good, dear," Alys smiled.

"Yes," Genevieve agreed. "I understand. Things that hurt are often for
our good, aren't they? We have to be _made_ to realize facts really to
know them."

"Coffee, dear?" inquired Alys, assuming the duties of hostess.

Genevieve shook her head. "No. I find I've been rather wakeful of late:
perhaps it's coffee. Excuse me. I must telephone."

A moment later she returned beaming.

"I have borrowed a car for tomorrow, and I want you and Emelene to come
with me for a little spin. We ought to have a bright day; the night is
wonderful. Poor George," she sighed, "I wish he didn't have to be away
so much."

"His career is yours, you know," kittenishly bromidic, Emelene comforted
her. The following day fulfilled the promise of its predecessor. Clear
and balmy, it invited to the outer, world, and it was with pleased
anticipation that Genevieve's guests prepared for the promised outing.
Genevieve glanced anxiously into her gold mesh bag. The motor was hired,
not borrowed.

She had permitted herself this one white lie.

She ushered her guests into the tonneau and took her place beside the
chauffeur. Their first few stops were for such prosaic purchases as the
household made necessary; there was a pause at the post office, another
at the Forum, where Genevieve left two highly disgruntled women waiting
for her while with a guilty sense of teasing her prey she prolonged her
business. The sight of their stiffened figures and averted faces when
she returned to them kindled a new amusement.

At last they were settled comfortably, and the car turned toward the
suburbs.

The town streets were passed and lines of villa homes thinned. The
ornate colonial gates of the Country Club flashed by. Now the sky to
the right was dark with the smoke of the belching chimneys of many
factories. For a block or two cottages of the better sort flanked the
road; then, grim, ugly and dilapidated, stretched the twin "improved"
sections of Kentwood and Powderville. In the air was an acrid odor. Soot
begrimed everything. The sodden ground was littered with refuse between
the shacks, which were dignified by the title of "Workmen's Cottages."

Amid the confusion, irregular trodden paths led, short-cutting, toward
the clattering, grinding munition plants. For a space of at least half
an acre around the huge iron buildings the ground, with sinister import,
was kept clear of dwellings, but in all directions outside of the
inc