ervative than bacon and eggs.

"Yes, my beloved," Sylvia returned as she plunged a wicked-looking
little knife into the heart of a grapefruit: "And that accounts for half
the marriages in life." Sylvia was refraining, just then, from telling
of her own engagement. She wanted and needed Joan for the present--her
secret would keep.

"You funny old Syl," Joan flung back over her shoulder as she drew the
curtain over the closet that screened the housekeeping skeletons from
the wonderful studio. "We won't have to resort to marriage, anyway.
We've solved the eternal question!"

"Exactly! And now give those chops a twist. Thank the Lord, we both love
them crisp."

The experiment in a few days had Joan by the throat. So utterly had she
thrown herself into it, so almost unbelievably had Doris Fletcher
permitted her to do so, that it took on all the attributes of reality
and demanded nothing less than obedience to its laws, or surrender to
defeat.

Doris had given Joan, when she came North, a check for five hundred
dollars. Upon reaching Sylvia she had, after paying her expenses, that,
and fifty dollars in cash left.

It had seemed boundless wealth for the first few days and continued to
seem so until the necessity for bringing the check into action faced the
girl.

"I must find something to do!" she vowed as she made her way to the bank
where she had deposited the check. "No more fooling around."

Sylvia made no suggestions; never appeared to be anything but satisfied
with things as they were. The companionship, the feeling of _home_ that
Joan had introduced into her life, were deep joys to the girl who, like
many women who know not the art of making a home, are soul-sick for the
blessings of one.

"I'd work till my last tube ran dry," she thought to herself, standing
at the wide north window, "if I could keep her singing and dancing about
and--getting meals!"

Joan did not interfere with Sylvia's profession--she gave it new
meaning--but Sylvia realized that Joan was interfering with her own.
Still, Sylvia was never one to usurp the rights of a Higher Power, and
at twenty-four she was intensely, shamefacedly religious and absolutely
lacking in desire to shape the ends of others.

"The thing that's meant for her will slap her in the face soon," Sylvia
comforted herself. "And she's such a wonder!"

But if Sylvia refrained from nudging Joan on her course, even to the
extent of opening her eyes to sign-posts, others