a circle of sinister meaning. There was Archibald, condemned to die—while youth still beat in his veins—— There was Louise, who must go on without him. There was the Admiral—the last of a vanished company; there was the Major, whose life for four years had held—horrors. There was Madge, radiant to-night in the love of her husband, as she had perhaps once been radiant for Dalton.
Georgie-Porgie!
It was a horrid name. "There were always so many girls to be kissed—and it was so easy to run away——"
She had always hated the nursery rhyme. But now it seemed to sing itself in her brain.
"Georgie-Porgie,
Pudding and pie,
Kissed the girls,
And made them cry——"
Cope was at Becky's right. "Aren't you going to talk to me? You haven't said a word since the soup."
"Well, everybody else is talking."
"What do I care for anybody else?"
Becky wondered how Archibald did it. How he kept that light manner for a world which he was not long to know. And there was Louise with rouge
and powder on her cheeks to cover her tears—— That was courage—— She thought suddenly of "The Trumpeter Swan."