Kathleen rang and, leaning over, handed Geraldine a brief letter from Rosalie Dysart: 

“Do you think Geraldine would ask me up for a few days?” it began.  “I’m horribly lonesome and unhappy and I’m being talked about, and I’d rather be with you wholesome people than with anybody I know, if you don’t mind my making a refuge of your generosity.  I’m a real victim of that dreadful sheet in town, which we all have a contempt for and never subscribe to, and which some of us borrow from our maids or read at our modistes—­the sheet that some of us are genuinely afraid of—­and part of our fear is that it may neglect us!  You know, don’t you, what really vile things it is saying about me?  If you don’t, your servants do.

“So if you’d rather not have me, I won’t be offended, and, anyway,
you are dear and decent people and I love you.

“ROSALIE DENE.”

“How funny,” mused Geraldine.  “She’s dropped Jack Dysart’s name already in private correspondence....  Poor child!” Looking up at Kathleen, “We must ask her, mustn’t we, dear?”

There was more of virginal severity in Kathleen.  She did not see why Rosalie, under the circumstances, should make a convenience of Geraldine, but she did not say so; and, perhaps, glancing at the wistful young girl before her, she understood this new toleration for those in dubious circumstances—­comprehended the unusual gentleness of judgment which often softens the verdict of those who themselves have drifted too near the danger mark ever to forget it or to condemn those still adrift.

“Yes,” she said, “ask her.”

Duane looked up from the perusal of his own letter as Kathleen and Scott strolled off toward the greenhouses where the latter’s daily entomological researches continued under glass and the stimulous artificial heat and Kathleen Severn.

“Geraldine,” he said, “here’s a letter from Bunny Gray.  He and Sylvia Quest were married yesterday very quietly, and they sailed for Cape Town this morning!”

“What!”

“That’s what he writes.  Did you ever hear of anything quicker?”

“How funny,” she said.  “Bunny and Sylvia?  I knew he was attentive to her but——­”

“You mean Dysart?” he said carelessly.  “Oh, he’s only a confirmed debutante chaser; a sort of social measles.  They all recover rapidly.”

“I had the—­social measles,” said Geraldine, smiling.

Duane repressed a shiver.  “It’s inevitable,” he said gaily....  “That Bunny is a decent fellow.”

“Will you show me his letter?” she asked, extending her hand as a matter of course.

“No, dear.”

She looked up surprised.

“Why not?  Oh—­I beg your pardon, dear——­”

Duane bent over, kissed her hand, and tossed the letter into the fire.  It was her first experience in shadows cast before, and it came to her with a little shock that no two are ever one in the prosier sense of the theory.