“Because they are stupid,” flashed Fliss, “of course they do. Like Dorothy Maynard. And then they have babies and get fat and stop dancing and don’t care about anything except babies and food. If I get married I won’t do that sort of thing anyhow. I won’t get married unless I’m sure I won’t have to. Anyway who could I marry?” “You’d probably find some one.” The other girl slipped into her bed. “My feet are tired,” she added, “but I wish I could dance to that orchestra forever.” Fliss did not answer. She sat, watching her image in the pier glass opposite her. It was a strangely young image for one possessed of such crowding thoughts. CHAPTER III Cecily’s mother had been married twice. That was as it should be, for she had not managed to get much happiness out of her first marriage. Allgate Moore, Cecily’s father, had been handsome and brilliant and well placed socially and his young wife, so very charming, so very much in love, had surely expected--must have expected--that all the good things of the world were to be laid at her feet. The wedding had been staged with considerable ceremony, as a picture of Mrs. Moore in the midst of banks of stiff white bridal satin still showed. But the aftermath had been less brilliant. The future prophesied for Allgate Moore had not come to pass and instead a great deal of dissipation and debt as well as a cherubic but upsetting Cecily had come to crowd young Mrs. Moore’s life. It was fortunate, people soon said, that nothing seemed to disturb or harass Mrs. Moore greatly. She had an air of moving among her own troubles as if they concerned some one else to whom she was lending every aid and sympathy. And there was no trace of hysteria to be seen by the casual observer even when her young husband died of pneumonia three years after they were married and left her nothing but a somewhat soiled memory and some badly tangled financial affairs.