ke over her and the titles, and the way she is asked about. We
know she can't paint. We know they only give her commissions because
she's so young and pretty, and American. She amuses them, that's all.
Well, that cannot last; she'll find it out. She's too clever a girl,
and she is too fine a girl to be content with that long. Then--then
she'll come back to you. She feels now that she has both you and the
others, and she's making you wait; so wait and be cheerful. She's
worth waiting for; she's young, that's all. She'll see the difference
in time. But, in the meanwhile, it would hurry matters a bit if she
thought she had to choose between the new friends and you."

"She could still keep her friends and marry me," said Carroll; "I have
told her that a hundred times. She could still paint miniatures and
marry me. But she won't marry me."

"She won't marry you because she knows she can whenever she wants to,"
cried Marion. "Can't you see that? But if she thought you were going
to marry some one else now?"

"She would be the first to congratulate me," said Carroll. He rose and
walked to the fireplace, where he leaned with his arm on the mantel.
There was a photograph of Helen Cabot near his hand, and he turned
this toward him and stood for some time staring at it. "My dear
Marion," he said at last, "I've known Helen ever since she was as
young as that. Every year I've loved her more, and found new things in
her to care for; now I love her more than any other man ever loved any
other woman."

Miss Cavendish shook her head sympathetically.

"Yes, I know," she said; "that's the way Reggie loves me, too."

Carroll went on as though he had not heard her.

"There's a bench in St. James's Park," he said, "where we used to sit
when she first came here, when she didn't know so many people. We used
to go there in the morning and throw penny buns to the ducks. That's
been my amusement this summer since you've all been away--sitting on
that bench, feeding penny buns to the silly ducks--especially the
black one, the one she used to like best. And I make pilgrimages to
all the other places we ever visited together, and try to pretend she
is with me. And I support the crossing sweeper at Lansdowne Passage
because she once said she felt sorry for him. I do all the other
absurd things that a man in love tortures himself by doing. But to
what end? She knows how I care, and yet she won't see why we can't go
on being friends as we once