unt's dictum with heartsick shrinking from its
rigor; but she recognized it as an unexaggerated statement of the
facts. "You can't go home now, Sylvia--everybody would say you
couldn't stand seeing Molly's snatch at Felix successful. You really
must stay on to let people see that you are another kind of girl from
Molly, capable of impersonal interest in a man of Felix's brains."

Sylvia thought of making the obviously suitable remark that she
cared nothing about what people thought, but such a claim was so
preposterously untrue to her character that she could not bring the
words past her lips. As a matter of fact, she did care what people
thought. She always had! She always would! She remained silent,
looking fixedly out of the great, plate-glass window, across the
glorious sweep of blue mountain-slope and green valley commanded by
Mrs. Marshall-Smith's bedroom. She did not resemble the romantic
conception of a girl crossed in love. She looked very quiet, no paler
than usual, quite self-possessed. The only change a keen eye could
have noted was that now there was about her an atmosphere of slightly
rigid dignity, which had not been there before. She seemed less
girlish.

No eyes could have been more keenly analytical than those of Mrs.
Marshall-Smith. She saw perfectly the new attribute, and realized
perfectly what a resolute stiffening of the will it signified. She
had never admired and loved Sylvia more, and being a person adept in
self-expression, she saturated her next speech with her admiration and
affection. "Of course, you know, my dear, that _I'm_ not one of the
herd. I know entirely that your feeling for Felix was just what mine
is--immense admiration for his taste and accomplishments. As a matter
of fact it was apparent to every one that, even in spite of all
Molly's money, if you'd really cared to ..."

Sylvia winced, actually and physically, at this speech, which brought
back to her with a sharp flick the egregiousness of her absurd
self-deception. What a simpleton she had been--what a little naive,
provincial simpleton! In spite of her high opinion of her own
cleverness and knowledge of people, how stupidly steeped she had
been in the childish, idiotic American tradition of entire
disinterestedness in the relations of men and women. It was another
instance of how betrayed she constantly was, in any manoeuver in
the actual world, by the fatuous idealism which had so colored her
youth--she vented her emot