Genevieve was Phoebe’s own age, but stockily built, with an up-turning Irish nose, reddish corkscrew curls, and freckles. She had a proud, conscious mouth, and her teeth were large. Her eyes were almost as red as her hair, and small. Around them the skin crinkled up when she laughed, shutting them away completely. When she had something important to say, she had a trick of throwing her head back with a toss of the curls. Phoebe had noted the trick. Once or twice she had even practiced it in front of her mirror!

Genevieve was more overdressed than usual for her call on Phoebe. She had a well wrapped package under one arm, and she wasted no time in delivering it.

“I’ve brought back your books,” she explained, and proffered the package.

Phoebe stared. “My books?”

“From Miss Simpson’s.” Genevieve laid them on the sitting-room table and sat, arranging her skirt grandly.

Phoebe still stared. It was as if she had unexpectedly been struck. Of course, if she was not to continue at the school—— And yet to have her books sent after her——!

“When my motor called for me,” went on Genevieve, “I had my chauffeur put them in the car,”—this with a graceful wave of the hand toward the package. “‘It’s no trouble,’ I said to Miss Simpson, ‘as long as I have my own motor, and my chauffeur.’ And Miss Simpson said, ‘Thank you, my dear. Then Phoebe won’t have to come back’.”

Phoebe’s slender body stiffened. “She said I won’t have to?” she demanded. “You mean my Uncle Bob said it.” Then as Genevieve’s brows and shoulders lifted simultaneously, “Oh, Genevieve, all the girls have acted so funny. What’s the matter? Do you know?”

Genevieve smoothed the crisp folds of her taffeta dress. “I’d rather not say,” she declared, importantly evasive.

But Phoebe was not to be put off. “Oh, please, Genevieve!” she entreated. “Tell me! Have I done anything?”

“N-n-n-no.” Then, raising her eyes to Phoebe’s anxious face, “You—you haven’t heard anything?”

Phoebe shook her head. “Is it because we haven’t got an automobile?” she ventured; “only a horse and a surrey?”

The reddish eyes disappeared as Genevieve laughed—musically, in the most approved Simpson manner. “Oh, several of the girls at the School are awfully poor,” she reminded. “I let them ride in my car. But”—significantly—“they have fine standing, Miss Simpson says. And they’ve never had any scandal.”

Vaguely Phoebe caught the inference. “Oh, yes; scandal,” she said, almost under her breath. “That would be awful.”

Genevieve reached to touch Phoebe’s arm condescendingly. “Don’t you care,” she counseled, “because I like you just the same.”

Phoebe fell back. Her face paled; her heart pounded. Scandal! and she was on the verge of knowing just what was meant. She thought of the prayers. She longed to know the worse. “Genevieve,” she whispered, “have I—what scandal?”

“It’s funny you don’t know,” marveled Genevieve.

“Oh, what is it? Please! Please!” Phoebe’s lips were trembling.

Genevieve, having postponed her informing to her own complete satisfaction, now saw that the moment was ripe for her climax. “Phoebe,” she began solemnly, “Miss Simpson doesn’t want you at our school because your mother’s in Reno.”

“Reno?” repeated Phoebe. Her face lighted joyously. Mother was in Reno! And if she were to carry out that plan to run away——! And after all, it was not the prayers!

“Nevada,” added Genevieve, with finality. The other’s relief irritated.

It was Phoebe’s turn to toss her head. “Nevada is good for my mother’s cough,” she declared.

“Yes?” said Genevieve. “Well, everybody says your mother’s gone West—hm!—for another reason.”

“She’s sick,” returned Phoebe, quietly. “And it’s smart—Mother said so—to go to Florida or West when you’re sick.”

Once more Genevieve shrugged. “Of course, you ought to know about your own mother. But anyhow there was something in the papers—the New York papers. It was a printed telegram from Nevada.”

“Certainly there was,” Phoebe agreed. “Because my mother’s a New Yorker, and so the newspapers print that she’s out there. They’d be sure to. She’s so beautiful.”

Genevieve rose abruptly. “Oh, all right!” she retorted. “But beautiful or not, all the same you can’t blame Miss Simpson. She doesn’t want a girl in her school that’s got a mother that’s divorced.”

“Di-vorced!”

Genevieve’s eyes shone. It was the effect she wanted. She moved toward the door. “Well, I must be going,” she announced.

Phoebe led the way. In the hall, she turned up the stairs without even a glance toward her departing visitor. Her throat ached. There was a sinking feeling under the high, wide belt of her gingham dress. She longed for the seclusion of her room—no, for the darkness of the clothes-closet. She gained it, going unsteadily. She closed the door. Then she sank beside the suit-case and laid her head upon it.

Divorce! She knew what that meant. Over and over she had seen it all in the “movies”. Her father would no longer be married to her mother: The two might not live in the same house: Her mother would not even dare to come to Grandma’s!

Something seemed to seize her then, to press upon her from all sides, to crush and smother her. With head lowered, and face down, the blood came charging up her throat, so that she went dizzy, and felt nauseated. A chill shook her as she lay. She thought of death, and prayed for it.

“If I died, they’d both be sorry,” she told herself, “and maybe then they wouldn’t be divorced.”

Next, overwhelmingly, came a longing to see her mother. “I’ll go,” she determined.

She sat up. And in the dark of the closet, with the door shut, and as noiselessly as possible, she packed the suit-case.