“Any port in a storm,” said Suzanne cheerfully. “I suggest, Miss Gardiner, that we camp here for the night. It’s beginning to rain again…listen…and we may be miles from an inhabited house. We can bring in the rugs. You take the couch and I’ll pick out the softest spot on the floor. We’ll be dry at least and in the morning we can more easily get assistance.”

Pat agreed that it was the only thing to do. They would probably not worry at Silver Bush. It had not been certain that she would return home that night…an old Queen’s classmate had asked her to visit her. They went back to the car, got the rugs and locked it up. Pat insisted that Suzanne should take the couch and Suzanne was determined Pat should have it. They solved it by flipping a coin.

Pat wrapped a rug around her and curled up on the couch. Suzanne lay down on the floor with a cushion under her head. Neither expected to sleep. Who could sleep with a sploshy thud of rain falling regularly near one and rats scurrying overhead. After what seemed hours Suzanne called softly across the room,

“Are you asleep, Miss Gardiner?”

“No…I feel as if I could never sleep again.”

Suzanne sat up.

“Then for heaven’s sake let’s talk. This is ghastly. I’ve a mortal horror of rats. There seem to be simply swarms of them in this house. Talk…talk. You needn’t pretend to like me if you don’t. And for the matter of that, as one woman to another, why don’t you like me, Pat Gardiner? Why won’t you like me? I thought you did that night by the fire. And we liked you…we thought there was something simply dear about you. And then when we called on our way to the concert…why, we seemed to be looking at you through glass! We couldn’t get near you at all. David was hurt but I was furious…simply furious. I’m sure my blood boiled. I could hear it bubbling in my veins. Oh, how I hoped your husband would beat you! And yet, every night since, I’ve been watching your kitchen light and wondering what was going on in it and wishing we could drop in and fraternize. I can’t imagine you and I not being friends…real friends. We were made for it. Isn’t it Kipling who says, ‘There is no gift like friendship?’”

“Yes…Parnesius in Puck,” said Pat.

“Oh, you know Puck, too? Now, why can’t we give that gift to each other?”

“Did you think,” said Pat in a choked voice, “that I could be friends with anyone who…who laughed at Silver Bush?”

“Laugh at Silver Bush! Pat Gardiner, I never did. How could I? I’ve loved it from the first moment David and I looked down on it.”