Hatted for the street, she passed through the hall, giving a fleeting look to the living-room before leaving the apartment. Sarah and Jerry were “rolling the bones” on the floor, with Wigs and Davy and several other youths in full cry. “Honey, what am them?” “Oh, babe—what will the harvest be?” “Shine out, little seven!” “Root, hog, or die!” Wigs caught sight of Joy as she was about to leave, and sang out: “Oh, Jo-oy! What d’you mean, going to dinner at the Copley with Boston’s Best? We saw you getting gay in there with Whosis—sitting up just like you were at a funeral and all that!” “Come on in!” invited Davy. “Chance to make your everlasting fortune—never saw good coin change hands so fast——” She made her escape hastily. _What had Packy meant!_ The kind of life she led—from man to man instead of from hand to mouth——At the Dairy lunch, over some poached eggs, she reflected that it was rather hand to mouth to-day. It was nearing evening as she paid her check and started to walk back. There could be no explanation of Packy’s words except that he had deliberately lied. Yet that did not sound like Packy. Fast and flippant he undoubtedly was, but she could not picture him lying about a girl. Suddenly, as she approached the apartment house, her heart came up in her mouth. Surely that was Packy’s car in front—and Packy himself in the act of stepping into it. She waved her veil at him wildly. If he should drive away now just as the solution to her questionings presented itself——But he saw her, and jumped out again as she came up to him. “Joy! What doggone good luck. Jerry said she didn’t know where you’d gone or when you’d come back——” “I think it’s good luck, too,” she said quietly. “I have a lot of questions to ask you.” A window banged six stories up, and Jerry shrieked above them: “That you, Joy? Come on up—there’s somebody to see you!” “That blond ninny who bumped into Grant and me at the dance that night,” Packy elucidated. Jim Dalton! Life was too full of complications. She had as much as told him so—“I told him I was too busy to see him,” said Joy. “Come on—we’ll go riding,” said Packy, and called up to Jerry—“Joy’s coming riding with me—better tell her company not to wait.” “Where are you going?” Jerry cried, hanging her head farther out of the window. “Where are we going?” Joy repeated, as he hesitated. “Down the Shore Road a ways!” he answered finally, and Jerry’s face disappeared. “Hang Jerry—she acts like a regular old chaperone,” he grumbled as he helped her in the car. “According to what you think of me, I need one,” she retorted. They were well under way before he replied, in a cool, even tone: “Pretty crude, Joy—that’s not like you. I suppose Holy Boy Grant has been spilling a lot of chatter in your shell-pink ear.” “Then you _did_ say something to him! Packy—how could you do such a thing!”