that
evening? It would seem that must have been the case. Yet the recognition
of that fact didn't bring her in the smallest degree nearer the solution
of the riddle. Again, who on earth was it? What social inferior was
there, could there possibly be, at Woodleigh, to cause Pia a moment's
trouble? Every preconceived notion on Trix's part, including the colour
of the soap-bubble, vanished into thin air, and left her contemplating an
inexplicable mystery.

Whatever it was, it had affected Pia pretty deeply. It was absurd for her
to say the incident was closed. Externally it might be, in the matter of
not referring to it again. Interiorly it had left a wound, and one which
was very far from being easily healed, to judge by Pia's letter. It had
not been written by Pia at all, but by a very bitter woman, who had
merely a superficial likeness to Pia. That fact, and that fact alone,
caused Trix to imagine that she had been right when she told Tibby--if
not in so many words, at least virtually speaking--that love had come
into Pia's life. Love embittered alone could have inflicted the wound she
felt Pia to be enduring. And yet the wording of her letter would appear
to put that surmise out of the question. Truly it was an insolvable
riddle.

Once more she re-read the letter, but it didn't help her in the smallest
degree. There was only one small ounce of comfort in it. It wasn't Doctor
Hilary who had caused the wound. Pia had merely tried to pick a quarrel
with him, as she had frequently tried to pick one with herself and Tibby,
because she was unhappy. If only Trix knew what had caused the
unhappiness. And Pia thought she did know. If she wrote and told her now
that she hadn't the smallest conception of what she was talking about, it
would in all probability rouse conjectures in Pia's mind as to what Trix
_had_ thought. That, having in view her promise, had certainly better be
avoided.

Should she, then, ignore Pia's letter, or should she reply to it? She
weighed the pros and cons of this question for the next ten minutes, and
finally decided she would write, and at once.

Returning, therefore, to the hotel, she indited the following brief
missive:

"My dear Pia,--

"The incident is closed so far as I am concerned. But I don't mean to
give up seeking my pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. I dare say most
people would call it an imaginary quest. Well then, I like an imaginary
quest. It helps to make me forget much th