ther
she owed it to current morality to remain absolutely pure. It was
assumed generally that girls should remain virtuous and marry, but this
did not necessarily apply to her--should it apply to the artistic
temperament? Her mother and her family troubled her. She was virtuous,
but youth and desire had given her some bitter moments. And here was
Eugene to emphasize it.

"It is a difficult problem," he said sympathetically, wondering what she
would eventually do. He felt keenly that her attitude in regard to
marriage affected his relationship to her. Was she wedded to her art at
the expense of love?

"It's a big problem," she said and went to the piano to sing.

He half suspected for a little while after this that she might be
contemplating some radical step--what, he did not care to say to
himself, but he was intensely interested in her problem. This peculiar
freedom of thought astonished him--broadened his horizon. He wondered
what his sister Myrtle would think of a girl discussing marriage in this
way--the to be or not to be of it--what Sylvia? He wondered if many
girls did that. Most of the women he had known seemed to think more
logically along these lines than he did. He remembered asking Ruby once
whether she didn't think illicit love was wrong and hearing her reply,
"No. Some people thought it was wrong, but that didn't make it so to
her." Here was another girl with another theory.

They talked more of love, and he wondered why she wanted him to come up
to Florizel in the summer. She could not be thinking--no, she was too
conservative. He began to suspect, though, that she would not marry
him--would not marry anyone at present. She merely wanted to be loved
for awhile, no doubt.

May came and with it the end of Christina's concert work and voice study
so far as New York was concerned. She had been in and out of the city
all the winter--to Pittsburgh, Buffalo, Chicago, St. Paul and now after
a winter's hard work retired to Hagerstown with her mother for a few
weeks prior to leaving for Florizel.

"You ought to come down here," she wrote to Eugene early in June. "There
is a sickle moon that shines in my garden and the roses are in bloom.
Oh, the odors are so sweet, and the dew! Some of our windows open out
level with the grass and I sing! I sing!! I sing!!!"

He had a notion to run down but restrained himself, for she told him
that they were leaving in two weeks for the mountains. He had a set of
drawings