ing with Mr. and Mrs. Larry most of the evenings when she was free from social engagements. She felt the need of their unspoken sympathy and understanding attitude.
The interests closest to her heart these days found little response in her own home. Mrs. Pierce belonged to a number of advanced organizations, contributed liberally to the cause of suffrage and prated much of individual rights. But in matters matrimonial she still believed that a daughter should bow to the maternal will and be practical. She considered marriage between Claire and Jimmy Graves a direct defiance of her wishes, and altogether impractical.
She had been more relieved than sympathetic when Claire and Jimmy had quarreled. And when the small inconspicuous solitaire had reappeared on Claire's finger and letters from Kansas City arrived with their old-time regularity, she was tolerant, but not congratulatory. Mrs. Pierce's idea of the proverbial cottage in which love should thrive among roses, was a Colonial mansion on a Long Island estate, reached by a high-powered motor-car.
In the house of Larry, Claire found not only
