she
was the kind of a girl who looks well sitting on a rock; and as she
was aware of this latter motive, she felt a qualm of self-scorn. What
a cheap vein of commonness was revealed in her--in every one--by the
temptation of a great fortune! Morrison had succumbed entirely. She
was nowadays continually detecting in herself motives which made her
sick.

Page stretched his great length on the dry leaves at her feet. Any
other man would have rolled a cigarette. It was one of his oddities
that he never smoked. Sylvia looked down at his thoughtful, clean face
and reflected wonderingly that he seemed the only person not warped
by money. Was it because he had it, or was it because he was a very
unusual person?

He was looking partly at the river, at the pines, at the flaming tree,
and partly at the human embodiment of the richness and color of autumn
before him. After a time Sylvia said: "There's Cassandra. She's the
only one who knows of the impending doom. She's trying to warn the
pines." It had taken her some moments to think of this.

Page accepted it with no sign that he considered it anything
remarkable, with the habit of a man for whom people produced their
best: "She's using some very fine language for her warning, but like
some other fine language it's a trifle misapplied. She forgets that
no doom hangs over the pines. _She's_ the fated one. They're safe
enough."

Sylvia clasped her hands about her knees and looked across the dark
water at the somber trees. "And yet they don't seem to be very
cheerful about it." It was her opinion that they were talking very
cleverly.

"Perhaps," suggested Page, rolling over to face the river--"perhaps
she's not prophesying doom at all, but blowing a trumpet-peal of
exultation over her own good fortune. The pines may be black with envy
of her."

Sylvia enjoyed this rather macabre fancy with all the zest of
healthful youth, secure in the conviction of its own immortality.
"Yes, yes, life's ever so much harder than death."

Page dissented with a grave irony from the romantic exaggeration
of this generalization. "I don't suppose the statistics as to the
relative difficulty of life and death are really very reliable."

Sylvia perceived that she was being, ever so delicately, laughed at,
and tried to turn her remark so that she could carry it off. "Oh, I
don't mean for those who die, but those who are left know something
about it, I imagine. My mother always said that the encou