"Kid?"

"Well, about my age I guess. 11

Subsequently, as the weeks went on, Myra learned more about Alice Norman. Leo made no effort to bo secretive, but was in fact so casual about her dates with the girl that Myra wes disarmed. And she certainly had no cause to complain. Lee performed her tasks about the house with the usual regularity, and her disposition-for a time-was so agreeable that a greater folicity than ever reigned between them.

Then, abruptly, this changed. Lying there now, her eyes open to the moonlight, Myra reproached herself for having been so obtuse. Whereas she had assigned Lee's frankness concerning Alice to total absence of infidelity, it now soomed clear that it mo ant just the opposite. It me ant,

now that she saw it clear, that Lee was happy because all of her needs were being satisfied, and open because sho felt no guilt in the fulfillment. It was only when Lee's serenity turned to moodiness that the fear began to grow. What else but a lovers' quarrel would suddenly plunge Loo one day into unexplained dejection...and what but a lovers' reconciliation raise her again to equally inexplicable elation? For so it had been the se past two weeks, and Myra, whother Leo was do jo ctod or elated, felt ominously certain that their life together was about to slip away.

Well, if it was, there was nothing she could do about it. Long ago, friends had warned her of the danger in a rolationship with some one so much younger.

"It's all right now," they observed, "but in years to come..."

But at thirty-six, and still full of the vibrance of youth, she had refused to look ahead. And now, even now that the prophecy was fulfilled, she was not sorry to have ignored it. Twelve years of almost complete happiness was as much as anyone could ask.

But she must sloop, che must, or

she'd be fit for nothing

in the morning. Rosolutely, she closed her oyos and let the sound of Lee's evon breathing lull her to sleep.

11