Jane came around for me this afternoon, and mother consented to a walk. I did not have a chance to take Sis's pink hat, as she keeps her door locked now when not in her room. Which is ridiculous, because I am not her type, and her things do not suit me very well anyhow. And I have never borrowed anything but gloves and handkerchiefs, except Maddie's dress and the hat. She had, however, not locked her bathroom, and finding a bunch of violets in the washbowl I put them on. It does not hurt violets to wear them, and anyhow I knew Carter Brooks had sent them and she ought to wear only Beresford's flowers if she means to marry him. Jane at once remarked that I looked changed. "Naturally," I said, in a blase' manner. "If I didn't know you, Bab," she observed, "I would say that you are rouged." I became very stiff and distant at that. For Jane, although my best friend, had no right to be suspicious of me. "How do I look changed?" I demanded. "I don't know. You--Bab, I believe you are up to some mischief!" "Mischief?" "You don't need to pretend to me," she went on, looking into my very soul. "I have eyes. You're not decked out this way for ME." I had meant to tell her nothing, but spying just then a man ahead who walked like Adrian, I was startled. I clutched her arm and closed my eyes. "Bab!" she said. The man turned, and I saw it was not he. I breathed again. But Jane was watching me, and I spoke out of an overflowing heart. "For a moment I thought--Jane, I have met THE ONE at last." "Barbara!" she said, and stopped dead. "Is it any one I know?" "He is an actor." "Ye gods!" said Jane, in a tense voice. "What a tragedy!" "Tragedy indeed," I was compelled to admit. "Jane, my heart is breaking. I am not allowed to see him. It is all off, forever." "Darling!" said Jane. "You are trembling all over. Hold on to me. Do they disapprove?" "I am never to see him again. Never." The bitterness of it all overcame me. My eyes suffused with tears. But I told her, in broken accents, of my determination to stick to him, no matter what. "I might never be Mrs. Adrian Egleston, but----" "Adrian Egleston!" she cried, in amazement. "Why Barbara, you lucky thing!" So, finding her fuller of sympathy than usual, I violated my vow of silence and told her all. And, to prove the truth of what I said, I showed her the sachet over my heart containing his rose. "It's perfectly wonderful," Jane said, in an awed tone. "You beat anything I've ever known for adventures! You are the type men like, for one thing. But there is one thing I could not stand, in your place--having to know that he is making love to the heroine every evening and twice on Wednesdays and--Bab, this is Wednesday!"