“I’m just as fond of you as you are of me, nice little Silly!” cried Cis. “Only I’m not keen on mushiness. You’ve got to allow me one virtue: I stick when once I’m stuck; no waving around to this solid body! We’ll be just as good friends, and we’ll get together again, here or there, but it’s the truth, Nan; I’ve got to break off, and break out new, or my red hair’ll blaze up like a fire balloon, and there’ll be no more of Miss Adair! I hated to tell you, but I’m glad it’s done! If this hadn’t happened in the office I’d have left next October; now it has happened, I’m going right off--or sooner.” “Right off? How soon, Cis?” faltered Nan. “This is Friday; don’t you think Monday is a good day to start a new record? First day of the week, first _week_ day of the week, and washing day?” Cis suggested. “I don’t suppose any other day would be easier,” admitted Nan. “Will you stay with me Sunday night, start from my house? Oh, Cis, Cis! There are only two days before Monday, and I never dreamed, never once _dreamed_ this morning that I’d ever lose you!” “I’m not dreaming it now, Nanny dear. We’re friends for keeps. You can’t lose me; I’m not that sort. Come along, Nan. I’m fed up on lobster, and I’m much more fed up on those fiddlers three--like Old King Cole’s. But I seem to miss a jolly old soul in this crowd of two!” Cis jumped up, paid the reckoning, and tucked Nan under her arm after her usual custom, her height and Nan’s being adapted to this arrangement. Thus they left the restaurant, Cis humming an old song which she had picked up from one of her elders: “You can’t lose me, mah Honey,” as appropriate to her assurance, to Nan, and as if she had not a care in the world. CHAPTER III MISS JEANETTE LUCAS Cis spent Saturday forenoon picking up her belongings, packing certain things in a large old trunk, others of more immediate emphasis in a perfectly new, smaller trunk, leaving pictures and the few pieces of bric-a-brac which she owned, to be boxed. She was entirely cheerful over these preparations, whistling softly between closed teeth, sometimes breaking into a snatch of song; it was evident that change was by no means unwelcome to her. Nan Dowling, on the contrary, sat on the edge of the bed, avoiding physical comfort as her body dropped from extreme mental discomfort, watching Cis with her hands clasped, hanging forward between her knees; her lips drawn down, her eyes gloomy. She had the forenoon free because she was going on duty at one, Cis’s old time, having made an exchange with another girl who gladly accepted the chance to have an evening off, especially Saturday evening. “Cis, don’t take everything you own with you!” remonstrated Nan. “Pack a trunk to leave at my house.”