"But I wouldn't have—why, it's absurd!" said Clancy.
Her hostess shrugged.
"My third night in New York, I went to a dance. I was terribly depressed. And a boy had conceived the same sudden sort of attachment for me that David has conceived for you. Only one thing saved me from making a little idiot of myself—not a minister would marry us without a license. I'm confessing a lot, my dear. Good-night," she ended abruptly.
Alone, Clancy slipped out of the pretty dressing-gown and got into bed. She could not doubt Sophie Carey's sincerity. Yet how absurd the woman was in thinking that she and David— She wondered. Suppose that Randall had proposed—in one of her reactions from bravado to fear. To have a man to help her fight her battle, to extricate her from the predicament into which her own frightened folly had hurried her! Sleepily, she decided that Sophie Carey was a wonderful friend. Also, she decided that Clancy Deane wasn't much of an actress. If every one guessed that she was worried——
Once, during the night, she half wakened. She thought that she'd heard the door-bell ringing. But she slipped into unconsciousness again almost at once. But in the morning she knew that she had not been mistaken. For Sophie Carey woke her up, and Clancy saw a face that was like a blush-rose.
"Miss Deane, you must wake up and meet him before he goes."
"Before who goes?" demanded Clancy.
Sophie Carey's face was like fire.
"Don. He came last night after all—late, and he isn't going to get a divorce, because I won't let him." There was fiery pride and touchingly soft self-abasement in her voice. "We've made it up. It was all my fault, anyway."
Clancy, as she bathed and dressed, shook her head wonderingly. Mrs. Carey's life was almost as kaleidoscopic as her own.