She made a motion as if to toss the letter across the table to Nevada.

"Great catamounts!" exclaimed Nevada. "These centre-fire buttons are a
nuisance. I'd rather wear buckskins. Oh, Barbara, please shuck the hide
off that letter and read it. It'll be midnight before I get these gloves
off!"

"Why, dear, you don't want me to open Gilbert's letter to you? It's for
you, and you wouldn't wish any one else to read it, of course!"

Nevada raised her steady, calm, sapphire eyes from her gloves.

"Nobody writes me anything that everybody mightn't read," she said.
"Go on, Barbara. Maybe Gilbert wants us to go out in his car again
to-morrow."

Curiosity can do more things than kill a cat; and if emotions, well
recognized as feminine, are inimical to feline life, then jealousy would
soon leave the whole world catless. Barbara opened the letter, with an
indulgent, slightly bored air.

"Well, dear," said she, "I'll read it if you want me to."

She slit the envelope, and read the missive with swift-travelling eyes;
read it again, and cast a quick, shrewd glance at Nevada, who, for
the time, seemed to consider gloves as the world of her interest, and
letters from rising artists as no more than messages from Mars.

For a quarter of a minute Barbara looked at Nevada with a strange
steadfastness; and then a smile so small that it widened her mouth only