“I thought so, too,” said Violet, “until I saw her.”

“Saw her!” Constance cried.  “Where?  When?”

“In New York on the way home,” said Violet.

“Well—­tell me all about it,” said Constance, when she saw Violet wasn’t going on of her own accord.  “You, pretending you wanted to know about everything, and pretending to be a heroine for not telling me all about being a refugee!  What is she doing?  What did she look like?  What did she say?”

“You’ve changed your tune, too,” said Violet.  “Because you were through with her just as much as I was.  You didn’t want to hear anything more about her.  Of course she could ran away and go on the stage if she liked, you said, but she’d better not try to come back.”

Constance pointed out that she hadn’t, as yet, expressed the hope that Rodney would make it up with her.  But she pleaded guilty to a strong curiosity.

“Well, I can’t tell you much,” said Violet.  “John and I were coming down Fifth Avenue in a taxi one afternoon, and were stopped by the traffic at Forty-fourth Street.  And right there, in another taxi, was Rose.  I didn’t see her till just as we got the whistle to go ahead.  I was so surprised I could only grab John and tell him to look.  I did shriek at her at last, and she saw us and lighted up and smiled.  Just that old smile of hers, you know.  But her car was turning west, down past Sherry’s, and we were going straight ahead and we weren’t quick enough to tell the chauffeur to turn, too.  We did turn on Forty-third and came around the block, and of course we missed her.

“We went to three musical shows in the next two days, in the hope of spotting her in the chorus.  But she wasn’t in any of them, and then I simply dragged John home.  There was no way of finding her of course, nor of her finding us, because John’s given up the Holland House at last and taken to the Vanderbilt.  But it was rather maddening.”

“Well, I don’t know,” said Constance.  “Oh, yes, maddening of course, because one would be curious.  But that sort of curiosity might prove pretty expensive if you gratified it.  Talk about the clutch of a drowning person!  It’s nothing to the clutch of a declassee woman.  And if she’s been somebody once who really mattered, and somebody you were really fond of ...  Because it is no use.  They can’t ever come back.”

Violet stirred in her chair.  “Of course we’re all perfectly good Christians,” she observed ironically.  “And once a week we say ’Forgive us our debts,’ besides teaching it to the kids.”

Constance broke in on her hotly.  “Oh, come, Violet!  You know it’s not a question of forgiveness.  I don’t claim any moral superiority over Rose.  I’m just talking about her social possibility.  A person who does an outrageous thing, knowing it’s outrageous, just because he—­or she—­wants to do it, can be downright immoral without being impossible.  But a person who’s done the other sort of thing,