see if she was back from her visit on the Sound. It was a comfort to see Anne, she always acted as if things were just as they [Pg 22]had been and never asked disturbing questions. In the wilting heat she looked cool and fresh, her dress of yellow linen, her straw hat encircled by a wreath of nasturtiums had the dainty neatness that always marked Anne’s clothes and Anne herself. She was pale-skinned and black-haired, satin-smooth hair drawn back from her forehead and rolled up from the nape of her neck in an ebony curve. Because her eyebrows slanted upward at the ends and her eyes were long and liquid-dark and her nose had the slightest retroussé tilt, people said she looked like a Helleu etching. And other people, who were more old-fashioned and did not know what a Helleu etching was, said she looked like a lady.

[Pg 22]

She was Sybil’s best friend, was to have been her bridesmaid. But she knew no more of Sybil’s secrets since Jim Dallas had disappeared than any one else. And she never sought to know—that was why the friendship held.

They had a great deal to talk about, but chiefly the Twelfth Night affair. Anne was immensely[Pg 23] pleased that Sybil had agreed to play. She did not say this—she avoided any allusions to Sybil’s recent conducting of her life—but her enthusiasm about it all was irresistible. It warmed the sad-eyed girl into interest; the Viola costume was brought from its cupboard, the golden wig tried on. When Anne took her departure late in the day, after iced tea and layer cake in the kitchenette, she felt much relieved about her friend—she was “coming back,” coming alive again, and this performance off in the country, far from her old associations, was just the way for her to start.

[Pg 23]

Anne occupied another little flat on another of the mid-town streets in another of the brownstone houses. Hers was one room larger, for her brother, Joe Tracy, lived with her when not pursuing his profession on the road. There were hiatuses in Joe’s pursuit during which he inhabited a small bedroom in the rear and caused Ann a great deal of worry and expense. Joe apparently did not worry, certainly not about the expense.[Pg 24] Absence of work wore on his temper not because Anne had to carry the flat alone, but because he had no spending money.

[Pg 24]

They said it was his temper that stood in his way. Something did, for he was an excellent actor with that power of transforming himself into an empty receptacle to 

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