am I to do about it?” She frowned.  She knew that she ought to talk frankly to Joe, and get over this silly habit of never mentioning Amy’s name!  She grew determined, but then weak.  For what could she say to him about Amy?  What did she really want to say?  “Do I know poor Amy was anything bad?  Wasn’t she good to me?  Would I care to try to talk against her?  No.  And even if I did, you see, it would only hurt me with Joe—­as it should.”

So she went on in different moods.  And now she saw her sister’s face smiling out of clear violet eyes, and again she felt a small gloved hand on her husband drawing him gently back—­back and back into the past.  Why was Amy so much stronger now?  “Because Fanny Carr has been clever enough to take me out of the life I was making and pitch me into Amy’s life, where her hold on Joe was strongest.  I’m in her setting.  That’s the trouble!”

But she had Amy’s friends to dine one night, as in her calmer moods she knew was the only sensible course.  And as they began arriving, by swift degrees amid the buzz of talk which rose, Ethel could feel the room each moment change and become Amy’s home.  And it was Amy’s dinner, too.  No cooking of Emily’s that night, for Joe had suggested a caterer.  “The one we’ve always used,” he had said.  And so the cocktails and the wines and the food in many courses, the two waiters in evening clothes, and the talk and the shrieks of mirth, were just as they must have been before so many, many times in this room.  Ethel sat affably rigid there.

And later at the piano Joe was not Ethel’s husband.  Nor was it her room when they stripped up the rugs and began to dance, nor her photograph their eyes kept seeking from time to time!  She even thought she could hear them whisper about the hostess who was dead!

And when very late they had departed, and last of all Joe had gone with Fanny downstairs to put her in her taxi, Ethel, left alone in the room, turned to her sister’s photograph.

“I won’t be like you,” she tensely declared.  “I won’t live in your home—­with your husband—­”

The picture smiled good-naturedly back

“All right,” it seemed to answer, “then what do you expect to do?”

CHAPTER XIV

By the next day she had made up her mind to look for another apartment.  The move had several points in its favour.  It would not only take her away from this place where she felt the spell so strong; it would also give her something to do.  “And I need it, heaven knows!” she thought.  And besides it would provide an excuse for not seeing Amy’s friends.  “I’ll be worn out every evening,” she decided with grim satisfaction.

She found Joe more than ready for the change.  He himself had suggested it, some weeks before, and Ethel made the most of that.  “I’ve been thinking over your idea of moving,” she began one night.  And in the talk which followed, the intent little glances she threw at him made her sure that in her husband’s mind was a half conscious deep relief at the idea of getting away from these rooms and their memories.