But Ginger had had a manicure two days earlier (she had come to like the look of her brown fingers after careful grooming) and she never had facials, and looking out at the Avenue made her long unendurably for the range; and it seemed to her that Aunt Fan had had her mind as well as her hair henna rinsed; as if she’d had a permanent wave in her personality. Then, suddenly, she remembered Mary Wiley. Mary Wiley was a girl she had known at boarding school in Los Angeles, a slim, frail girl who had been sent west for the mildness of the winters. She was three or four years older than Ginger, but they had roomed together for several months and the younger child had liked her warmly, without ever understanding why. She had very smooth, cool hands and she was always delicately and pleasantly pale, and never in a hurry. She always had her lessons learned and her themes written and had generous margins of time for other people. They had corresponded for a while; it was Ginger who had stopped writing. Mary Wiley had sent her a brief, bracing little note when she had heard, through other channels of the old school, of Aleck’s death, but Ginger had never acknowledged it. Now she wanted to find her. The telephone book was rich in Wileys but she knew she would recognize the address when she saw it and she did--up in the Eighties, and just off Riverside Drive, the hotel door man told her. She could take the bus. Ginger liked taking the bus when she could ride on the top; it gave her a comforting little sense of leashed freedom for a while, and she loved the river. It was the first river she had ever known, personally, and she had the merest bowing acquaintance with it now, but she knew that she would like knowing it if she could. It was a narrow, quiet-looking house; it made her think of Mary Wiley herself. A neat, middle-aged maid answered her ring and took her name and said that she would see if Miss Wiley was at home. She had hardly finished her leisurely mounting of the stairs when Ginger heard a low exclamation of pleasure and her friend came skimming down to her. (She recalled, now, the way Mary Wiley had of moving, of coming downstairs.) She did not kiss her but she took both her hands and glowed her deep and quiet gladness. “Virginia McVeagh! My dear! It’s so nice to see you! And how _lovely_ you are--much lovelier, even, than when you were little!” Mary Wiley was a plain young woman herself but she drank up Ginger’s beauty thirstily. She was still slim and frail, with rather colorless hair and skin, but she had good gray eyes and a singularly intelligent sweetness of expression. They sat down to talk in the small drawing-room which was rather scantily furnished, Ginger thought, and presently she telephoned to her aunt that she was staying for luncheon and would not be back until late in the afternoon. It just happened, Mary Wiley said, to be her lazy day, so they could have a fine visit.