"That's my trouble too," Gertrude said. Then sh