Ethel went up to her friend and kissed her. "Dear old Cupid," she said, "I'm so glad, so very glad. I don't understand his poems myself, but Father simply loves them. I am sure you will be very happy. Only I do hope he is a good man--really worthy of my dear! And so"--she continued, with a struggle to get down to commonplace brightness of manner--"And so he's coming for you to-night! Now I know why you look so beautiful and are so happy." Two tears gathered in the kind green eyes, tears of joy at her dear girl's happiness, but with a tincture of sadness too. With a somewhat unaccustomed flash of imagination, she looked into the future and saw herself lonely in the flat, or with another girl who could never be to her what Rita was. She looked up at Rita again, trying to smile through her tears. What she saw astounded her. Rita's face was flushed. A knot of wrinkles had sprung between her eyebrows. Her mouth was mutinous, her brown eyes lit with an angry and puzzled light. "I don't understand you, Ethel," she said in a voice which was so cold and unusual that the other girl was dumb.--"What on earth do you mean?" "Mean, dear," Ethel faltered. "I don't quite understand. I thought you meant--I thought . . ." "What did you think?" "I thought you meant that you were engaged to him, Cupid darling!" "Engaged!--_Why Gilbert is married._" Ethel glanced quickly at the flowers, at the photograph upon the piano. Things seemed going round and round her--the heat, that was it--"But the letters!" she managed to say at length, "and, and--oh, Cupid, what _are_ you doing? He can't be a good man. I'm certain of it, dear! I'm older than you are. I know more about things. You don't realise,--but how should you poor darling! He can't be a good man! Rita, _does his wife know_?" The girl frowned impatiently. "How limited and narrow you are, Ethel," she said. "Have you such low ideals that you think friendship between a man and a woman impossible? Are you entirely fettered by convention and silly old puritanical nonsense? Wouldn't you be glad and proud to have a man with a wonderful mind for your friend--a man who is all chivalry and kindness, who pours out the treasures of his intellect for one?" Ethel did not answer. She did not, in truth, know what to say. There _was_ no reason she could adduce why Rita should not have a man friend. She knew that many singular and fine natures despised conventionality or ordinary rules and seemed to have the right to do so. And then--_honi soit_! Yet, inarticulate as she was, she felt by some instinct that there was something wrong. Mr. Gilbert Lothian was married. That meant everything. A married man, and a poet too! oughtn't to have any secret and very intimate friendships with beautiful, wilful and unprotected girls. . . . "You have nothing to say! Of course! There _is_ nothing that any wide-minded person could say. Ethel, you're a dear old stupe!"--she crossed the room and kissed her friend.