“I can’t answer one of your common-sense statements, Rod,” said Cis slowly, “but I can’t go along with them. Mr. Lucas thinks what isn’t true. Truth is the only basis for dealing with anyone. I’ve got to tell him exactly what I did; I can’t breathe in his office while I know that when he looks at me he sees what isn’t there. I don’t care to own up, Rod dear, but when there isn’t solid rock-bottom of truth under my dealings, my relations with a person, I feel like that Irishman who didn’t like aeroplanes because ‘when they stopped there wasn’t any place to stand to crank the thing!’ When someone is deceived in you, if you don’t make it straight, it’s worse than playing with ghosts--they touch you and you touch them, yet neither of you is there at all!” Rodney looked at Cicely for a long time, an inscrutable expression upon his face. She made a little grimace at him, twisting her lips and showing her dimple, but he did not respond with a smile. She thought that he was displeased with her, and again coaxed him with pursed-up lips, but Rodney’s eyes were steady, clouded; he looked bothered, plainly was deep in thought. “I’ll put off telling, Rory O’Moore,” Cis said, misunderstanding him. “If you hate to have me tell, I won’t tell right away, but I’ve got to tell sometime, please, Rod!” It was a week later that Rod said to Cis: “Will you come with me to the apartment to-morrow, Holly? I’ve had sent in a few odd chairs, and a table that hit me exactly where I live, and I’d like your opinion of them, Mistress-of-the-Mansion-elect!” They had agreed to pick out the furnishings of their home together, but Cis looked delighted at this departure from the bargain on Rodney’s part, and gladly said that she would go with him to see his selections. They had changed rôles for the week that had just passed; Cis, relieved by her definitely announced plan to confess her wrong-doing to Mr. Lucas, felt better about it, and had been bubbling over with fun and high spirits. Rodney, on the contrary, had been cast-down; Cis repeatedly caught him looking at her with such a sober and apprehensive look, that she had once been moved to expostulate with him. “For pity’s sake, Rory O’Moore,” she cried, “stop looking at me as if you were saying: ‘Doesn’t she look natural! Poor thing, she was so young, and with all her faults I love her still! Not so still as this, though!’ I’m not nearly as dead as I might be; in fact I’m quite lively, I think. What’s wrong with me--or you--old chap?”