mpulsive move to put her arm round Gladys, then drew away and clasped
her hands tightly in her lap.

Gladys was crying, sobbing, brokenly apologizing for it--"I'm a little
idiot--but I can't help it--I haven't any pride left--a woman never
does have, really, when she's in love--oh, Pauline, do you think he
cares at all for me?" And after a pause she went on, too absorbed in
herself to observe Pauline or to wonder at her silence: "Sometimes I
think he does. Again I fear that--that he doesn't. And lately--why
doesn't he come here any more?"

"You know how busy he is," said Pauline, in a voice so strained that
Gladys ought to have noticed it.

"But it isn't that--I'm sure it isn't. No, it has something to do with
me. It means either that he doesn't care for me or that--that he does
care and is fighting against it. Oh, I don't know what to think."
Then, after a pause: "How I hate being a woman! If I were a man I
could find out the truth--settle it one way or the other. But I must
sit dumb and wait, and wait, and wait! You don't know how I love him,"
she said brokenly, burying her face in the ends of the soft white shawl
that was flung about her bare shoulders. "I can't help it--he's the
best--he makes all the others look and talk like cheap imitations.
He's the best, and a woman can't help wanting the best."

Pauline rose and leaned against the railing--she could evade the truth
no longer. Gladys was in love with Scarborough, was at last caught in
her own toils, would go on entangling herself deeper and deeper,
abandoning herself more and more to a hopeless love, unless--

"What would you do, Pauline?" pleaded Gladys. "There must be some
reason why he doesn't speak. It isn't fair to me--it isn't fair! I
could stand anything--even giving him up--better than this uncertainty.
It's--it's breaking my heart--I who thought I didn't have a heart."

"No, it isn't fair," said Pauline, to herself rather than to Gladys.

"I suppose you don't sympathize with me," Gladys went on. "I know you
don't like him. I've noticed how strained and distant you are toward
each other. And you seem to avoid each other. And he'll never talk of
you to me. Did you have some sort of misunderstanding at college?"

"Yes," said Pauline, slowly. "A--a misunderstanding."

"And you both remember it, after all these years?"

"Yes," said Pauline.

"How relentless you are," said Gladys, "and how tenacious!" But she was
too intent u