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 darn good man who got too big for his damn boots, that's all."

"It's enough," he sympathized.

"Enough!" she echoed, dropping into her chair and reaching for a cigarette. "It's the limit! No sooner do you get things running smoothly than somebody goes and upsets your applecart—each apple so carefully placed. And all to do over again."

Grover sat in commiserating silence.

"Did you find out about boats?" she asked.

"Got my ticket."

Rhoda was flicking off the ash of her cigarette with a nervous vigor not entirely called for.

"Life's an awful fake," she remarked.

He looked at her in amazement. "Good Lord, Rhoda! Don't you say that. You're the only person left who, I always supposed, thought life—real and earnest and the grave is not its goal!"

"It's just one long fake, I tell you! When you're a little girl you dress yourself up in your mother's clothes and try to act like a lady; and when you're a lady and are trying to act like a decent man and a nasty big brute comes in and tries to double-cross you and not only that—"

"You mean—make love?"

She flicked her ash, then crushed the fire out of her cigarette. "And of course it would have to be the one man I was counting on."

"What for?"