ssession she could test the lovingness of the welcome
that awaited her by becoming intimately acquainted with it. Marian
answered the letter immediately. She said that she was planning to come
very soon to test that welcome. She longed for the quiet of the valley,
for its cool, clean, wild air. She was very tired; she needed rest. She
thought she would love the new home they were offering her. Then came
two amazing paragraphs.

The other day Dana and I went into one of the big cafes in the city to
treat ourselves to a taste of the entertainment with which the people
of wealth regale themselves. We had wandered in laughingly jesting about
what we should order, and ran into Eileen in the company of her aunt and
uncle and a very flashy and loudly dressed young man, evidently a new
suitor of Eileen's. I don't think Eileen wanted to introduce us, and yet
she acted like a person ravenous for news of her home and friends. She
did introduce us, and immediately her ponderous uncle took possession of
us. It seems that the man is a brother of Eileen's mother. Linda, he is
big and gross, he is everything that a man of nice perceptions would not
be, but he does love Eileen. He is trying conscientiously to please
her. His wife is the kind of person who would marry that kind of man and
think everything he said and did was right. And the suitor, my dear, was
the kind of man who could endure that kind of people. Eileen was almost,
if not quite, the loveliest thing I ever have seen. She was plain; she
was simple; but it was the costly simplicity of extravagance. Ye gods!
but she had pearls of the size she had always wanted. She tried with
all her might to be herself, but she knows me well enough to know what
I would think and what I would write to you concerning the conditions
under which I met her. We were simply forced to lunch with them. We
could only nibble at the too rich, too highly seasoned food set before
us. And I noticed that Eileen nibbled also. She is not going to grow fat
and waddle and redden her nose, but, my dear, back deep in her eyes and
in the curve of her lips and in the tone of her voice there were such
disappointment and discontent as I never have seen in any woman. She
could not suppress them; she could not conceal them. There was nothing
on earth she could do but sit quietly and endure. They delivered us at
our respective offices, leaving both of us dates on which to visit them,
but neither of us intends to call on