"But," I objected, "why meddle? You know what a marriage of that kind would be! You see what he is anyway!" But here I had touched Kitty's limitation. For her, as for her novels, marriage was the end of the story. If joybells closed it nothing after that mattered, and the look she gave me was a personal confirmation. "But," she went on presently, "you could help, Jeff. We women can't talk to him--though he's not getting very many smiles from _me_ just now!" I smiled. "You're an unscrupulous crew," I remarked. "Will you see him?" "Well--I won't say I won't." "But _will_ you?" "Perhaps--if I see a fitting opportunity." "A fitting. Look!" Her voice dropped. Evie had just come into the typewriting-room on her way to wash her hands before leaving. "I'll tell you what," Kitty said quickly; "you go along with her now. See if it isn't as I say. Then tell me whether you won't give that little idiot a dressing-down at once." She had quite forgotten that twinge of jealousy that had been the cause of our recent scene. If she hadn't, the more honour to her sense of sex comradeship. It was about this time that I was beginning quite frequently to forget that our relation was that of lovers, and as long as I could forget that, she had pathetic little magnanimities that I even admired. "All right, if you wish it," I said. So for once Evie's society was absolutely thrust upon me. That night she was all that Kitty had said--plunged in despondency. She was, of course, "in love with" Archie, but that after all is only a generic expression. Even love comes down to cases, and I think that in her case, even then, she was wondering whether, had things happened a little differently, she might not have been equally "in love" with somebody else. Of that I myself had never a doubt. With Archie's money, or even a decent job, I would have flouted the whole world in my triumphant security that I could make her mine. And I should do so yet. Though for the present my power might go a-begging, I vowed that it should yet be taken and richly paid for. The dark and solid houses were less solid than that something I knew to be within myself, that makes and unmakes houses and streets and towns and lands.... But gently, gently; I was not out of the mire yet; by-and-by would be time enough for these boastings; things must go on as they were for a little while longer. So though I did not speak a word to her that night that bore directly on the case as Kitty understood it, I did more. I did--I know this now--make her feel that, glooms and delights apart, she had in me an affectionate friend to whom she would not come with troubles in vain. I have been told, and am inclined to believe it, that I have this power with women. And her eyes were soft with friendship as I left her. "Good night, Jeff," she said fondly, as I took her hand. "I do like being with you sometimes."