Marcia's cheeks became flushed and that cool calculation which was characteristic of her eyes gave way to temper. She was not nice to behold as she sat on the floor, reading those letters—after that she lay down, stretching her slim legs and throwing her arms wide, staring at the ceiling, thinking, thinking. She slept a few moments and moaned once or twice lightly. When she awakened, she opened her door and listened; it was quiet below; most of the others were gone. She went down and sat at a desk and wrote a lengthy letter, a bright, light charming letter, completed with much pains and deliberation and some rewriting.
The letter was for Philip Rowe.
She kept her front of gaiety very well thereafter until darkness when the others found agreeable diversion, but she did not care for cards or dancing and reading was out of the question, so she slipped outside and sat alone, watching the night, brooding, planning, with temper in her eyes again.
It was there Fan Huston found her. Fan was thirty, married at twenty-two, childless, given to tightly drawn hair nets, much rice powder, stiff gowns and personal difficulties. She went in for trouble as some women go in for surgery and some men for the collecting of stamps or obsolete firearms. She came to the door, saw Marcia, looked cautiously about to see that her husband was occupied with a girl in a yellow sweater and came swiftly across the verandah, drawing a chair to Marcia's.
The girl looked up with a casual word, but the turn of her head exposed her worried face to the revealing shaft of light. Fan said nothing for a moment, but took Marcia's hand in hers and squeezed it significantly. The
