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"I'm dreadfully sorry," said the girl. "But I couldn't help overhearing what you said. About Mme. Lavoisin's. And you mustn't, you really mustn't, go there again. That is, if you're planning on a date with a man. Believe me."
     
                  "I really don't see why not," said Mrs. Jonas, with a touch of hauteur.
     
                  "Because that's what happened to Betty-Jo Stewart. I knew              
     

                  her, too." The girl laid a hand, which glittered with a diamond-studded wedding ring, on Mrs. Jonas's arm. "And I'm afraid it's going to happen to me." "If you'll explain," said Mrs. Jonas.
     
                  "Yes," said Jeffers. "Won't you sit down and have a drink with us?"
     
                  "Can I have another Presidente?" said Mrs. Jonas. "If Alvin gets here late, he deserves to find me fried."
     
                  The grey girl drew her coat around her shoulders and sat down. "All right," she said. "A Whiskey Sour."
     
    # ★ #
     
                  All right [she continued], I'll tell you. But you must promise never to breathe a word of it to a living soul. Both of you. Because that would be just as bad for me, if people found out and talked about it.
     
                  I'm Eloise Grady. I used to know Betty-Jo Stewart well, even before she was married. I even went to college with her, and it was just as you said. She's sweet and easy to get along with, but not very bright, and when looks were being passed around, someone forgot to tell her about it. In fact, the reason I got to know her so well was that we were the two plainest girls in the sorority house and never had any dates. No, [she addressed Jeffers] you needn't tell me how beautiful I really am. I know exactly where I stand. And why.
     
                  After we graduated, we both came here, but I didn't see so much of Betty-Jo for a while, and I couldn't have been more surprised when I got an invitation to her wedding. I thought she must have picked up some old widower, who really wanted a nurse to take care of his children. But when I saw the wedding itself I found I could be more surprised than at getting the announcement. It was held at the home of his parents. Everything was dripping with money, and frightfully social. But the big surprise was Andy Stewart himself. He was about the last person in the world you'd expect to fall for an ugly duckling like Betty-Jo. And she hadn't changed into any swan, either. But he used to follow her around with his eyes, as though she were the most beautiful object on earth.
     
                  After they were married, she began inviting me to the house quite a bit, for dinner parties, or just to have a cocktail with her. I thought at first she wanted to do a little refined gloating over the catch she had made, but it wasn't that at all. She just wanted to talk, and she often seemed nervous in a way I couldn't understand. There wasn't any reason for it, either. Andy was as devoted to her as ever and gave her everything she wanted.
     
                  ["Didn't woman's intuition help you out any?" asked Jeffers.]
     
                  Not at the time, and just for that crack, you can buy me another Whiskey Sour [said Eloise Grady]. The only time they even had anything approaching a disagreement was during that first winter of their marriage, when he wanted to take her to Florida for a couple of weeks and she wanted to stay home. She won, of course. It seemed to make her more nervous than usual. She had me over for cocktails the next day and made me talk to her for a long time. All about being a business girl. You see, I'd just about made up my mind to live alone and like it then. All the dates I got were from men off the bottom of the deck. But Betty-Jo wouldn't tell me what was bothering her.
     
                  And she just stayed