“Of course you couldn’t,” said Margaret, simply. “And you can perfectly well spend the night here. In the morning I’ll send for your clothes.” She drew Freda, who was shivering now, over on the couch, then turned to Gregory. “Good night, Gregory--again. You bring adventure with you.” There was a smile in her eyes which he seemed to answer by a look in his own. Then he looked past her to Freda. “Good night, little wanderer. I’ll see you to-morrow.” Freda saw him fully now. He was tall and thin and ugly. His dark eyes seemed to flash from caverns above his high cheekbones. But he had a wide Irish mouth and it smiled very tenderly at them both as he softly went out. Freda would not take Margaret’s little couch bed for herself so Margaret had to improvise a bed on the floor for her guest, a bed of blankets and coats and Freda slept in Margaret’s warm bath robe. Oddly, she slept far better than did Margaret, who, for a long while, held herself stiffly on one side that her turning might not disturb Freda. II They both wakened early. Freda found the taste of stale adventure in her mind a little flat and disagreeable. There were a number of things to be done. Margaret telephoned briefly to the Brownley house, left word with a servant that Miss Thorstad had spent the night with her. “I’ll go up there after we have some breakfast,” she said to Freda, “and get you some clothes. Then I think you’d better stay here with me. I’ll ask the landlady to put an extra cot in here and we can be comfortable for a few days. And please don’t talk of inconvenience”--she forestalled Freda’s objections with her smile--“I’ll love to have company. If you stay in town we’ll see if you can’t get a place of your own in the building here. Lots of apartments have a vacant room to let.” She was preparing breakfast with Freda’s help and the younger girl’s spirits were rising steadily even though the thought of an interview with Barbara remained dragging. It was great fun for Freda--the freedom of this tiny apartment with its bed already made into a daytime couch, the eggs cooking over a little electric grill on the table and the table set with a scanty supply of dishes--two tall glasses of milk, rolls and marmalade. “It’s so nice, living like this,” she exclaimed. Margaret laughed. “Then the Brownley luxury hasn’t quite seduced you?” “I was excited by it. I’m afraid it did seduce me temporarily. But for the last week something’s been wrong with me. And this was it. I wanted to get out of the machinery. They leave you alone and all that--but it’s so ordered--so planned. Everything’s planned from the menus to the social life. They try to do novel things by standing on their heads sometimes in their own grooves--at least the girls do--but really they get no freshness or freedom, do they?”