Sarah Farraday gave a little gasp and her thin cheeks flushed. "Oh, my dear, you're a lamb to think of it, but of course I couldn't. It's wonderful, just even to _think_ about it, but it couldn't possibly happen." "Why not?" "Because," said Sarah, doggedly, "it's much too good to be true." "Now that," said Jane sternly, "is a wicked and immoral remark! There is nothing too good to be true, and it's blasphemy to say so." "Oh, well ... of course, with _you_--" She left her sentence trailing and let her thin hands fall in her lap limply, palm upward and stared at Jane. Her dark hair was shimmering and floating about her and her dark eyes were pools of light. "Janey," she leaned toward her and spoke wistfully, "are you really as impossibly happy as you look?" "Happier," said Jane, promptly. She began to brush her dusky mane with long and sweeping strokes. "Still doing this a hundred and twenty times a night, Sally, no matter at what scandalous hour I come in." But the other persisted with sudden sapience. "I mean, are you really as happy as you act, or are you just--gay?" "Both," said Jane, stoutly. ("Sixty-two, sixty-three, sixty-four--) I've had a bright and shining time, work and play, with my feet very much on the earth,--or the pavements, rather. I'm satisfied, Sally." "But oh," said Sarah, forlornly, "you said you wouldn't be really 'going away' from us, but you have! Millions of miles away--a whole world away, Jane! You've proved your point,--succeeded beyond our wildest dreams----" "Not beyond _my_ wildest dreams, old dear," said her best friend with happy impudence. "You were more modest for me than I was for myself!" "--beyond our wildest dreams," Sarah repeated stubbornly, "and you can carry on your work just as well here, now, and wouldn't it be the loveliest, most natural thing in the world for you to stay at home? Jane--_poor_ old Marty!" She ran to Jane and flung her arms emotionally about her. "Sally, there's no more chance----" But the other cut in, panic-stricken, "Oh,--don't make up your mind now--to-night! Wait! Just spend the summer in the dear old way, as we've always done, and see if you don't fit right into your old niche again, with--with----" "With a steadily fattening Marty," said Jane, bright-cheeked, "and a hot, pink nursery with a fat and well-oiled Kewpie?" "Jane," said Sarah coldly, "there are some things too sacred to----" "To be anything but decently and sanely frank about," said Jane. "My child, the story isn't going to have that particular happy ending for which you pant. You see all my life in a proscribed pattern. Like a sentimental ballad's second verse ... back to the grassy meadows ... childhood's happy hours again.... Once again he sang-- "'For you are my li--hittel--sw--heet--heart.'" "Then," said Sarah with conviction, "it's either the man-you-met-on-the-boat, or that Irish missionary person!"