Page:Conflict (1927).pdf/186

 'I shall take you within the width of the sidewalk of your door,' announced Cicely.

No use to contend! Oh, well, never mind. What did it matter? Let Cicely see where she lived if she wanted to, how she lived too. She didn't care.

With sudden abandon, Sheilah found herself saying to Cicely when the car slid to a silent standstill before her own eight-belled front door, 'Wont you come in and see the children?'

Cicely replied, 'Just for a minute, I'd like to.'

All the way up the not-too-clean front stairs, through the two long halls smelling of preparing suppers, Sheilah had a strong desire to sit down somewhere and burst into laughter—into long, relieving, racking peals of laughter.

Instead—stopping a moment before unlocking the door upon the untidiness she knew was awaiting her just inside (she had been so tired after lunch), she turned and looked at Cicely, and said quietly,  ' This is what life has done to me, Cicely.'

Cicely replied with the same simple candor, placing her hand upon Sheilah's arm, 'I was afraid so, when I saw you,' and pretense fell away from between the two women like a veil, and they stood looking at each other with cleared vision.

Afterward Cicely and Sheilah sat for a long while on the couch in the dining-room. Sheilah found it easy to tell Cicely things she had never told any one