d "things on her mind" which she meant to unburden.

She lounged in an armchair and smoked while Sophy's maid finished
brushing her hair. When the girl had left the room, Olive looked at her
with affectionate but keen curiosity, and said abruptly:

"Sophy, you must forgive me, because I'm so _vewy_ fond of you--but ...
are you _weally_ as happy as I want you to be?"

Sophy returned her look quietly.

"Who is _really_ happy?" she said.

"Well ... _I_ am ... at times," replied Olive.

Sophy couldn't help smiling. She knew that this "at times" meant when
Olive was deep in some love-affair.

"Is this one of the times, dear?" she asked lightly, hoping to change
the subject.

Olive nodded, making little rings of smoke with the lips that were still
so smooth and fresh--though she had a big girl of sixteen.

"It's because I'm so happy myself that I want _you_ to be happy, too,
darling," she murmured.

"It takes such different things to make different people happy, Olive,
dear."

"Oh, love makes _evwybody_ happy--while it lasts!"

"Yes--while it lasts."

Olive crushed out her cigarette thoughtfully. Then she said in a musing
voice:

"Isn't it _atwocious_ of it not to last?"

Sophy had to laugh out for all her sore heart.

"Very atrocious," she admitted.

"Just suppose one could _contwol_ love," Olive continued, still in that
musing voice. "What a divine place the world would be! _Evwy_body would
be happy _all_ the time, then. Nobody would be bored--nobody would
divorce--nobody would be disagweeable."

"Nobody would need a God or a philosophy," supplemented Sophy.

"But as it is, they are _most_ necessary," said Olive seriously. "Which
is it with you, Sophy?"

"Both," replied Sophy. She was not smiling now.

"With me," said Olive, "it's first one and then the other. I'm afraid
I've a very _fwiv_olous nature, Sophy. I _can't_ seem to keep to one
thing, _all_ the time. But you, now...."

She gazed again at Sophy with that affectionate, meditative curiosity.

"You seem made for a _gwande passion_, Sophy. And yet...." She
hesitated; then went on quickly: "Now _do_ forgive me ... but, somehow,
I don't feel as if you'd found it ... even now."

This "even now" sent the blood to Sophy's face. She sat very still,
looking at the monogram on one of the brushes with which she had been
playing as Olive talked.

"Are you vexed, darling? You mustn't be vexed. It's only because I'm so
_twuly_ fond of you. Now Mr.