oo good a man to be
treated the way that girl is treating you, and no one knows it better
than she does. She'll change in time, but just now she thinks she wants
to be independent. She's in love with this picture-painting idea, and
with the people she meets. It's all new to her--the fuss they make over
her and the titles, and the way she is asked about. We know she can't
paint. We know they only give her commissions because she's so young
and pretty, and American. She amuses them, that's all. Well, that cannot
last; she'll find it out. She's too clever a girl, and she is too fine
a girl to be content with that long. Then--then she'll come back to you.
She feels now that she has both you and the others, and she's making
you wait: so wait and be cheerful. She's worth waiting for; she's young,
that's all. She'll see the difference in time. But, in the meanwhile, it
would hurry matters a bit if she thought she had to choose between the
new friends and you."

"She could still keep her friends, and marry me," said Carroll; "I have
told her that a hundred times. She could still paint miniatures and
marry me. But she won't marry me."

"She won't marry you because she knows she can whenever she wants to;"
cried Marion. "Can't you see that? But if she thought you were going to
marry some one else now?"

"She would be the first to congratulate me," said Carroll. He rose and
walked to the fireplace, where he leaned with his arm on the mantel.
There was a photograph of Helen Cabot near his hand, and he turned this
toward him and stood for some time staring at it. "My dear Marion," he
said at last, "I've known Helen ever since she was as young as that.
Every year I've loved her more, and found new things in her to care for;
now I love her more than any other man ever loved any other woman."

Miss Cavendish shook her head sympathetically.

"Yes, I know," she said; "that's the way Reggie loves me, too."

Carroll went on as though he had not heard her.

"There's a bench in St. James's Park," he said, "where we used to sit
when she first came here, when she didn't know so many people. We used
to go there in the morning and throw penny buns to the ducks. That's
been my amusement this summer since you've all been away--sitting on
that bench, feeding penny buns to the silly ducks--especially the black
one, the one she used to like best. And I make pilgrimages to all the
other places we ever visited together, and try to pretend she is