She said in a small; surprised voice, "Why, it's finished".

In that instant the legless man overreached himself and fell heavily.

Barbara ... dashed into her dressing-room and locked the door behind
her.

They passed out of the house and by marble steps into the first and most
formal of their many gardens.

"What is Wilmot doing with himself these days?" "He went away," said
Barbara, her eyes troubled.

He caught her by the wrist, drew her to her feet, and into the room.

"I twisted the truth out of him, and then flung him over a cliff".

"Climb out of that chair, and let me out of this house".

"I've seen that man. I was writing notes in the summer house when he
came".

"Read that, father".

The engineer made generous terms across the dinner-table.

"You will," said Barbara, "when the things dry".

They were much amused with Bubbles, who came out to them for Christmas
vacation.

"And when you think," said she, "that some women spend the best years of
their lives making _statues_!"

I

The number of love affairs which intervened between Barbara Ferris's
first one, when she was eleven, and her twenty-second birthday could not
have been counted on the fingers of her two hands. Many boys, many men,
had seemed wonderfully attractive to her. She did not know why. She knew
only that the attraction seemed strong and eternal while it lasted, and
that it never lasted long. She was sixteen before she began to consider
herself a heartless, flirtatious, unstable, jilting sort of a girl. When
she made this discovery, she was terribly ashamed, and for one long
depressing year fell in love with nobody, became very shy, and hated
herself. It was during this year that she had her first, last, and only
touch of mania. It lasted only a little while and was not acute. She got
the idea that she was being watched, spied on, and followed. But she was
too strong in body and mind to give in for long to so silly an
hallucination. And when she had dismissed the second man and her maid,
who had particularly excited her suspicions, the mania left her, as a
dream leaves at waking.

In her seventeenth year she was presented to society, and became an
immense favorite. There were excellent reasons for this: she was lovely
to look at, she would inherit a great deal of money, she had charming
natural manners, and she was sweet-tempered.

During her second season she had an unpleasant experience. She had
almost reached