DARCY, in her berth, sat huddled up and wide-eyed. She knew at last what had happened to her. The burning memory of that kiss in the woods had left nothing unrevealed to a soul as frank with itself as Darcy's had grown to be. She knew, too, what she had to face. There was no doubt or hesitancy in her thoughts, no weak attempt to justify herself or find an easy way out. If it had been any one but Gloria Greene whose happiness was at stake, Gloria who had picked her up from the scrap-heap of waste and made a living, pulsating, eager human creature of her, Darcy might have fought for her own hand. But how could a man who had loved Gloria Greene, and whom Gloria loved, care seriously for any other woman on earth? No; this was only a sudden, unreckonable infatuation on Jack Remsen's part.... Then she recalled the look in his eyes when they parted, and knew that her conscience was lying to her heart. In any case, her course was clear. She must be game.

In her deep trouble her thoughts turned to Gloria, the wise, kind counsellor, the safe refuge. But she would not do for this crisis! To betray Remsen to her—that was unthinkable, and nothing short of the whole truth would serve with Gloria. Darcy knew that she must fight it out alone. Never, not even in the old, dead days, had she felt so alone.

Human nature being what it is, there is nothing strange in the fact that, on her return to New York, Darcy shrank from meeting Gloria. Although the girl's conscience absolved her, except for that one, instinctive lapse when she had been caught off her guard, her sore heart pleaded guilty to the self-brought charge of a lasting disloyalty. With the thrill of Jack Remsen's kiss still in her veins, how could she face the woman to whom Remsen owed his allegiance, the woman who, moreover, had been the kindest, most effectual, most unselfish friend of her own unbefriended life?

Yet there remained to be concluded the obsequies of Sir Montrose Veyze, of Veyze Holdings, Hampshire, England. Those remains, of unblessed memory, must positively be removed from the premises before they gave rise to further and even more painful complications. Darcy experienced the grisly emotions of a murderer with an all-too-obvious corpse to dispose of. First of all, Gloria's absolution from the promise of secrecy must be obtained, which she would doubtless be more than ready to accord, now that Sir Montrose had become too heavy a burden to carry; also Gloria's advice and aid if she would give it. Nerving herself for the encounter, Darcy went to see the actress and told her the whole (if she herself was to be believed) disastrous tale.

Gloria was too shrewd to believe quite that far. There were obvious hesitancies, blank spaces, and reservations wherever the name and deeds of Mr. Jacob Remsen, alias Sir Montrose Veyze II, or in his own proper person, entered into the narrative. And there was a something in the girl's eyes, deep down where the warm gray was lighted to warmer blue, which hadn't been there before. It completed the woman in her. With an inner flush of creative pride Gloria communed with herself upon the new miracle:

“This is a wonderful and lovable thing that I have made.” Instinctive honesty compelled her, however, to add: “But somebody else has given the finishing touch.”

She was too keen an observer not to suspect who her fellow creative artist was. Being of the ultra-blessed who hold their tongues until it is time to speak, Gloria made no comment upon this phase, but set her mind singly to the problem in hand as presented by Darcy's recital. “It's time to own up,” was her decision.

“I suppose so,” agreed the girl. “I don't look forward to telling Maud.”

“Let me handle Maud.”

“Would you, Gloria? You are good. However well you do it, though,” she added resentfully, “I suppose I'll be 'Poor Darcy' again without even the compensation of being 'Such a nice girl.'”

“Do you feel like 'Poor Darcy'?”

“No.”

“Do you look like 'Poor Darcy'?”

The girl glanced at the long studio mirror back of her. “No, I don't,” she replied, and two dimples came forward and offered corroborative testimony.

“Then whom is the joke on?”

The dimples vanished. “On me,” said their erstwhile proprietor.

“Don't be an imbecile!” adjured her mentor. “Can't help it,” returned Darcy dolefully. “I've got the habit.”

