gh? But you are wrong; she is in love with him now as much as she
ever can be with anybody."

"You mean--"

"Yes I do. Hadn't you suspected it?"

And as Sylvia had suspected it she remained silent.

"If any woman in this world could keep him to the mark, she could,"
continued Mrs. Ferrall. "He's a perfect fool not to see how she cares
for him."

Sylvia said: "He is indeed."

"It would be a sensible match, if she cared to risk it, and if he would
only ask her. But he won't."

"Perhaps," ventured Sylvia, "she'll ask him. She strikes me as that
sort. I do not mean it unkindly--only Marion is so tailor-made and
cigaretteful--"

Mrs. Ferrall looked up at her.

"Did he propose to you?"

"Yes--I think so."

"Then it's the first time for him. He finds women only too willing to
play with him as a rule, and he doesn't have to be definite. I wonder
what he meant by being so definite with you?"

"I suppose he meant marriage," said Sylvia serenely; yet there was the
slightest ring in her voice; and it amused Mrs. Ferrall to try her a
little further.

"Oh, you think he really intended to commit himself?"

"Why not?" retorted Sylvia, turning red. "Do you think he found me
over-willing, as you say he finds others?"

"You were probably a new sensation for him," inferred Mrs. Ferrall
musingly. "You mustn't take him seriously, child--a man with his
record. Besides, he has the same facility with a girl that he has with
everything else he tries; his pen--you know how infernally clever he is;
and he can make good verse, and write witty jingles, and he can carry
home with him any opera and play it decently, too, with the proper
harmonies. Anything he finds amusing he is clever with--dogs, horses,
pen, brush, music, women"--that was too malicious, for Sylvia had
flushed up painfully, and Grace Ferrall dropped her gloved hand on the
hand of the girl beside her: "Child, child," she said, "he is not that
sort; no decent man ever is unless the girl is too."

Sylvia, sitting up very straight in her furs, said: "He found me
anything but difficult--if that's what you mean."

"I don't. Please don't be vexed, dear. I plague everybody when I see an
opening. There's really only one thing that worries me about it all."

"What is that?" asked Sylvia without interest.

"It's that you might be tempted to care a little for him, which, being
useless, might be unwise."

"I am ... tempted."

"Not seriously!"

"I don't know." She tu