girls you knew changed--changed. I have given up trying to understand
what's come over the world."

"How--about Helen?" inquired Lane, with strange reluctance and
shyness.

"Helen who?" asked his mother.

"Helen Wrapp, of course," replied Lane, quickly in his surprise. "The
girl I was engaged to when I left."

"Oh!--I had forgotten," she sighed.

"Hasn't Helen been here to see you?"

"Let me see--well, now you tax me--I think she did come once--right
after you left."

"Do you--ever see her?" he asked, with slow heave of breast.

"Yes, now and then, as she rides by in an automobile. But she never
sees me.... Daren, I don't know what your--your--that engagement means
to you, but I must tell you--Helen Wrapp doesn't conduct herself as if
she were engaged. Still, I don't know what's in the heads of girls
to-day. I can only compare the present with the past."

Lane did not inquire further and his mother did not offer more
comment. At the moment he heard a motor car out in front of the house,
a girl's shrill voice in laughter, the slamming of a car-door--then
light, quick footsteps on the porch. Lane could look from where he sat