ow you've done it. I bet on _you_--" He began to laugh at her
stern face of reproof. "Oh, yes, yes, I agree! You don't know what I'm
talking about! It's just alfalfa in Vermont! Only my low vulgarity to
think anything else!" He moved away down the hall. "Beat it! I slope!"

"Where are you going?" she asked.

"Away! Away!" he answered. "Anywhere that's away. The air is rank with
Oscar Wilde and the Renaissance. I feel them coming." Still laughing,
he bounded upstairs, three steps at a time.

Sylvia stepped forward, crossed the threshold of the living-room,
and paused by the piano, penetrated by bitter-sweet associations. If
Morrison felt them also, he gave no sign. He had chosen a chair by a
distant window and was devoting himself to Molly's grandfather, who
accepted this delicate and entirely suitable attention with a rather
glum face. Mrs. Marshall-Smith and Page still stood in the center
of the room, and turned as Sylvia came in. "Do give us some music,
Sylvia," said her aunt, sinking into a chair while Page came forward
to sit near the piano.

Sylvia's fingers rested on the keys for a moment, her face very grave,
almost somber, and then, as though taking a sudden determination, she
began to play a Liszt Liebes-Traum. It was the last music Morrison had
played to her before the beginning of the change. Into its fevered
cadences she poured the quivering, astonished hurt of her young heart.

No one stirred during the music nor for the moment afterward, in which
she turned about to face the room. She looked squarely at Morrison,
who was rolling a cigarette with meticulous care, and as she looked,
he raised his eyes and gave her across the room one deep, flashing
glance of profound significance. That was all. That was enough. That
was everything. Sylvia turned back to the piano shivering, hot and
cold with secret joy. His look said, "Yes, of course, a thousand times
of course, you are the one in my heart." What the facts said for him
was, "But I am going to marry Molly because she has money."

Sylvia was horrified that she did not despise him, that she did not
resent his entering her heart again with the intimacy of that
look. Her heart ran out to welcome him back; but from the sense of
furtiveness she shrank back with her lifetime habit and experience of
probity, with the instinctive distaste for stealth engendered only by
long and unbroken acquaintance with candor. With a mental action as
definite as the physical o