and ease; but as he talked, some
untarnished instinct in Sylvia shrank away in momentary distaste, the
first she had ever felt for him.

Mrs. Marshall-Smith evidently did not at all share this feeling. "Oh,
what a house that will be!" she cried, lost in forecasting admiration.
"_You!_ with a free hand! A second house of Jacques Coeur!" Sylvia
stood up, rather abruptly. "I think I'll go for a walk beside the
river," she said, reaching for her parasol.

"May I tag along?" said Page, strolling off beside her with the ease
of familiarity.

Sylvia turned to wave a careless farewell to the two thus left
somewhat unceremoniously in the pergola. She was in brown corduroy
with suede leather sailor collar and broad belt, a costume which
brought out vividly the pure, clear coloring of her face. "Good-bye,"
she called to them with a pointedly casual accent, nodding her
gleaming head.

"She's a _very_ pretty girl, isn't she?" commented Mrs.
Marshall-Smith. Morrison, looking after the retreating figures, agreed
with her briefly. "Yes, very. Extraordinarily perfect specimen of her
type." His tone was dry.

Mrs. Marshall-Smith looked with annoyance across the stretch of lawn
to the house. "I think I would better go to see where Arnold is," she
said. Her tone seemed to signify more to the man than her colorless
words. He frowned and said, "Oh, is Arnold ...?"

She gave a fatigued gesture. "No--not yet--but for the last two or
three days ..."

He began impatiently, "Why can't you get him off this time before he...."

"An excellent idea," she broke in, with some impatience of her own.
"But slightly difficult of execution."

CHAPTER XXXI

SYLVIA MEETS WITH PITY

Under the scarlet glory of frost-touched maples, beside the river
strolled Sylvia, conscious of looking very well and being admired; but
contrary to the age-old belief about her sex and age, the sensation
of looking very well and being admired by no means filled the entire
field of her consciousness. In fact, the corner occupied by the
sensation was so small that occasional efforts on her part to escape
to it from the less agreeable contents of her mind were lamentable
failures. Aloud, in terms as felicitous as she could make them, she
was commenting on the beauty of the glass-smooth river, with the
sumptuously colored autumn trees casting down into it the imperial
gold and crimson of their reflections. Silently she was struggling to
master and dominate and