uls."

This was so odd for Henry, who was certainly not given to compliments,
that Maggie burst out laughing.

"Yes, you may laugh," said Henry. "I know what I'm talking about. Have
you ever seen Paul asleep after dinner?"

"No," said Maggie.

"I wish you had. That might have saved you. Have you ever seen Grace
lose her temper?"

"No," said Maggie, this time a little uneasily.

"Look here," he came close to her, staring at her with those eyes of
his that could be very charming when he liked. "Break it off. Say you
think it's a mistake. You'll be miserable."

"Indeed I shan't," said Maggie, tossing her head. "Whatever happens I'm
not going to be miserable. No one can make me that."

"So you think," Henry frowned. "I can't think what you want to be
married for at all. These days women can have such a good time,
especially a woman with character like you. If I were a woman I'd never
marry."

"You don't understand," said Maggie. "You haven't been lonely all your
life as I have, and you're not afraid of making yourself cheap
and--and--looking for some one who doesn't want--you. It's so easy for
you to talk. And Paul wants me--really he does--"

"Yes, he does," said Henry slowly. "He's in love with you all right.
I'm as sorry for Paul as I am for you."

Maggie laughed. "It's very kind of you to be sorry," she said, "but you
needn't trouble. I believe we can look after ourselves."

For a quarter of an hour after this conversation she was a little
uneasy. He was a clever boy, Henry; he did watch people. But then he
was very young, It was all guesswork with him.

She became now strangely quiescent; her energy, her individuality, her
strength of will seemed, for the time, entirely to have gone. She
surrendered herself to Grace and Paul and Katherine and they did what
they would with her.

Only once was she disturbed. Two nights before the wedding she dreamt
of Martin. It did not appear as a dream at all. It seemed to her that
she had been asleep and that she suddenly woke. She was gazing, from
her bed, into her own room, but at the farther end of it instead of the
wall with the rosy trees and the gold mirror was another room. This
room was strange and cheerless with bare boards, a large four-poster
bed with faded blue hangings, two old black prints with
eighteenth-century figures and a big standing mirror. In front of the
bed, staring into the mirror, was Martin, He was dressed shabbily in a
blue reefer coat. H