"His career is yours, you know," kittenishly bromidic, Emelene comforted her. The following day fulfilled the promise of its predecessor. Clear and balmy, it invited to the outer, world, and it was with pleased anticipation that Genevieve's guests prepared for the promised outing. Genevieve glanced anxiously into her gold mesh bag. The motor was hired, not borrowed. She had permitted herself this one white lie. She ushered her guests into the tonneau and took her place beside the chauffeur. Their first few stops were for such prosaic purchases as the household made necessary; there was a pause at the post office, another at the Forum, where Genevieve left two highly disgruntled women waiting for her while with a guilty sense of teasing her prey she prolonged her business. The sight of their stiffened figures and averted faces when she returned to them kindled a new amusement. At last they were settled comfortably, and the car turned toward the suburbs. The town streets were passed and lines of villa homes thinned. The ornate colonial gates of the Country Club flashed by. Now the sky to the right was dark with the smoke of the belching chimneys of many factories. For a block or two cottages of the better sort flanked the road; then, grim, ugly and dilapidated, stretched the twin "improved" sections of Kentwood and Powderville. In the air was an acrid odor. Soot begrimed everything. The sodden ground was littered with refuse between the shacks, which were dignified by the title of "Workmen's Cottages." Amid the confusion, irregular trodden paths led, short-cutting, toward the clattering, grinding munition plants. For a space of at least half an acre around the huge iron buildings the ground, with sinister import, was kept clear of dwellings, but in all directions outside of the inclosure thousands of new yellow-pine shacks testified to the sudden demand for labor. A large weather-beaten signboard at a wired cross-road bore the name of "Kentwood," plus the advice that the office was adjacent for the purchase or lease of the highly desirable villa sites. The motor drew up and Genevieve alighted. For the first time since their course had been turned toward the unlovely but productive outskirts, Genevieve faced her passengers. Alys' face was pale. Emelene's expression was puzzled and worried, as a child's is worried when the child is suddenly confronted by strange and gloomy surroundings. "There is some one in the renting office," said Genevieve with quiet determination. "I'll find out. We shall need a guide to go around with us. Emelene, you needn't get out unless you wish to." Emelene shuffled uneasily, half rose, and collapsed helplessly back on the cushions, like a baby who has encountered the resistance of his buggy strap. "I--if you'll excuse me, Genevieve, dear, I won't get out. I've only got on my thin kid slippers. I didn't expect to put foot on the pavement this morning, you know."