She spent the better part of an hour describing the divorcees and their adventures.
"Well, I'm off for home. I think I shall entertain the Red Cross committee first of all. It's only right, I believe"--the dove eyes very serious--"they've been under such terrible strains. I'm going to send a large bundle of clothes for the Armenian Relief, too. Oh, aunty, the whole world seems under a cloud, doesn't it? But I met the funniest woman in Pasadena; she actually teed her golf ball on a valuable Swiss watch her husband had given her! She said her only thrills in life came from making her husband cross."
"No; she was dreadfully disappointed. He called her a naughty child and bought her another!"
When Beatrice reached the apartment she found Steve standing on the steps looking anxiously up and down the street.
"What's happened?" he asked, half lifting her out of the car.
"Don't! People will see us. I was telling aunty about Reno. Oh, it's so good to be here!" as she came inside her own door. "I hope people will let me alone the rest of the day. I'm just a wreck." She found a box of chocolates and began to eat them.
"A charming-looking wreck, I'll say." He stooped to kiss her.
The rose-coloured glasses were still attached to Steve's naturally keen eyes. Like many persons he knew a multitude of facts but was quite ignorant concerning vital issues. He had spent his honeymoon in rapt and unreal fashion. He had realized his boyhood dream of returning to Nevada a rich and respected man with a fairy-princess sort of wife. The deadly anaesthesia of unreality which these get-rich-quick candidates of to-day indulge in at the outset of their struggle still had Steve in its clutch. He had not even stirred from out its influence. He had accomplished what he had set out to accomplish--and he was now about to realize that there is a distinct melancholy in the fact that everyone needs an Aladdin's window to finish. But under the influence of the anæsthesia he had proposed to have an everlasting good time the rest of his life, like the closing words of a fairy tale: "And then the beautiful young princess and the brave young prince, having slain the seven-headed monster, lived happily ever, ever after!"