"I hope I haven't forgotten a single word of your--preaching. You said
so many things I want to think about."

"Don't trouble your soul with that, child," said the actress. "All the
sermon you need can be boiled down into a sentence, and until you have
found it out for yourself, you won't believe it."

"Try me," said Rose.

"Then attend.--How shall I say it?--Nothing worth having comes as a
gift, nor even can be bought--cheap. Everything of value in your life
will cost you dear; and some time or other you'll have to pay the price
of it."

It was with a very thoughtful, perplexed face that Rose watched the car
drive away, and then walked slowly into her house--the ideal house that
had cost Florence McCrea and Bertie Willis so many hours and so many
hair-line decisions--and allowed herself to be relieved of her wraps by
the perfect maid, who had all but been put in the lease.

The actress had said many strange and puzzling things during their ride;
things to be accepted only cautiously, after a careful thinking out. But
strangest of all was this last observation of hers; that there was
nothing of worth in your life that you hadn't to pay a heavy price for.

Certainly it contradicted violently everything in Rose's experience, for
everything she valued had come to her precisely as a gift. Her mother's
and Portia's love of her, the life that had surrounded her in school and
at the university, the friends; and then, with her marriage, the sudden
change in her estate, the thrills, the excitement, the comparative