"I'm afraid Archie isn't even a self-made man, yet," smiled Joan, mentally struggling to fill in the gaps. "I shall have to help make him." "Ah, yes! A woman's touch, as dear papa used to say--" Joan reflected that the late Mr. Darcy must have known a good deal about the power of a woman's touch.... Her friend Emily's congratulations were something on the same order, though more frankly expressed. There was a wholesome attitude of frankness always between the two girls. "I think it's dear of you, Joan," she exclaimed, "and so brave!" "Just why 'brave'?" Emily answered, despite embarrassment, "Why, to marry a man without antecedents, without position, and without money, seems to me very brave. I know I should never have the courage to do it, even if I cared for him. In fact, I should be mighty careful not to care for him!--But then I've never had your spirit of independence." "Perhaps because you've more to lose," said Joan quietly. "If either of us is brave, I think it's poor Archie." She often thought of her lover so; tenderly, even lovingly, but as "Poor Archie!..." Effie May was the only one of Joan's immediate environment who seemed to look with any doubts upon a situation she herself had largely brought to pass. "Look here, girlie," she said once abruptly. "You don't love that boy. At least you ain't in love with him--and there's a difference. Why do you do it, anyhow?" Joan, taken by surprise, was not immediately ready with her reply. "Is it because you want to get away from me?" asked the other. Still Joan was not ready to answer, and Effie May sighed. "You needn't have gone so far as that," she said, "I'd have fixed it for you somehow--I'm not going to forget what you've done for me, Joan. Not telling, treating me just as if--it was all right. You're a bigger woman than you know you are," she added, gravely. "I'll make it up to you some day, see if I don't." Joan gave her a quick, straight look. "If you mean money, Effie May, and I think you do, we'd better come to an understanding at once. I'm keeping my counsel about--about your affairs; I'm helping you commit a fraud, you know--entirely on my father's account. For myself--that's another matter. I appreciate your kindness, I know you have meant to do your best, but--" "But you're done with me?" finished the other. "Yes. I shall only see so much of you hereafter as is necessary to keep Father from suspecting anything. As for your money,"--the girl's voice shook--"neither I nor my husband will ever touch a cent of it under any circumstances. Do you understand? We do not forget how it was--earned." The other sighed again. "Well, dearie, don't forget that it _was_ earned, good and plenty!--And I've done you one good turn already," she remarked _sotto voce_, as the girl turned away to greet her fiancé. CHAPTER XXXVIII