The tide was coming in. Gita realized that she was cold and rather tired. She ran along the beach to quicken her blood, then took a trolley to the mainland. As she walked up the avenue of the manor she saw a motor standing before the door of the house and hoped she would be able to slip upstairs to her room unseen. The elderly and middle-aged daughters of her grandmother’s contemporaries did not interest her and she was inclined to pay little heed to the old lady’s adhortations to lose no time making friends in her new life. She had been at the manor a month and not met anyone of her own age. Few of any other. She saw her grandmother in brief interviews only, for the nurse maintained that this alien relative excited the invalid. As she was stepping carefully over the old rugs of the hall she sniffed a familiar aroma, and then observed that the door of the drawing-room was open, and that a blind had evidently been raised. She had entered this room only once, on the day after her arrival, when curiosity had led her to explore the cradle of her ancestors. She had felt no inclination to visit it again. It was immense and dark and dreary, paneled with mahogany to the ceiling and crowded with ill-assorted furniture representing every period from 1660 to 1880. She assumed that her grandmother’s funeral would be held in its musty grandeur and after that it would be less inviting than ever. She heard a light movement. For whom could the drawing-room have been opened today? Mrs. Carteret’s friends were escorted directly upstairs by Topper. Curiosity overcame her and she tiptoed to the door and looked through the crack. Then her heart gave a leap. A girl was standing in the middle of the room wrinkling her nose. Gita forgot that she hated everybody and remembered the unfailing kindness of her friends in California. She had not loved any of them and was too self-centered for intimacies, but they had given her what little tolerance of life she had ever known. This girl looked rather jolly. She wore a very smart tailored suit that gave her the proper geometrical outline, and the prevailing hat of a shape once identified only with sport. Her face looked out triumphantly from its austere setting, for it was a really beautiful face, with its flower-like eyes and regular features. The bright fair hair was shingled and a cigarette projected from a mouth like pink coral. There was a touch of orange in the costume and Gita noted vagrantly that it clashed with the lips. Gita hoped she was not married. It was as impossible to tell a young married woman from a girl as a smart déclassée from a woman of fashion, and Gita was not interested in babies and housekeeping. But a girl! However, there was but one way to find out. She entered the cold drawing-room and held out her hand with a smile. “I am Gita Carteret,” she said. “I hope you have come to see me.” The other girl removed her cigarette and shook hands heartily.