luxuries of the new life. Why,--even Rodney himself, about whom
everything else swung in an orbit! What price had she paid for him, or
for any of the rest of it? It was all as free as the air she breathed.
It had come to her without having cost even a wish. Was Rodney's love
for her, therefore, valueless? No, the French woman was certainly wrong
about that.




CHAPTER III

WHERE DID ROSE COME IN


However, it was one thing to decide that this was so, and quite another
thing to dismiss the preposterous idea from her mind. There was still an
hour before she need begin dressing for the Randolph dinner, but as she
had already had her tea and there was nothing else to do, she thought
she might as well go about it. It might help her resist a certain
perfectly irrational depression which the talk with the actress,
somewhat surprisingly, had produced. And besides, if she were all
dressed when Rodney came home, she'd be free to visit with him while he
dressed--to sit and watch him swearing at his studs, and tell him about
the events of her day, including their climax in the ride with the
famous Simone Gréville. And he'd come over every now and then and
interrupt himself and her with some sort of unexpected caress--a kiss on
the back of her neck, or an embrace that would threaten her
coiffure--and this vague, scary, nightmarish sort of feeling, which for
no reasonable reason at all seemed to be clutching at her, would be