Yet, somehow, Elizabeth found herself not entirely believing that Clare’s passion was real.  Because the real thing you hid with all your might, at least until you were sure it was wanted.  After that, of course, you could be so proud of it that you might become utterly shameless.  She was afraid sometimes that she was the sort to be utterly shameless.  Yet, for all her halcyon hours, there were little things that worried her.  Wallie Sayre, for instance, always having to be kept from saying things she didn’t want to hear.  And Nina.  She wasn’t sure that Nina was entirely happy.  And, of course, there was Jim.

Jim was difficult.  Sometimes he was a man, and then again he was a boy, and one never knew just which he was going to be.  He was too old for discipline and too young to manage himself.  He was spending almost all his evenings away from home now, and her mother always drew an inaudible sigh when he was spoken of.

Elizabeth had waited up for him one night, only a short time before, and beckoning him into her room, had talked to him severely.

“You ought to be ashamed, Jim,” she said.  “You’re simply worrying mother sick.”

“Well, why?” he demanded defiantly.  “I’m old enough to take care of myself.”

“You ought to be taking care of her, too.”

He had looked rather crestfallen at that, and before he went out he offered a half-sheepish explanation.

“I’d tell them where I go,” he said, “but you’d think a pool room was on the direct road to hell.  Take to-night, now.  I can’t tell them about it, but it was all right.  I met Wallie Sayre and Leslie at the club before dinner, and we got a fourth and played bridge.  Only half a cent a point.  I swear we were going on playing, but somebody brought in a chap named Gregory for a cocktail.  He turned out to be a brother of Beverly Carlysle, the actress, and he took us around to the theater and gave us a box.  Not a thing wrong with it, was there?”

“Where did you go from there?” she persisted inexorably.  “It’s half past one.”

“Went around and met her.  She’s wonderful, Elizabeth.  But do you know what would happen if I told them?  They’d have a fit.”

She felt rather helpless, because she knew he was right from his own standpoint.

“I know.  I’m surprised at Les, Jim.”

“Oh, Les!  He just trailed along.  He’s all right.”

She kissed him and he went out, leaving her to lie awake for a long time.  She would have had all her world happy those days, and all her world good.  She didn’t want anybody’s bread and butter spilled on the carpet.

So the days went on, and the web slowly wove itself into its complicated pattern:  Bassett speeding West, and David in his quiet room; Jim and Leslie Ward seeking amusement, and finding it in the littered dressing-room of a woman star at a local theater; Clare Rossiter brooding, and the little question being whispered behind hands, figuratively, of course—­the village was entirely well-bred; Gregory calling round to see Bassett, and turning away with the information that he had gone away for an indefinite time; and Maggie Donaldson, lying in the cemetery at the foot of the mountains outside Norada, having shriven her soul to the limit of her strength so that she might face her Maker.