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"Listen, Jock. Let me explain something."

"Shoot."

Cecily put both elbows on the table and dug a determined small chin into the back of one hand. "I don't know just where to begin," she said, "but here's the way it was. This whole year and two months has been one long preparation for the time when I'd see you again. Not because it was you, particularly," she amended quickly, "but—well, you know. Like studying a lesson and then reciting. I wanted you to see how hard I'd tried and how—how well I'd got along, so you'd know that all your trouble wasn't just for nothing. You see what I mean, don't you?"

"Perfectly," said Jock. (Oh, cute . . . the little wrinkle of her forehead, the intense gravity. . . . )

"That was why I blubbered and blubbered last night," Cecily went on. "You thought it was one of those weeping jags, didn't you? Well, it wasn't. It was because, after all that waiting, I had to be intoxicated when you saw me again. Why, Jock—" Her voice rose to a sudden small wail—"I never was intoxicated in my life before! I never was! And I never was on a party with Perry Loomis, and I never would have been if he hadn't told me there were going to be ten of us or something. Jock, you—you believe me, don't you?" she pleaded.

"Of course, Cecily."

"I don't know what happened," Cecily said dismally. "I swear I don't. I've had a couple of drinks lots of evenings, and they've never affected me a bit. But we got to that Tavern place, and Perry said we'd have to wait awhile till the others came, and we waited and waited, and I had two drinks, that was all. And the first I knew everything was kind of floating in a funny way, and some man who looked exactly like