udden warmth as different
from her old perversity as the pulse in her throat was painful. And
yet she couldn't stifle that impulse. She giggled aloud. And when he
turned--when he wheeled and encountered her shining eyes, still wet and
brimming above the screen of his own handkerchief, she sensed
immediately that he was flushing as little, too-sensitive Steve had
flushed years before, when she had laughed at him less kindly.

The girl was not conscious of it; she had no actual realization yet of
how very deeply her unwilling readjustment of fundamental values had,
in the last twenty-four hours, undermined her hitherto unquestioning
acceptance of those inbred standards which, to all her world save
Miriam Burrell, were creed and code of conduct. That morning she only
knew she was unaccountably glad because there was no malice in her
mirth; had she given it thought she would have insisted that, in her
heart, there no longer lurked a ghost, ignoble or otherwise, of what
had once been a childishly snobbish belief in her inherent superiority.
And as suddenly as she had giggled she now laughed aloud at the
expression she had surprised there on his face. Again, for an instant,
the very spontaneity of her swift changing mood gave the situation into
her hands.

"Please," she begged him mockingly, "please, I did have to laugh, a
little. I had to! It just occurred to me, all in a breath, that
perhaps there is another of us who--who hasn't entirely grown up. You
looked so morbidly disheartened. And I know it won't sound logical,
but all this time during which I supposed you were smiling upon my--my
absurd tears with that benign surety of yours, it hurt--hurt like
everything--just knowing that it was all so hopeless for you. But now
that I have seen that you do understand, do we have to be so gloomy any
longer? Are we going to be so tragic, every time we meet? They tell
me it is an admission of unformed, unbalanced youth, Mr. O'Mara. And,
whether that is so or not, I do know that it is a great strain upon my
complexion."

Momentarily her effrontery had given the situation into her hands--but
only momentarily. For even while she was speaking the corners of
Steve's eyelids began to crinkle; before she had finished mocking at
him in a voice that still caught unsteadily in her throat, it was her
up-turned face which had grown pink under his gravely amused scrutiny.

"Was it as bad as that?" he asked. "I don't know that