garette between two brown
fingers. "Are you happy? Do you enjoy your life?"

Pamela withdrew, lightly, inevitably, behind guards.

"Within reason, yes. When committees aren't too tiresome, and the
accounts balance, and...."

"Oh, give me a straight answer, Pam. You dependable, practical people are
always frivolous about things that matter. Are you happy? Do you feel
right-side-up with life?"

"In the main--yes." Pamela was more serious this time. "One's doing one's
job, after all. And human beings are interesting."

"But I've got that too. My job, and human beings.... Why do I feel all
tossed about, like a boat on a choppy sea? Oh, I know life's furiously
amusing and exciting--of course it is. But I want something solid. You've
got it, somehow."

Nan broke off and thought "It's Frances Carr she's got. That's permanent.
That goes on. Pamela's anchored. All these people I have--these men and
women--they're not anchors, they're stimulants, and how different that
is!"

They looked at each other in silence. Pamela said then, "You don't look
well, child."

"Oh--" Nan threw her cigarette end impatiently into the grate. "I'm all
right. I'm tired, and I've been thinking too much. That never suits
me.... Thanks, Pam. You've helped me to make up my mind. I like you,
Pam," she added dispassionately, "because you're so gentlewomanly. You
don't ask questions, or pry. Most people do."

"Surely not. Not most decent people."

"Most people aren't decent. You think they are. You've not lived in my
set--nor in Rosalind's. You're still fresh from Oxford--stuck all over
with Oxford manners and Oxford codes. You don't know the raddled gossip
who fishes for your secrets and then throws them about for fun, like
tennis balls."

"I know Rosalind, thank you, Nan."

"Oh, Rosalind's not the only one, though she'll do. Anyhow I've trapped
you into saying an honest and unkind thing about her, for once; that's
something. Wish you weren't such a dear old fraud, Pammie."

Frances Carr came back, in her dressing gown, looking about twenty-three,
her brown hair in two plaits.

"Pamela, you _mustn't_ sit up any more. I'm awfully sorry, Nan, but her
head...."

"Right oh. I'm off. Sorry I've kept you up, Pammie. Good-night.
Good-night, Frances. Yes, I shall get the bus at the corner. Good-night."

The door closed after Nan, shutting in the friends and their friendship
and their anchored peace.

3

Off went Nan on the bus at the corn