t to show irritation at this reference to Dumont. "I
think you're mistaken about which of you is queer," she said. "You are
the one--not he."

"I?" Pauline laughed--she was thinking of her charm against any love
but one man's, the wedding ring she always wore at her neck. "Why, I
COULDN'T fall in love with HIM."

"The woman who gets him will do mighty well for herself--in every way,"
said Olivia.

"Indeed she will. But--I'd as soon think of falling in love with a
tree or a mountain."

She liked her phrase; it seemed to her exactly to define her feeling
for Scarborough. She liked it so well that she repeated it to herself
reassuringly many times in the next few weeks.

VII.

PAULINE AWAKENS.

In the last week of March came a succession of warm rains. The leaves
burst from their impatient hiding just within the cracks in the gray
bark. And on Monday the unclouded sun was irradiating a pale green
world from a pale blue sky. The four windows of Pauline and Olivia's
sitting-room were up; a warm, scented wind was blowing this way and
that the strays of Pauline's red-brown hair as she sat at the table,
her eyes on a book, her thoughts on a letter--Dumont's first letter on
landing in America. A knock, and she frowned slightly.

"Come!" she cried, her expression slowly veering toward welcome.

The door swung back and in came Scarborough. Not the awkward youth of
last October, but still unable wholly to conceal how much at a
disadvantage he felt before the woman he particularly wished to please.

"Yes--I'm ten minutes early," he said, apology in his tone for his
instinct told him that he was interrupting, and he had too little
vanity to see that the interruption was agreeable. "But I thought
you'd be only reading a novel."

For answer she held up the book which lay before her--a solemn volume
in light brown calf.

"Analytical geometry," he said; "and on the first day of the finest
spring the world ever saw!" He was at the window, looking out
longingly--sunshine, and soft air washed clean by the rains; the
new-born leaves and buds; the pioneer birds and flowers. "Let's go for
a walk. We can do the Vergil to-night."

"YOU--talking of neglecting WORK!" Her smile seemed to him to sparkle
as much in the waves of her hair as in her even white teeth and
gold-brown eyes. "So you're human, just like the rest of us."

"Human!" He glanced at her and instantly glanced away.

"Do leave that window," sh