a halo of ruddy
gold.

* * * * *

The month sped away very swiftly for Valerie. Her companionship with
Rita, her new friendship for Helene d'Enver, her work, filled all the
little moments not occupied with Neville. It had been a happy, exciting
winter; and now, with the first days of spring, an excitement and a
happiness so strange that it even resembled fear at moments, possessed
her, in the imminence of the great change.

Often, in these days, she found herself staring at Neville with a sort
of fixed fascination almost bordering on terror;--there were moments
when alone with him, and even while with him among his friends and hers,
when there seemed to awake in her a fear so sudden, so inexplicable,
that every nerve in her quivered apprehension until it had passed as it
came. What those moments of keenest fear might signify she had no idea.
She loved, and was loved, and was not afraid.

In early April Neville went to Ashuelyn. Ogilvy was there, also
Stephanie Swift.

His sister Lily had triumphantly produced a second sample of what she
could do to perpetuate the House of Collis, and was much engrossed with
nursery duties; so Stephanie haunted the nursery, while Ogilvy, Neville,
and Gordon Collis played golf over the April pastures, joining them only
when Lily was at liberty.

Why Stephanie avoided Neville she herself scarcely knew; why she clung
so closely to Lily's skirts seemed no easier to explain. But in her
heart there was a restlessness which no ignoring, no self-discipline
could suppress--an unease which had been there many days, now--a hard,
tired, ceaseless inquietude that found some little relief when she was
near Lily Collis, but which, when alone, became a dull ache.

She had grown thin and spiritless within the last few months. Lily saw
it and resented it hotly.

"The child," she said to her husband, "is perfectly wretched over Louis
and his ignominious affair with that West girl. I don't know whether she
means to keep her word to me or not, but she's with him every day.
They're seen together everywhere except where Louis really belongs."

"It looks to me," said Gordon mildly, "as though he were really in love
with her."

"Gordon! How _can_ you say such a thing in such a sympathetic tone!"

"Why--aren't you sorry for them?"

"I'm sorry for Louis--and perfectly disgusted. I _was_ sorry for her; an
excess of sentimentality. But she hasn't kept her word to me."