Tootles shook her head and gave a downward gesture with an open hand that hardly needed to be amplified. "No, not up to a few weeks ago. I've lived by the stage, you see, and that means that the men I've come across have not been men but theatricals. Very different. You may take my word. When I met my first man I didn't believe it. I thought he was the same kind of fake. But when I knew that he was a man alright,--well, I wanted to be married as much as a battered fishing smack wants to get into harbor." She was thinking of Marty too, although not of marriage any more. "And are you going to be?" "No, dearie. He's got a wife, it turns out. It was a bit o' cheek ever to dream of hitting a streak of such luck as that. All the same, I've won something that I shall treasure all the days of my life.... Look. Here come some of the mourners." She pointed to three crows that flapped across a sky all hung with red and gold. Joan was puzzled. "Mourners?" "Why, yes. Isn't this the death bed of a day?" "I never thought of it in that way," said Joan. "No," said Tootles, running her eyes again over Joan's well-groomed young body. "That's easy to see. You will, though, if ever you want every day to last a year. You're married, anyway." "Not exactly," said Joan, unconsciously repeating the other girl's expression. Tootles looked at Martin's ring. "What about that, then?" Joan looked at it too, with a curious gravity. It stood for so much more than she had ever supposed that it would. "But I don't know whether it's going to bind us, or not." "And you so awfully young!" "I was," said Joan. The girl who had never had any luck darted a keen, examining glance at the girl who had all the appearance of having been born lucky. Married, as pretty as a picture, everything out of the smartest shops, the owner, probably, of this hill and those woods, and the old house that she had peeped at all among that lovely garden--she couldn't have come up against life's sharp elbow, surely? She hoped not, most awfully she hoped not. Joan caught the look and smiled back. There was kindness here, and comradeship. "I've nothing to tell," she said, "yet. I'm just beginning to think, that's the truth, only just. I've been very young and thoughtless, but I'm better now and I'm waiting to make up for it. I'm not unhappy, only a little anxious. Everything will come right though, because my man's a man, too." Tootles made a long arm and put her hand on Joan's. "In that case, make up for it bigly, dearie," she said earnestly. "Don't be afraid to give. There are precious few real men about and lots of women to make a snatch at them. It isn't being young that matters. Most troubles are brought about, at your time of life, by not knowing when to stop being young. Good luck, Lady-bird. I hope you never have anything to tell. Oh, just look, just look!"