t's just because I was so busy trying
to get some one in Lottie's place! And now they say--they say--that
_they_ know what the matter is, and that I mustn't dance or play
golf--the horrible, spying cats! I won't go back, George, I will not!
I--"

Again George was wonderful. He put his arm about her, and she sat
down on the edge of his desk, and leaned against that dear protective
shoulder and dried her eyes on one of his monogrammed handkerchiefs. He
reminded her of a long-standing engagement for this evening with Betty
and Penny, to go out to Sea Light and have dinner and a swim, and drive
home in the moonlight. And when she was quiet again, he said tenderly:

"You mustn't let the 'cats' worry you, Pussy. What they think isn't
true, and I don't blame you for getting cross! But in one way, dear,
aren't they right? Hasn't my little girl been riding and driving and
dancing a little too hard? Is it the wisest thing, just now? You have
been nervous lately, dear, and excitable. Mightn't there be a reason?
Because I don't have to tell you, sweetheart, nothing would make me
prouder, and Uncle Martin, of course, has made no secret of how _he_
feels! You wouldn't be sorry, dear?"

Genevieve had always loved children deeply. Long before this her
happy dreams had peopled the old house in Sheridan Road with handsome,
dark-eyed girls, and bright-eyed boys like their father.

But, to her own intense astonishment, she found this speech from her
husband distasteful. George would be "proud," and Uncle Martin pleased.
But it suddenly occurred to Genevieve that neither George nor Uncle
Martin would be tearful and nervous. Neither George nor Uncle Martin
need eschew golf and riding and dancing. To be sick, when she had always
been so well! To face death, for which she had always had so healthy a
horror! Cousin Alex had died when her baby came, and Lois Farwell had
never been well after the fourth Farwell baby made his appearance.

Genevieve's tears died as if from flame. She gently put aside the
sustaining arm, and went to the little mirror on the wall, to straighten
her hat. She remembered buying this hat, a few weeks ago, in the
ecstatic last days of the old life.

"We needn't talk of that yet, George," she said quietly.

She could see George's grieved look, in the mirror. There was a short
silence in the office.

Then Betty Sheridan, cool in pongee, came briskly in.

"Hello, Jinny!" said she. "Had you forgotten our plan tonigh