econd case brought
nothing, save a sense of being tricked and defrauded, the victim of a
conspiracy of silence. For nothing, as it now appeared, was really her
own, nor had really belonged to her. "Some one," so she phrased it in the
incoherence of her pain, "had always been there before her." What she
supposed her exclusive property was only second-hand, had been already
owned by others. They let her play at being first in the field, original
and sole proprietress, because it saved them trouble by keeping her quiet
and amused. But all the while they knew better and must have smiled at
her possessive antics once her silly back was turned. And here Damaris
lost sight of reasonable proportion and measure, exaggerating wildly, her
pride and self-respect cut to the quick.

It was thus, in the full flood of mystification and resentment, Charles
Verity found her when presently he returned. Sensible of something very
much amiss, since she stayed within the shadow of the closed shutters,
silent and motionless, he crossed the room and stood before her looking
down searchingly into her upturned face. Stubborn in her misery, she met
his glance with mutinous, and hard, if misty, eyes.

"Weeping, my dear? Is the occasion worth it? Has Mrs. Frayling then
taken so profound a hold?" he asked, his tone mocking, chiding her yet
very gently.

Damaris hedged. To expose the root of her trouble became impossible under
the coercion of that gently bantering tone.

"It's not Henrietta's going; but that I no longer mind her going."

"A lost illusion--yes?" he said.

"I can't trust her. She--she isn't kind."

"Eh?" he said. "So you too have made that illuminating little discovery.
I supposed it would be only a matter of time. But you read character, my
dear, more quickly than I do. What it has taken you months to discover,
took me years."

His frankness, the unqualified directness of his response, though
startling, stimulated her daring.

"Then--then you don't really like Henrietta?" she found audacity
enough to say.

"Ah! there you rush too headlong to conclusions," he reasoned, still with
that same frankness of tone. "She is an ingenious, unique creature,
towards whom one's sentiments are ingenious and unique in their turn. I
admire her, although--for you are right there--she is neither invariably
trustworthy nor invariably kind. Admire her ungrudgingly, now I no longer
ask of her what she hasn't it in her to give. Limit your demand