couch and sat down. She was thinking fast and hard.
Life had not been make-believe to Patricia; she had builded whatever
towers had been hers with hard facts.

She drew wrong and bitter conclusions now--but she dealt with them
divinely.

"You poor kid," she whispered, "and I left you--to this. I! Joan, I told
you not to trust men. It's when you trust them that you get hurt.

"Listen, you poor little lamb, I felt you calling me, tugging at me. The
storm delayed me, or I would have been here sooner. Joan, I had nearly
run off the track myself--it was the thought of you that got me. I kept
remembering that night you made the little dinner for me--no one had
ever taken care of me like that--and, child, I've accepted that job in
Chicago. If I go alone, remembering that dinner you got for me, I don't
know what I'll do. Come with me, Joan, will you? No man in the world is
worth such tears as these. You don't have to tell _me_ anything. We'll
begin anew. You'll have your music--I'll have my work--and we'll have a
dinner every night."

Patricia was shivering in her wet clothing.

Joan put her arms about her. At that moment nothing so much appealed to
her as to get away--get away to think and make sure of herself. Get away
from the place where her idols lay shattered.

"Yes, Pat. I will go. But"--and here she took Patricia's face in her hot
palms--"don't you believe that any man can be trusted?"

"No, I don't. It isn't their fault. They are not made for trust--they're
made to do things."

"Pat, you're all wrong. It's girls like you and me that cannot be
trusted. I--I didn't know myself that was the trouble. Pat--you
mustn't--think what you are thinking--you are mistaken."

"I saw him--on the stairs," gasped Patricia.

"Suppose you did?"

"Joan, do you know what time it is?"

"No. I do not care. It takes time to have the world tumble about your
ears."

"You--you--do not--love him, do you?"

Joan paused and considered this as if it were a startlingly new idea.

"Love him?--why, no. I'm sure I don't. But, Pat, what is it that seems
like love, but isn't--you're sure it isn't--but it hurts and almost
kills you?"

The two young faces confronted each other blankly.

"I don't know," Patricia said.

"Nor I, Pat. But we've got to know. All women have unless they want to
mess their own lives and the lives of men. They cannot be free until
they do."

Then Joan took hold of Patricia and exclaimed:

"Pat, you are dri