“My dear girl, I’m not teasing. The comedy is half finished now, only I wanted to keep it for a surprise, and you won’t play opposite a circus giant. If necessary I’ll play opposite you myself and wear French heels.” “Don’t believe him, Ruth,” said Gloria, smiling now. “He’s always promising to write a comedy for me, but he doesn’t mean it.” “Wait and see,” said Terry. “You do believe me, don’t you Ruth?” But Ruth, gazing hopelessly on the splendid beauty of her aunt, and seeing Terry’s arm across her shoulder could not answer. “I’ll give you four weeks more to make good, Terry,” said Gloria. “Clear all the junk away, George; I’ve changed my mind. I’m not going away for a while.” Terry Riordan forebore to laugh, but his eyes again sought Ruth’s in secret understanding. “I think I’ll go up and work a while before dinner,” she said. It was better to leave them alone, and she must work! she must work! she must work! Pursuant to her conversation with Dorothy Winslow in which she had announced her intention of painting landscapes with figures, Ruth had begun a new canvas—a corner of the park with two children playing under the trees. She had been trying to get an effect of sunlight falling through green leaves. It was badly done. She could see that now. Besides, she didn’t want to paint children. She painted them out with great sweeps of her brush. They were stiff, horrid, complacent little creatures. Instead she would have only one figure, a shabby, old woman crouching on a park bench, and she would take out the sunlight too. A thin mist of rain would be falling and the sky would be murky with a faint, coppery glow where the sun sought to penetrate through the clouds, but the chief interest of the picture would centre about the figure of the old woman, holding her tattered cloak about her under the uncertain shelter of the trees. If only she had the colour sense of Nels Zord—she would get it in time. It was only a question of more work and more work. Would Terry Riordan really play opposite Gloria in the new comedy? The play was the task that Gloria had set him and when it was produced Terry could claim his reward. She would go to the wedding and no one would ever guess that her heart was broken. Afterward she would live in retirement and paint; or perhaps she would travel and one day be thirty-five years old and beautiful with a strange, sad beauty and men would love her, but she would refuse them all ever so gently. She worked steadily for almost an hour and then she began to wonder whether Amy would have a very good dinner and how many would be there. Perhaps Terry Riordan would stay. And she decided to put on a new dinner frock that she had bought and wondered if she could dress her hair as Gloria did, and tried it, but found it unsuccessful and reverted to her own simple coiffure.