f
ashamed of her own apparent generosity which was to mean no loss to
her, no gain to Molly. In the sudden becalmed stillness of the hot
afternoon their bright, blown hair fell about their faces in shining
clouds.

"I didn't understand before," said Sylvia; and she was speaking the
truth.

"And you'll let him alone? You won't talk to him--play his
accompaniments--oh, those long talks of yours!"

"We've been talking, you silly dear, of the Renaissance compared to
the Twentieth Century, and of the passing of the leisure class, and
all the beauty they always create," said Sylvia. Again she spoke
the literal truth. But the true truth, burning on Molly's tongue,
shriveled this to ashes. "You've been making him admire you, be
interested in you, see how little _I_ amount to!" she cried. "But
if you _don't_ care about him yourself--if you'll--_two weeks_,
Sylvia--just keep out for two weeks...." As if it were part of the
leaping forward of her imagination, she suddenly started the car
again, and with a whirling, reckless wrench at the steering-wheel she
had turned the car about and was racing back over the road they had
come.

"Where are you going?" cried Sylvia to her, above the noise of their
progress.

"Back!" she answered, laughing out. "What's the use of going on now?"
She opened the throttle to its widest and pressing her lips together
tightly, gave herself up to the intoxication of speed.

Once she said earnestly: "You're _fine_, Sylvia! I never knew a girl
could be like you!" And once more she threw out casually: "Do you know
what I was going to do if I found out you and Felix--if you hadn't...?
I was going to jump the car over the turn there on Prospect
Hill."

Remembering the terrible young face of pain and wrath which she had
watched on the way out, Sylvia believed her; or at least believed that
she believed her. In reality, her immortal youth was incapable of
believing in the fact of death in any form. But the words put a stamp
of tragic sincerity on their wild expedition, and on her companion's
suffering. She thought of the two weeks which lay before Molly, and
turned away her eyes in sympathy....

* * * * *

Ten days after this, an announcement was made of the engagement of
Mary Montgomery Sommerville, sole heiress of the great Montgomery
fortune, to Felix Morrison, the well-known critic of aesthetics.

CHAPTER XXVI

MOLLY IN HER ELEMENT

Sylvia faced her a