come to her without having cost even a wish. Was Rodney's love
for her, therefore, valueless? No, the French woman was certainly wrong
about that.

CHAPTER III

WHERE DID ROSE COME IN

However, it was one thing to decide that this was so, and quite another
thing to dismiss the preposterous idea from her mind. There was still an
hour before she need begin dressing for the Randolph dinner, but as she
had already had her tea and there was nothing else to do, she thought
she might as well go about it. It might help her resist a certain
perfectly irrational depression which the talk with the actress,
somewhat surprisingly, had produced. And besides, if she were all
dressed when Rodney came home, she'd be free to visit with him while he
dressed--to sit and watch him swearing at his studs, and tell him about
the events of her day, including their climax in the ride with the
famous Simone Greville. And he'd come over every now and then and
interrupt himself and her with some sort of unexpected caress--a kiss on
the back of her neck, or an embrace that would threaten her
coiffure--and this vague, scary, nightmarish sort of feeling, which for
no reasonable reason at all seemed to be clutching at her, would be
forgotten.

It was a queer sort of feeling--a kind of misgiving, in one form or
another, as to her own identity--as if all the events since her marriage
were nothing but a dream of Rose Stanton's, from which, with vague
painful stirrings, she was just beginning to wake. Or, again, as if for
all these months, she had been playing a part in a preposterously long
play, on which the curtain was, presently, going to be rung down. She
wished Rodney would come--hoped he wouldn't be late, and finally sat
down before the telephone with a half-formed idea of calling him up and
reminding him that they were dining with the Randolphs.

Just as she laid her hand upon the receiver, the telephone bell rang. It
was Rodney calling her.

"Oh, that you, Rose?" he said. "I shan't be out till late to-night.
I've got to work."

She wanted to know what he meant by late.

"I've no idea," he said. "Ten--twelve--two. I've got to get hold of
something, but I've no idea how long it will take."

"But, Roddy, dearest," she protested. "You have to come home. You've got
the Randolphs' dinner."

"Oh, the devil!" he said. "I forgot all about it. But it doesn't make a
bit of difference, anyway. I wouldn't leave the office before I finishe