Edith Lawrence's wedding. And she knew
by Ruth Holland's face that it was true something was happening, knew it
by the girl's face as she walked down the aisle after attending her
friend at the altar, knew it by her much laughter, by what was not in
the laughter. Once during the evening she saw Edith put her arm around
Ruth Holland and at the girl's face then she knew with certainty, did
not need the letter that came from Stuart next day. She had the picture
of Ruth Holland now as she was that last night, in that filmy dress of
pale yellow that made her look so delicate. She was helped through that
evening by the thought that if she was going to be publicly humiliated
Ruth Holland would be publicly disgraced. She would have heard the last
about that fine, delicate quality--about sweetness and luminousness!
They would know, finally, that she was not those things she looked.

And after it happened the fact that they did know it helped her to go
on. She went right on, almost as if nothing had happened. She would not
let herself go away because then they would say she went away because
she could not bear it, because she did not want them to see. She must
stay and show them that there was nothing to see. Forcing herself to do
that so occupied her as to help her with things within. She could not
let herself feel for feeling would show on the surface. Even before
herself she had kept up that manner of unconcern and had come to be
influenced by her own front.

And so the years went by and her life had been made by that going on in
apparent unconcern, and by that inner feeling that she was hurting them
by just being in life. It was not a lovely reason for being in life; she
had not known what a poor thing it was until that boy came and forced
her to look at herself and consider how little she had.

She rose and stood looking into the mirror above the fireplace. It
seemed to her that she could tell by her face that the desire to do harm
had been her reason for living.

Several hours had gone by while she sat there given over to old things.
She wished she had a book, something absorbing, something to take her
away from that other thinking that was lying in wait for her--those
thoughts about what there was for her to live with in the years still to
be lived. The magazine she had picked up could not get any hold on her;
that was why, though she had made it clear she did not want to be
disturbed, there was relief in her voice as s