never have known about it at
all? Is there any way of explaining that, except by supposing that Rose
had quarreled with Rodney and left him and that Freddy was trying to get
her to come back?"

Neither of the men could offer, on the spur of the moment, the
alternative explanation she demanded. Indeed it would have taken a good
deal of ingenuity to construct one. It was safer, anyway, just to go on
looking incredulous.

There was silence for a minute or two, then Violet burst out again. "And
then, after all Freddy had done, for Rose to come back here to Chicago,
with all the other cities in the country where it wouldn't matter what
she did, and start to be, of all things, a chorus-girl! It's just
a"--she hesitated over the word, and then used it with an inflection
that gave it its full literal meaning--"just a _dirty_ trick. And poor
Freddy, when she knows ...!"

"I don't believe a word of it," said John Williamson. "I don't believe
Doris Dane--if that's her name--is Rose, in the first place. And I don't
believe Rose has had a quarrel with Rodney. But if she has, and if she's
really there in that show ... Well, I know Rose--not so well as I'd have
liked to, but pretty well--and I know she's a fine girl and I know she's
square. And if I ever saw a girl in love with her husband, she was.
Well, and if she has done it, she's got a reason for it. Oh, I don't
mean another woman or a trunk-strap, or any of the regular divorce court
stuff. That's absurd, of course. And it may be, really, a fool reason.
But you can bet it didn't look like that to her. She wouldn't have done
it, admitting it's what she's done, unless she felt she had to."

"Oh, yes," said Violet, "I expect she's feeling awfully noble about it,
and I'll admit she was in love with Rodney. And that makes it all the
worse! If she'd fallen in love with some other man and run off with
him--well, that isn't pretty, but it's happened before and people have
got away with it. But this running away on account of some silly idea
that she's picked up from that votes-for-women mother of hers, running
away from a man like Rodney, too, just makes you sick."

Her husband didn't try to answer her, except with a regretful sigh. He
recognized in the stinging contempt of his wife's words, the voice of
their world. If Doris Dane of the sextette were really Rose--and in the
bottom of his heart, despite his valiant pretense, he couldn't manage
more than a feeble doubt of it--she had