"

Mr. Dainton admitted ruddily that "he guessed that was so." But he would
have liked to shake the woman who had snubbed his Emerald.

The child pouted a while, then sidled up to Sophy again as they walked
through the hot, gusty streets towards the hotel. It seemed impossible
for her to resist the double fascination that Sophy exercised over her,
as woman and as _divorcee_. Sophy let the child take her passive hand.
She was hardly conscious of it, so far was she in a world of alien
thought.

Father and daughter escorted them to the Palace Hotel, where they said
final good-bys. The two women went upstairs in silence. Without taking
off her hat Sophy sat down, still in that brown study. Her eyes were
fixed vaguely on the white satin "Regulations" over the door. Miss
Pickett moved about, putting articles into her open trunk. They were to
leave for Virginia on the midnight train. Every now and then she would
glance at Sophy, but she said nothing.

Presently Sophy spoke to her.

"It's very painful ... being born, Sue."

"'Being born'?" said Miss Pickett, stopping on her way to the trunk with
an odd shoe in her hand.

"Yes, Sue.... It's hard. It hurts.... Drawing in the first breaths
hurts.... When I've breathed really deep, it will be different...."

"Yes-- I understand, lamb," said Sue softly.

Sophy went on, her eyes still fixed on the white satin scroll.

"You know, Sue ... it's said that when one dies and wakes up in quite
another state, one doesn't realise that one has died just at first. Well
... I feel something like that. I've come into a queer, new state of
being. I can't seem to realise myself or anything just yet."

"Yes, dear," said her cousin, fitting the shoe into a corner of the
trunk, and coming back to sit down near her. Sophy reached out one hand
mechanically, and Sue took it in both her own, with quiet,
matter-of-fact affection. Sophy still gazed before her, seeing nothing.

"It's a queer thing to say, Sue," she continued after a moment, "but I
don't think I've lived at all yet ... not really."

This _did_ seem odd to Miss Pickett, but she thought it due to a certain
inevitable old-maidishness on her part, and gave no sign.

"I'll try to explain what I mean," said Sophy. "I've loved love all my
life. But love isn't given us just to love ... the love between two
people--a man and a woman ... is only one tiny part of love. Yes...."
She knitted her straight brows trying to bring her thought t