The girls discussed her psychoanalytically and decided she had a complex, induced no doubt by resentment that she had not been born a boy. On the other hand she had not “rushed” any of them and was anything but masculine, in spite of her funny little swagger and lack of feminine adornment. Ann Melrose came nearer the truth. “She is so precocious on one side of her that she may have had a desperate love-affair at the age of sixteen, and the man turned out a rotter. Did something that horrified her. But if she doesn’t mend her ways she’ll never give any other man the chance to administer the right kind of shock. She’s about as approachable as a hedgehog and as adaptable as a wire fence. ’Fraid she’s got too much brains and not enough common sense. Something gave her a bad twist. That’s good enough for me. I’m sick of psycho. Too bad! She’s a game kid and as straight as they come. Wonder how she’ll turn out.” When Gita was nineteen misfortune once more fell upon them. The trustee of the small estate, failing in his wooing of Millicent, absconded with all but the house, which was mortgaged. Life was gray once more. They took in lodgers, dismissed the cook, and did their own work. Gita saw less of her friends, although they ran in every few days and occasionally made the beds. Millicent’s friends sent her hampers from the country and carried her off now and then for a day in San Mateo, Menlo Park, Burlingame, or San Rafael. One of her old beaux proposed for the fifth time since her arrival, but Millicent had had her fill of marriage. Moreover, she knew that if she married again she would lose her daughter; of whom, although she was a rather silly woman, she had a considerable understanding. The enterprise was not a success. The lodgers either made love to their pretty landlady or did not pay their rent and had to be evicted. Finally Gita turned them all out and took in only women; to find that some were respectable and others not. Recommendations were easily forged. After a scandal Millicent sold the house for a little more than the mortgage and accepted the position of housekeeper to one of her friends in San Mateo, while Gita taught French and Italian to a class of youngsters hastily assembled. Neither would accept invitations for “long visits until something turns up.” Gita, saw her friends constantly once more although she refused to go to dinners or luncheons. Her clothes barely held together, and they dared not offer her presents. But she learned to ride, to play tennis, to swim (in pools), and her naturally robust health, which had been impaired by too much confinement and hard indoor work, was restored. By this time Millicent’s spirit was broken and her strength had been failing for some time. Gita took her to a sanitarium for the tubercular on the California desert, paying the expenses with the few hundreds left from the sale of the house. On her death-bed Millicent wrote to Mrs. Carteret. CHAPTER III