n with vehemence when one tried to live by feeling in a world which
was manifestly designed for the service of facts. "You ought to have
gone on the stage, Alice," she said. "Painted scenery is the only
background that is appropriate to you."

Alice sighed. She looked very pretty in her shallow fashion, or Corinna
felt that she couldn't have borne it. "You are awfully kind, Corinna,"
she returned, "but you have so little sentiment."

"I know, my dear, but I have some common sense which has served me very
well in its place." As Corinna spoke she got up and roamed restlessly
about the room, because the sight of that passive figure, wrapped in
wilted plum blossoms, made her feel as if she wanted to scream. "You
can't help being a fool, Alice," she said sternly, "and as long as you
are a pretty one, I suppose men won't mind. But you must continue to be
a pretty one, or it is all over with you."

The face that Alice turned on her showed a curious mixture of humility
over the criticism and satisfaction over the compliment. "I know I've
lost my looks dreadfully," she replied, grasping the most important
point first, "and, of course, I have been a fool about John. If I hadn't
cared so much, things might have been different."

Corinna stopped her impatient moving about and looked down on her. "I
didn't mean that kind of fool," she retorted; but just what kind of fool
she had meant, she thought it indiscreet to explain.

Suddenly, with a dash of nervous energy which appeared to run like a
stimulant through her veins, Alice straightened herself and lifted her
head. "It is easy for you to say that," she rejoined, "but you have
never been loved to desperation and then deserted."

"No," responded Corinna, with the ripe judgment that is the fruit of
bitter experience, "but, if I were ever loved to desperation, I should
expect to be. Desperation does things like that."

"You couldn't bear it any better than I can. No woman could."

"Perhaps not." Though Corinna's voice was flippant, there was a stern
expression on her beautiful face--the expression that Artemis might have
worn when she surveyed Aphrodite. "But I should never have been
deserted. I should have taken good care to prevent it."

"I took care too," retorted Alice, with passion, "but I couldn't prevent
it."

"Your measures were wrong. It is always safer to be on the side of the
active rather than the passive verb."

With a careless movement, Corinna picked up her