of change, and read it as her soft mood of dangerous sweetness that came
so seldom, mingled with something deeper, more of character and
womanliness than I had ever sensed in her.

"Russ, it wasn't nice to tell Diane that," she said.

"Nice! It was--oh, I'd like to swear!" I ejaculated. "But now I
understand my miserable feeling. I was jealous, Sally, I'm sorry. I
apologize."

She had drawn off her gloves, and one little hand, brown, shapely,
rested upon her knee very near to me. I took it in mine. She let it
stay, though she looked away from me, the color rich in her cheeks.

"I can forgive that," she murmured. "But the lie. Jealousy doesn't
excuse a lie."

"You mean--what I intimated to your cousin," I said, trying to make her
look at me. "That was the devil in me. Only it's true."

"How can it be true when you never asked--said a word--you hinted of?"
she queried. "Diane believed what you said. I know she thinks me
horrid."

"No she doesn't. As for what I said, or meant to say, which is the same
thing, how'd you take my actions? I hope not the same as you take
Wright's or the other fellow's."

Sally was silent, a little pale now, and I saw that I did not need to
say any more about the other fellows. The change, the difference was now