usual. You've got a voice. What are you going to do with them?"
"Exploit them in the States. There's nothing to keep me here." Her eyes, of an indeterminate colour, narrow above high cheek-bones, looked provocatively into his.
The frustrated torrent of his passion for Alayne turned, for a moment, toward this girl. As he realized this, he felt an intense, inexplicable irritation. He looked beyond Minny Ware to his sister.
"Alayne," he said, "has come back to look after Eden." Let Meggie fly into a rage, if she would, before an outsider.
"Alayne come back . . ." she repeated the words, softly, curling her lip a little.
"Eden begged her to come."
"She has not much pride, has she?"
"She's full of pride. She's too proud to care what you or anyone else thinks."
"Even you?" Her lip curled again.
Minny Ware looked eagerly from one face to another. Could she make herself a place here?
Renny did not answer, but his eyes warned Meg to be careful.
She sat, winking very fast, as though to keep back tears or temper, her full cheek rested against her closed hand. She was, in truth, blinking before a new idea. . . . If Alayne and Eden were reconciled, so much the better. Let Alayne provide for the poor darling. There was no use in Alayne's pretending she was poor. Americans always had plenty of money. Eden might be delicate for a long time. And if he—if Alayne fancied that he were not going to recover—that she could capture Renny through Eden's death—she would find how mistaken she was!
In any case Renny must be protected from Alayne. There was only one way by which he could be protected. A wife. And here, at hand, was Minny Ware. Meg's perceptions, slow but penetrating, left no doubt in her mind that Alayne loved Renny—that Renny was
