“Let us dry the starting tear
    For the hours are surely fleeting
  And the sad sundown is near. 
    All must sip the cup of sorrow,
    I to-day, and thou to-morrow! 
  This the end of every song,
  Ding-dong!  Ding-dong! 
  Yet until the shadows fall
  Over one and over all,
  Sing a merry madrigal!”

Rita, nibbling a chocolate, glanced up: 

“That’s a gay little creed,” she observed.

“Of course.  It’s the only creed.”

Rita shrugged and Valerie went on blithely singing and sewing.

“How long has that young man of yours been away?” inquired Rita, looking up again.

“Thirteen days.”

“Oh.  Are you sure it isn’t fourteen?”

“Perfectly.”  Then the sarcasm struck her, and she looked around at Rita and laughed: 

“Of course I count the days,” she said, conscious of the soft colour mounting to her cheeks.

Rita sat up and, tucking a pillow under her shoulders, leaned back against the foot-board of the bed, kicking the newspaper to the floor.  “Do you know,” she said, “that you have come pretty close to falling in love with Kelly Neville?”

Valerie’s lips trembled on the edge of a smile as she bent lower over her sewing, but she made no reply.

“I should say,” continued Rita, “that it was about time for you to pick up your skirts and run for it.”

Still Valerie sewed on in silence.

“Valerie!”

“What?”

“For goodness’ sake, say something!”

“What do you want me to say, dear?” asked the girl, laughing.

“That you are not in danger of making a silly ninny of yourself over Kelly Neville.”

“Oh, I’ll say that very cheerfully—­”

“Valerie!”

The girl looked at her, calmly amused.  Then she said: 

“I might as well tell you.  I am head over heels in love with him.  You knew it, anyway, Rita.  You’ve known it—­oh, I don’t know how long—­but you’ve known it.  Haven’t you?”

Rita thought a moment:  “Yes, I have known it....  What are you going to do?”

“Do?”

“Yes; what do you intend to do about this matter?”

“Love him,” said Valerie.  “What else can I do?”

“You could try not to.”

“I don’t want to.”

“You had better.”

“Why?”

“Because,” said Rita, deliberately, “if you really love him you’ll either become his wife or his mistress; and it’s a pretty rotten choice either way.”

Valerie blushed scarlet;

“Rotten—­choice?”

“Certainly.  You know perfectly well what your position would be when his family and his friends learned that he’d married his model.  No girl of any spirit would endure it—­no matter how affable his friends might perhaps pretend to be.  No girl of any sense would ever put herself in such a false position....  I tell you, Valerie, it’s only the exceptional man who’ll stand by you.  No doubt Louis Neville would.  But it would cost him every friend he has—­and probably the respect of his parents.  And that means misery for you both—­because he couldn’t conceal from you what marrying you was costing him—­”