"I think I had better not come," she repeated, and in her speech there was a shadowy return of the old baffling reserve that had so greatly disturbed Marjorie in the early stages of their friendship.
"But you promised to take dinner with us to-night," remarked Marjorie.
"I—I have changed my mind. It will be best for me to go home, I think. I'll come over to-morrow."
Mrs. Dean added her persuasions, but Constance was firm, and, after bidding a courteous farewell to the Deans' guests, she hurried away, more agitated than she cared to admit.
"Why, what ails Constance, Marjorie?" asked Mrs. Dean in surprise.
"Nothing—that is, I don't know." Marjorie looked after her friend's rapidly disappearing figure, a puzzled expression in her brown eyes.
Mary Raymond viewed Marjorie with a faint frown. It was rather provoking in Marjorie to express so much concern over this Constance Stevens. After their long separation she felt that her chum's every thought ought to be for her alone. And in that instant a certain fabled green-eyed monster, that Mary had never believed could exist for her, suddenly sprang into life and whispered to her that, perhaps, after all, she was not first in Marjorie Dean's heart.