Gloria looked and with difficulty concealed a smile of satisfaction. For, to her expert eyes, there was a difference, a marked difference, still submerged but obvious, beneath the surface, in movements which, formerly sluggish, were now brisk and supple, in a clear eye, and a skin which seemed to fit on the flesh where before it had sagged. “How did you get up here?” inquired Gloria abruptly. “Ran.” “Up the whole four flights? The elevator is working.” “D——n the elevator!” said the outrageous Darcy. “A few weeks ago you were damning it because it wouldn’t carry up your lazy body. Isn’t there a difference now?” “I don’t care; it isn’t the difference I want. I want to look like something. Gloria, I’m desperate.” “No, child. That isn’t despair. It’s temper.” “It’s not.” “Go back to Andy’s and work it off.” “I wont!” “Very well.” With a sigh for her interrupted task, Gloria selected a hat, set it carefully upon her splendid hair and pinned it in place. “You’ll excuse me, won’t you, my dear?” she added in tones which aroused her visitor’s alarmed suspicions. “Where are you going? To see Mr. Dunne?” “Not at all.” Darcy’s misgivings livened into something like terror. “Where, then?” “To see Maud and Helen.” “What for?” “To recount to them the authentic and interesting history of Sir Montrose Veyze, Bart., hand-picked fiancé, of—” “Gloria! You wouldn’t be so _base!_” “I would be just that base,” returned the other in the measured tones of judgment. “But I’ll give you a respite until your next training day. When is it?” “Day after to-morrow,” answered Darcy faintly. “If you aren’t at Andy’s then to answer to the call of time, I’ll tell the whole thing to the two fiancées with whatever extra details my imagination can provide.” Whereupon Darcy burst into tumultuous weeping, declared that she hadn’t a friend in the world, and didn’t care, anyway, because she wished she was dead, and went forth of that unsympathetic spot with the air and expression of one spurning earth’s vanities and deceptions forever. Being wise in her generation and kind, Gloria knew that the girl would go back to her martyrdom. So she called up Andy Dunne for a conference, which concluded with this sage advice from her to him: “This is the appointed time, Andy. When she comes back, put the screws on hard. She’ll go through. If she doesn’t, let me know.” No scapegrace of school, led back from truancy after some especially nefarious project, ever wore a face of more tremulous abasement than Miss Darcy Cole, returning to her faithful trainer whom she had kicked in the jaw. As he entered the gymnasium a strip of court-plaster on the curve of his chin caught her fascinated attention and for the moment evicted from her mind the careful apology which she had formulated. Before she could recapture it, the opportunity was gone. “Time!” barked Mr. Dunne. The day’s work was on.