"Yes, I knew her." A dull impatience spread over him. He had heard, of course, that she was married--perhaps deliberately he had heard no more. "Awfully nice girl," brooded Devlin meaninglessly, "I'm sort of sorry for her." "Why?" Something in Dexter was alert, receptive, at once. "Oh, Lud Simms has gone to pieces in a way. I don't mean he ill-uses her, but he drinks and runs around-----" "Doesn't she run around?" "No. Stays at home with her kids." "Oh." "She's a little too old for him," said Devlin. "Too old!" cried Dexter. "Why, man, she's only twenty-seven." He was possessed with a wild notion of rushing out into the streets and taking a train to Detroit. He rose to his feet spasmodically. "I guess you're busy," Devlin apologized quickly. "I didn't realize----" "No, I'm not busy," said Dexter, steadying his voice. "I'm not busy at all. Not busy at all. Did you say she was--twenty-seven? No, I said she was twenty-seven." "Yes, you did," agreed Devlin dryly. "Go on, then. Go on." "What do you mean?" "About Judy Jones." Devlin looked at him helplessly. "Well, that's--I told you all there is to it. He treats her like the devil. Oh, they're not going to get divorced or anything. When he's particularly outrageous she forgives him. In fact, I'm inclined to think she loves him. She was a pretty girl when she first came to Detroit." A pretty girl! The phrase struck Dexter as ludicrous. "Isn't she--a pretty girl, any more?" "Oh, she's all right." "Look here," said Dexter, sitting down suddenly, "I don't understand. You say she was a 'pretty girl' and now you say she's 'all right.' I don't understand what you mean--Judy Jones wasn't a pretty girl, at all. She was a great beauty. Why, I knew her, I knew her. She was----" Devlin laughed pleasantly. "I'm not trying to start a row," he said. "I think Judy's a nice girl and I like her. I can't understand how a man like Lud Simms could fall madly in love with her, but he did." Then he added: "Most of the women like her." Dexter looked closely at Devlin, thinking wildly that there must be a reason for this, some insensitivity in the man or some private malice. "Lots of women fade just like _that_" Devlin snapped his fingers. "You must have seen it happen. Perhaps I've forgotten how pretty she was at her wedding. I've seen her so much since then, you see. She has nice eyes." A sort of dulness settled down upon Dexter. For the first time in his life he felt like getting very drunk. He knew that he was laughing loudly at something Devlin had said, but he did not know what it was or why it was funny. When, in a few minutes, Devlin went he lay down on his lounge and looked out the window at the New York sky-line into which the sun was sinking in dull lovely shades of pink and gold.