"You are Mrs. Linton's dearest friend," he remarked casually, as they leaned up against the profile of the Church scene in "Cagliostro," for they were standing in the "wings"--to be exact--on the O. P. side.

"She is my dearest friend, at any rate," said Phyllis.

"You were not at school together. She is four or five years older than you."

"Only three. When she got married she seemed to me to be almost venerable. Three years seemed a long time then."

"But now you fancy that you have formed a right idea of what is meant by three years?"

"Well, a better idea, at any rate."

"You are still a good way off it. But if you have formed a right estimate of a woman's friendship----"

"That's still something, you mean to say? But why did you stop short, Mr. Courtland?"