topped singing and turned around on the organ stool as they
entered. The little room was flooded with a mellow light from the
pink-globed lamp on the table, and in the soft, shadowy radiance she
was as beautiful as a dream. She wore a dress of crepe, cut low in the
neck. Estella had never seen anyone dressed so before. To her it
seemed immodest.

She introduced Spencer. He bowed awkwardly and sat stiffly down by the
window with his eyes riveted on Miss LeMar's face. Estella, catching a
glimpse of herself in the old-fashioned mirror above the mantel,
suddenly felt a cold chill of dissatisfaction. Her figure had never
seemed to her so stout and stiff, her brown hair so dull and prim, her
complexion so muddy, her features so commonplace. She wished Miss
LeMar would go out of the room.

Vivienne LeMar watched the two faces before her; a hard gleam, half
mockery, half malice, flashed into her eyes and a smile crept about
her lips. She looked straight in Spencer Morgan's honest blue eyes and
read there the young man's dazzled admiration. There was contempt in
the look she turned on Estella.

"You were singing when we came in," said Spencer. "Won't you go on,
please? I am very fond of music."

Miss LeMar turned again to the organ. The gleaming curves of her neck
and shoulders rose out of their filmy sheathings of lace. Spencer,
sitting where he could see her face with its rose-leaf bloom and the
ringlets of golden hair clustering about it, gazed at her, unheeding
of aught else. Estella saw his look. She suddenly began to hate the
black-eyed witch at the organ--and to fear her as well. Why did
Spencer look at her like that? She wished she had not brought him in
at all. She felt commonplace and angry, and wanted to cry.

Vivienne LeMar went on singing, drifting from one sweet love song into
another. Once she looked up at Spencer Morgan. He rose quickly and
went to her side, looking down at her with a strange fire in his eyes.

Estella got up abruptly and left the room. She was angry and jealous,
but she thought Spencer would follow her. When he did not, she could
not believe it. She waited on the porch for him, not knowing whether
she were more angry or miserable. She would not go back into the room.
Vivienne LeMar had stopped singing. She could hear a low murmur of
voices. When she had waited there an hour, she went in and upstairs to
her room with ostentatious footsteps. She was too angry to cry or to
realize what had h