"Up to my chin in ink," replied Phil, holding up a forefinger empurpled from the ink she was affecting. She had read in a literary note that one of the most distinguished of contemporaneous women novelists always used purple ink. Phil was spreading a good deal of it over legal cap purloined from her father's office. Kirkwood was just now in town, and he had called her on the telephone to invite her to supper with him at the Morton House, an arrangement which she disclosed to her mother. "Your father's home again?" Lois asked indifferently. "Yes. He has something to do here about those bonds of Charlie Holton's. It sounded rather complicated; and he wants to see Fred, and Amy was to call him into town." Lois's mind was upon the gown. She compressed her lips as she continued to scrutinize it. It was a gown from Paris and a very handsome one. Having decided that it suited her purposes, she brought out a hat that matched it and tossed it onto the bed. "How do you think I'd look in those things?" "Adorable! Shall I order up the machine?" "Um, no: I'll walk, I think." "I rather take it that I'm not invited," laughed Phil. "Bless me, no! I have a call to make that wouldn't interest you." Phil walked to the bureau--a new one of mahogany that had been among her mother's recent substitutions for the old walnut with which the house had been filled. The folder of a steamship company lay sprawled open across the neatly arranged toilet articles. Phil picked it up idly, and noted certain pencilings that caused her heart to give a sudden bound. She flung round upon her mother with tears in her eyes. "You are not--not thinking of that!" Lois walked over to her and kissed her. She took Phil's face in her hands, looking into her eyes steadily. "You dear chick, you would care!" "Oh, you mustn't! You must _not_!" Phil cried. "And you have been thinking of it and not telling me! And just when I thought we understood everything." "I meant to tell you to-day: I really did. It wasn't easy. But I've got to go, Phil. I'm not sure that I haven't stayed too long! You know I never meant to stay forever." "Then you haven't been happy here! You don't--you don't like _me_!" Lois sank into a chair by the window and drew the girl down beside her. Phil gripped her mother's hands tight, and stared into her face with tear-filled eyes. "It's as hard for me as it is for you, Phil. But we may as well have it out. I've taken passage for the first Saturday in June, and it's not far off. Some friends are spending the summer in Switzerland and I'm going to join them. It was half-understood when I came here."