called for the nose he had given me, and that all the Greuze
women have long necks. I have not.

After I had refused Jim twice he met Bella at a camp in the
Adirondacks and when he came back he came at once to see me. He
seemed to think I would be sorry to lose him, and he blundered
over the telling for twenty minutes. Of course, no woman likes to
lose a lover, no matter what she may say about it, but Jim had
been getting on my nerves for some time, and I was much calmer
than he expected me to be.

"If you mean," I said finally in desperation, "that you and Bella
are--are in love, why don't you say so, Jim? I think you will
find that I stand it wonderfully."

He brightened perceptibly.

"I didn't know how you would take it, Kit," he said, "and I hope
we will always be bully friends. You are absolutely sure you
don't care a whoop for me?"

"Absolutely," I replied, and we shook hands on it. Then he began
about Bella; it was very tiresome.

Bella is a nice girl, but I had roomed with her at school, and I
was under no illusions. When Jim raved about Bella and her banjo,
and Bella and her guitar, I had painful moments when I recalled
Bella, learning her two songs on each instrument, and the old
English ballad she had learned to play on the harp. When he said
she was too good for him, I never batted an eye. And I shook