one
sort and another, is the best he may lay claim to. That you do not
want. It is all, at the best, he can give you. And you, pray what
may you give him? Yourself? A prodigious waste! But your father's
yellow--"

"Don't go on, or I shall refuse to listen. It is wrong of you." So
Frona made her cease, and then, with bold inconsistency, "And what
may the woman Lucile give him?"

"Some few wild moments," was the prompt response; "a burning burst of
happiness, and the regrets of hell--which latter he deserves, as do
I. So the balance is maintained, and all is well."

"But--but--"

"For there is a devil in him," she held on, "a most alluring devil,
which delights me, on my soul it does, and which, pray God, Frona,
you may never know. For you have no devil; mine matches his and
mates. I am free to confess that the whole thing is only an
attraction. There is nothing permanent about him, nor about me. And
there's the beauty, the balance is preserved."

Frona lay back in her chair and lazily regarded her visitor, Lucile
waited for her to speak. It was very quiet.

"Well?" Lucile at last demanded, in a low, curious tone, at the same
time rising to slip into her parka.

"Nothing. I was only waiting."

"I am done."

"Then let me say that I do not understand you," Frona summed up,
coldly. "I cannot somehow just catch your motive. There is a flat
ring to what you have said. However, of this I am sure: for some
unaccountable reason you have been untrue to yourself to-day. Do not
ask me, for, as I said before, I do not know where or how; yet I am
none the less convinced. This I do know, you are not the Lucile I
met by the wood trail across the river. That was the true Lucile,
little though I saw of her. The woman who is here to-day is a
strange woman. I do not know her. Sometimes it has seemed she was
Lucile, but rarely. This woman has lied, lied to me, and lied to me
about herself. As to what she said of the man, at the worst that is
merely an opinion. It may be she has lied about him likewise. The
chance is large that she has. What do you think about it?"

"That you are a very clever girl, Frona. That you speak sometimes
more truly than you know, and that at others you are blinder than you
dream."

"There is something I could love in you, but you have hidden it away
so that I cannot find it."

Lucile's lips trembled on the verge of speech. But she settled her
parka about her and turne