ith this frank, direct look, she had a moment of brilliance
to make the eyes of age shade themselves as against a dazzling
brightness. The eyes of the man opposite her were not those of age.
They rested on her, roused, kindling to heat. His head went up like a
stag's. She felt a momentary hot throb of excitement, as though
her body were one great fiddle-string, twanging under a vigorously
plucking thumb. It was thrilling, it was startling, it was not
altogether pleasant. The corners of her sensitive mouth twitched
uncertainly.

Mrs. Draper, observing from under her down-drooped lids this silent
passage between the two, murmured amusedly to herself, "Ah, now you're
shouting, my children!"

CHAPTER XVI

PLAYING WITH MATCHES

There was much that was acrid about the sweetness of triumph which the
next months brought Sylvia. The sudden change in her life had not come
until there was an accumulation of bitterness in her heart the venting
of which was the strongest emotion of that period of strong emotions.
As she drove about the campus, perched on the high seat of the
red-wheeled dog-cart, her lovely face looked down with none of Eleanor
Hubert's gentleness into the envying eyes of the other girls. A high
color burned in her cheeks, and her bright eyes were not soft. She
looked continually excited.

At home she was hard to live with, quick to take offense at the
least breath of the adverse criticism which she felt, unspoken and
forbearing but thick in the air about her. She neglected her music,
she neglected her studies; she spent long hours of feverish toil over
Aunt Victoria's chiffons and silks. There was need for many toilets
now, for the incessantly recurring social events to which she went
with young Fiske, chaperoned by Mrs. Draper, who had for her old rival
and enemy, Mrs. Hubert, the most mocking of friendly smiles, as she
entered a ballroom, the acknowledged sponsor of the brilliant young
sensation of the college season.

At these dances Sylvia had the grim satisfaction, not infrequently the
experience of intelligent young ladies, of being surrounded by crowds
of admiring young men, for whom she had no admiration, the barren
sterility of whose conversation filled her with astonishment, even
in her fever of exultation. She knew the delights of frequently
"splitting" her dances so that there might be enough to go around. She
was plunged headlong into the torrent of excitement which is the life
of a so