“Break it. Hark to the voice of Pure Reason (that's me). As long as you were 'Poor Darcy,' you had to invent a fiancÉ or go without, didn't you?”

“Yes.”

“And your invention was sure to be a regular old Frankenstein monster, and to come back and devour you as soon as you were found out.”

“I can hear the clanking of his joints this minute!”

“You can't. He isn't there. If you were still 'Poor Darcy,' there'd be no hope for you. You're not. You're something totally different.”

“That's your view of it,” returned the dispirited Darcy. “But to other—”

“It's anybody's view that isn't blind as a bat! Half the men you meet are crazy about you. Aren't they?”

“I haven't met many, lately,” said Darcy demurely.

“You met plenty at our party. Even Maud and Helen saw the effect. Their eyes bunged out!”

“I don't see how their eyes bunging out is going to help explain Sir Montrose Veyze I, let alone Sir Montrose Veyze II.”

“Why worry, when I'm here to take the burden from you? I propose,” said Miss Greene relishingly, “to tell those girls the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.”

“Gloria! They'll pass it on and I'll be the laughing-stock—”

“Will they! I dare'em to pass it on!”

“Why shouldn't they?” cried the girl. “It's just the sort of thing that Maud would revel in.”

“Allowing that she could get away with it, you're right. She couldn't.”

“Couldn't make people believe it, you mean?”

“Never. Never in the world!”

“But it's true!”

“Dear and lovely innocence! Do you think that helps it to get itself believed? Besides, the main part of it isn't true.”

“I mean it's true that it isn't true, and if Maud tells the truth about what isn't true—”

“Come out of that skein of metaphysical wool, kitten,” laughed Gloria. “You're tangled. Here's what isn't true; that you're 'Poor Darcy' who has to get lovers out of books for lack of'em in real life.”

“But I have been.”

“All right. Let Maud tell the people that used to know you, and make them believe it. There's only a few of them and they don't count. As for trying it on any one else, all she'll get will be a reputation for green-eyed jealousy. How would anybody convince Jack Remsen, for instance” (Darcy winced, and Gloria's quick sense caught it), “that you had to invent an imaginary adorer because you couldn't get a real one? No, indeed! The evidence is all against it from Exhibit A, Darcy's eyes, down to Exhibit Z, Darcy's smart little boots. For an unattractive girl, your little effort of the imagination would be a pathetic, desperate, ridiculous invention, with the laugh on the inventor. For an attractive girl, it's just a festive little joke. Don't you see how it works out? The pretty girl (that's you) can have all the adorers she wants, but she prefers to take in her friends by inventing one. Is the joke on the girl or her friends? One guess. Why, oh, why,” concluded Gloria addressing the Scheme of the World in a burst of self-admiration, “wasn't I born a professor of logic instead of an actress?”

“It sounds reasonable,” confessed Darcy. “But will Maud and Helen be clever enough to see it?”

“Probably not.”

“Then—”

“Therefore I shall point it out to them in my inimitable and convincing style, with special hints as to the perils and disadvantages of getting a reputation for jealousy of a better-looking girl!”

“Then that's all settled,” said Darcy with a sigh. “Now what about Sir Montrose? The real Sir Montrose, I mean.”

“Well, what about him?”

“Suppose he should come over here and hear about it?”

“He won't. He's engaged to an English girl. I've just heard.”

“How nice and considerate of him! You know, Gloria, I could almost love that man.”

“Could you? What about the bogus Sir Montrose?” asked the actress significantly.

Darcy flushed faintly. “Well, what about him?” she echoed.

“How much does he know?”

“Not very much. Do you think I ought to tell him?”

“Does the child expect me to manage her conscience as well as her affairs!” cried the actress. “If any one is to tell him, you're the one.

“I suppose so,” assented Darcy, spiritlessly, and made her farewells in no more cheerful frame of mind than when she had come, albeit one load was off her shoulders.