om her
downcast, listening eyes, her slow, trance-like step as she waited for
him to go on. He went on: "It becomes, my dear, I assure you--the idea
of that possibility becomes absolutely an obsession--even to a man
usually quite his own master--"

They were almost at a standstill now, and the two in front of them
had reached the house. Sylvia had a moment of what seemed to her the
purest happiness she had ever known....

From across the lawn they saw a violent gesture--Molly had thrown her
grandfather's clinging hand from her, and flashed back upon the two,
lingering there in the sunlight. She cast herself on Sylvia, panting
and trying to laugh. Her little white teeth showed in what was almost
a grimace. "Why in the world are you two poking along so?" she cried,
passing her arm through Sylvia's. Her beautiful sunny head came no
more than to Sylvia's shoulder. Without waiting for an answer she went
on hurriedly, speaking in the tones of suppressed excitement which
thrilled in every one's voice that day: "Come on, Sylvia--let's work
it off together! Let me take you somewhere--let's go to Rutland and
back."

"That's thirty miles away!" said Sylvia, "and it's past five now."

"I'll have you there and back long before seven," asserted Molly.
"Come on ... come on ..." She pulled impatiently, petulantly at the
other girl's arm.

"I'm not invited, I suppose," said Morrison, lighting a cigarette with
care.

Molly looked at him a little wildly. "No, Felix, you're not invited!"
she said, and laughed unsteadily.

She had hurried them along to the car, and now they stood by the swift
gray machine, Molly's own, the one she claimed to love more than
anything else in the world. She sprang in and motioned Sylvia to the
seat beside her.

"Hats?" suggested Morrison, looking at their bare, shining heads. He
was evidently fighting for time, manoeuvering for an opening. His
success was that of a man gesticulating against a gale. Molly's baldly
unscrupulous determination beat down the beginnings of his carefully
composed opposition before he could frame one of his well-balanced
sentences. "No--no--it takes too long to go and get hats!" she cried
peremptorily. "If you can't have what you want when you want it, it's
no use having it at all!"

"I'm not sure," remarked Morrison, "that Miss Marshall wants this at
all."

"Yes, she does; yes, she does!" Molly contradicted him heatedly.
Sylvia, hanging undecided at the step, felt hers