from the snow. It seemed to her that
her desire for him was centered somewhere in her body. Her mind remained
cool, detached, critical, even hostile. She disliked the manner of his
wooing--not that there should have been any insult to the pride of a
nameless little adventurer, Hudson's barmaid, a waif, in being told that
she was a "good girl" and fit to be the mother of this young man's
children. But Sheila knew instinctively that these things could not be
said, could not even be thought of by such a man as Marcus Arundel. She
remembered his words about her mother.... Sheila wanted with a great
longing to be loved like that, to be so spoken of, so exquisitely
entreated. A phrase in Hudson's letter came to her mind, "I handled you
in my heart like a flower" ... Unconsciously she pressed her hand against
her lips, remembered the taste of whiskey and of blood. If only it had
been Dickie's lips that had first touched her own. Blinding tears fell.
The memory of Dickie's comfort, of Dickie's tremulous restraint, had a
strange poignancy.... Why was he so different from all the rest? So much
more like her father? What was there in this pale little hotel clerk who
drank too much that lifted him out and up into a sort of radiance? Her
memory of Dickie was always white--the whiteness of that moonlight of
their first, of that dawn of their last, meeting. He had had no chance in
his short, unhappy, and restricted life--not half the chance that young
Hilliard's life had given him--to learn such delicate appreciations, such
tenderness, such reserves. Where had he got his delightful, gentle
whimsicalities, that sweet, impersonal detachment that refused to yield
to stupid angers and disgusts? He was like--in Dickie's own fashion she
fumbled for a simile. But there was no word. She thought of a star, that
morning star he had drawn her over to look at from the window of her
sitting-room. Perhaps the artist in Sylvester had expressed itself in
this son he so despised; perhaps Dickie was, after all, Hudson's great
work ... All sorts of meanings and symbols pelted Sheila's brain as she
sat there, exciting and fevering her nerves.

In three days Hilliard would be coming back. His warm youth would
again fill the house, pour itself over her heart. After the silence,
his voice would be terribly persuasive, after the loneliness, his eager,
golden eyes would be terribly compelling! He was going to "fetch the
parson" ... Sheila actually wrung her h