Janice, catching Glen’s hastily averted glance, whispered an explanation at the first opportunity. “Grammer’s had her face lifted twice. That’s what gives her the hard-finish. Kalsomined, just like a wall. Isn’t it a scream? But if the poor old girl gets a kick out of it--” she shrugged with a good-natured tolerance. “My child, _you’re_ a landscape! Good-looking dress. Didn’t get it here?” “It was a present from Miss Ada.” “Well, what do you know about that? You’d expect that poor old White Leghorn to choose polka dots and baby ribbon, wouldn’t you. But at that, I can see she’s a good egg.” “She has been a wonderful friend to me,” Glen flushed loyally, following her hostesses into the glare and blare of the big dining room. There was a merciless blaze of light and on a shallow stage a jazz orchestra was committing musical crimes. As soon as they were seated Janice leaned across the table and pointed frankly at one of the musicians. “Pipe the bird with the big horn--the one with a permanent wave in it? That’s Edward Harrington Du Val--_you_ know--they gave him the gate at Harvard and papa pulled the heavy father stuff,--‘Not another penny, sir!’--you know the line, but the kid’s called his bluff and proved he can pay for his _own_ hooch and gardenias. Don’t you love it? I’m crazy about him,” she finished calmly. He caught her eye and nodded and she shot one thin bare arm straight up beside her head in salute. “Ye ... ay, Eddie!” “_Babe!_” her grandmother protested. “What’s the big idea, Grammer? You know he’s my desert lover.” She grinned, and relapsed into coolness as a pallid youth with sleek fair hair stopped beside their table. “’Lo, Ronnie. No. I’m not stepping to-night. Company.” “_I’ll_ say,” he murmured, staring appreciatively at Glen. Miss Jennings mumbled their names. “He’s a blah of purest ray serene,” she stated, almost before he was out of earshot. “The Human Lady Finger. They’re an awful mess here, except Eddie. Say, on the low down, don’t you know any boys?” “I know Luke.” (Luke, her father’s golden lad, whom she had disappointed and denied so shabbily to-day.) She colored unhappily, the more as she found Miss Jennings’s hard little eyes upon her. “Oh, so _that’s_ it!” Janice pounced. “What do you mean?” “He’s your sweetie!” “No. He--” She could not escape it, then. It was of no use to put on Miss Ada’s little yellow-buff crêpe de chine and come out of her cloister into the dazzle and din of the Bella Vista; the mountain of misery had come with her, moving steadily and implacably behind her, shadowing her, threatening to crush her. She was a wretched ingrate; a traitor; false to her father, and to her friend, and to herself. She got a certain comfort from putting it into determined words. “My father found Luke in the mountains, and he had the greatest faith in him. He was our nearest friend, while my father lived; he is my nearest friend now. I--some day--” she said clearly, “I will marry him.”