[Illustration:  “Valerie’s lips trembled on the edge of a smile as she bent lower over her sewing.”]

“Rita!”

“Yes.”

“There is no use telling me all this.  I know it.  He knows I know it.  I am not going to marry him.”

After a silence Rita said, slowly:  “Did he ask you to?”

Valerie looked down, passed her needle through the hem once, twice.

“Yes,” she said, softly, “he asked me.”

“And—­you refused?”

“Yes.”

Rita said:  “I like Kelly Neville ... and I love you better, dear.  But it’s not best for you to marry him....  Life isn’t a very sentimental affair—­not nearly as silly a matter as poets and painters and dramas and novels pretend it is.  Love really plays a very minor part in life, Don’t you know it?”

“Yes.  I lived twenty years without it,” said Valerie, demurely, yet in her smile Rita divined the hidden tragedy.  And she leaned forward and kissed her impulsively.

“Let’s swear celibacy,” she said, “and live out our lives together in single blessedness!  Will you?  We can have a perfectly good time until the undertaker knocks.”

“I hope he won’t knock for a long while,” said Valerie, with a slight shiver.  “There’s so much I want to see first.”

“You shall.  We’ll see everything together.  We’ll work hard, live frugally if you say so, cut out all frills and nonsense, and save and save until we have enough to retire on respectably.  And then, like two nice old ladies, we’ll start out to see the world—­”

“Oh, Rita!  I don’t want to see it when I’m too old!”

“You’ll enjoy it more—­”

“Rita!  How ridiculous!  You’ve seen more of the world than I have, anyway.  It’s all very well for you to say wait till I’m an old maid; but you’ve been to Paris—­haven’t you?”

“Yes,” said Rita.  There was a slight colour in her face.

“Well, then!  Why must I wait until I’m a dowdy old frump before I go?  Why should you and I not be as happy as we can afford to be while we’re young and attractive and unspoiled?”

“I want you to be as happy as you can afford to be, Valerie....  But you can’t afford to fall in love.”

“Why?”

“Because it will make you miserable.”

“But it doesn’t.”

“It will if it is love.”

“It is, Rita,” said the girl, smiling out of her dark eyes—­deep brown wells of truth that the other gazed into and saw a young soul there, fearless and doomed.

“Valerie,” she said, shivering, “you won’t do—­that—­will you?”

“Dear, I cannot marry him, and I love him.  What else am I to do?”

“Well, then—­then you’d better marry him!” stammered Rita, frightened.  “It’s better for you!  It’s better—­”

“For me?  Yes, but how about him?”