The sweetish oil has risen about Nancy relentlessly--it is up to her waist now and still it keeps talking and flowing and creeping higher. Very soon when the fatter black soldier on the clock-face has only hitched himself along a little, it will be over her head and the roving Nancy, the sparkling Nancy, the Nancy that fell in love will be under it like a calm body, never to rise or run or be kissed with light seeking kisses on the soft of her throat again. There will only be a dignified Nancy, a sensible Nancy, a Nancy going to Paris to study and be successful, a Nancy who, sooner or later will marry “Some good, clean man.” A little tinkle of chimes from the clock. Six minutes more. The Nancy that was stands on tiptoe, every eager and tameless bit of her hoping, hoping. If mother weren't there that Nancy would have been at the telephone an hour ago in spite of young people's pride and old people's self-respect and all the thousand and one knife-faced fetishes that all the correct and common-sensible people hug close and worship because they hurt. She can see the train sliding out of the station. Ollie is in it and his face is stiff with surprise and unforgiveness like the face of some horrible stranger you went up to and spoke to by mistake, thinking he was your friend. By the time the train is well started he will have begun talking to that fluffy girl in the other half of the Pullman--no, that isn't worthy, he wouldn't--but oh Ollie, Ollie! Half an hour later the telephone rings. Nancy is finishing the breakfast dishes--her hands jump as she hears it--a slippery plate slops back into the water and as she dives after it she realizes painfully that the new water is much too hot. “What _is_ it, mother?” For an instant the Nancy who has no real self-respect is talking again. “Just a minute, Isabella. Mrs. Winters, dear. Don't you want to speak to her?” “Oh.” Then---- “Not right now. When I'm through with these. But will you ask her if she's going to be in this afternoon--I want to tell her about my taking the New York job.” Satisfied oil pouring back into the telephone with a pleased, thin chuckle. “Yes, Nancy has decided. Well, dear, I think she had better tell you herself--” Nancy is looking dolefully down at her thumb. Foolish not to have cooled off that water a little--she has really burned herself. For an instant she hears Oliver's voice in her ears, low and concerned, sees Oliver kissing it, making it well. But these things don't happen to sensible, self-respecting modern girls with experienced mothers, especially when all the former have now quite made up their own minds. XIX