"Roya-Neh seems to suit us both," admitted the girl indifferently. "The shooting and fishing naturally attract Scott; they say it's secluded enough for you and me to recuperate in; and if we ever want any guests, it's big enough to entertain dozens in.... I really don't care one way or the other; you know I never was very crazy about the country--and poison ivy, and mosquitoes and oil-smelling roads, and hot nights, and the perfume of fertilisers----" "You poor child!" laughed Kathleen; "you don't know anything about the country except where you've been on Long Island in the immediate vicinity of your grandfather's horrid old place." "Is it any more agreeable up there near Canada?" "Roya-Neh is very lovely--of course--but--it's certainly not a wise investment, dear." "Well, if Scott and I buy it, we'd never wish to sell it----" "Suppose you were obliged to?" Geraldine's velvet eyes widened lazily: "Obliged to? Oh--yes--you mean if we went to smash." Then her gaze became remote as she stood slowly tapping her gloved palm with her riding-crop. "I think I'll dress," she said absently. "Good-bye, then," nodded Kathleen. "Good-bye," said the girl, turning lightly away across the hall. Kathleen's eyes followed the slender retreating figure, so slimly compact in its buoyancy. There was always something fascinatingly boyish in Geraldine's light, free carriage--just a touch of carelessness in the poise--almost a swing at times to the step. Duane had once said: "She has a bully walk!" Kathleen thought of it as, passing a mirror, she caught sight of herself. And the sudden glimpse of her own warm, rich beauty in all its exquisite maturity startled her. Surely she seemed to be growing younger. She was. Dark-violet eyes, ruddy hair, a superb figure, a skin so white that it looked fragrant, made Kathleen Severn amazingly attractive. Men found her, to their surprise, rather unresponsive. She was amiable enough, nicely formal, and perfectly bred, it is true, but inclined to that sort of aloofness which is marked by lapses of inattention and the smiling silences of preoccupation. She had married, very young, an army officer convalescing from Texan fever. He died suddenly on the very eve of their postponed wedding-trip. This was enough to account for lapses of inattention in any woman.