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A blank misery seized Patricia.

"I wish you were happy," she murmured. "Oh, I do wish you were." It was the only thing she could say, for she was not learned enough to arrive at any truer explanation than her own unutterable thought of a few minutes earlier.

Sombre dissatisfaction continued to cloud Amy's face.

"Yes," she said. "Of course, you don't understand. You couldn't. You've got one of those simple little natures. You're content. You don't know what suffering or temptation is. If a man says he loves you, you're ready to believe him. You're ready to fall in his arms."

"Am I?" inquired Patricia, dangerously. Her indignation was rising.

Amy looked suspiciously at her, too self-absorbed to give more than passing attention.

"You'll see. You're younger than I am. Perhaps you'll learn. Perhaps you'll find out for yourself what suffering is," she admonished, almost with a grim hopefulness.

There came again a sharp tapping at the studio door, and, as if bored almost to lethargy, Amy slowly moved to answer the call. Patricia, instantly alert to recall the injunction under which Jack Penton had departed, imagined hastily that he might have brought another visitor. And for Patricia at this time "another visitor" meant one only. She started at the second voice. Surely it was Harry's. Standing now, she faced the door, and could see beyond Amy to the figures of the two men who entered. First came Jack. There followed Monty Rosenberg.