etaliation which she had the power to
use. But all had not happened as she expected; for something called Love
had been conceived in her very slowly, and was now being born, and sent,
trembling for its timid life, into the world.

She closed her eyes with weariness, and pressed her hands to her
temples.

She wondered why she could not be all evil or all good. She spoke and
acted against Ruth Devlin, and yet she pitied her. She had the nettle to
sting Roscoe to death, and yet she hesitated to use it. She had said to
herself that she would wait till the happiest moment of his life, and
then do so. Well, his happiest moment had come. Ruth Devlin's heart was
all out, all blossomed--beside Mrs. Falchion's like some wild flower
to the aloe.... Only now she had come to know that she had a heart.
Something had chilled her at her birth, and when her mother died, a
stranger's kiss closed up all the ways to love, and left her an icicle.
She was twenty-eight years old, and yet she had never kissed a face
in joy or to give joy. And now, when she had come to know herself, and
understand what others understand when they are little children in
their mother's arms, she had to bow to the spirit that denies. She drew
herself up with a quiver of the body.

"O God!" she said, "do I hate him or love him!" Her head dropped in her
hands. She sat regardless of time, now scarcely stirring, desperately
quiet. The door opened softly and Justine entered. "Madame," she said,
"pardon me; I am so sorry, but Miss Devlin has come to see you, and I
thought--"

"You thought, Justine, that I would see her." There was unmistakable
irony in her voice. "Very well.... Show her in."

She rose, stretched out her arms as if to free herself of a burden,
smoothed her hair, composed herself, and waited, the afternoon sun just
falling across her burnished shoes, giving her feet of gold. She chanced
to look down at them. A strange memory came to her: words that she
had heard Roscoe read in church. The thing was almost grotesque in its
association. "How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who
bringeth glad tidings, who publisheth peace!"

Ruth Devlin entered, saying, "I have come, to ask you if you will dine
with us next Monday evening?"

Then she explained the occasion of the dinner party, and said: "You see,
though it is formal, I am asking our guests informally;" and she added
as neutrally and as lightly as she could--"Mr. Roscoe and Dr. Marmion