t manner toward each other, except
that it is so kindly solicitous. There are no little bits of confidence
or tenderness in private, as there used to be, indeed, they are so
seldom alone. He seems to leave her with Eugene and Polly, as they have
all come to call her by way of endearment, and there is something
wonderfully fascinating about these young people; they make love
unblushingly; they can pick a quarrel out of the eye of a needle just
for the purpose of reconciliation, it would seem, and they make up with
such a prodigal intensity of sweetness; Polly strays down the walk to
meet him or fidgets if he stays a moment longer than usual; Eugene
hunts the house and grounds over to find her just to say a last good-by
for an hour or two. Violet suspects at times that Polly runs away for
the pleasure of being found. He puts flowers in her hair, and she pins
a nosegay at his lapel, she scents his handkerchief with her own choice
extract, and argues on its superiority and Frenchiness. They take
rides; her father has bought her a beautiful saddle horse, and they
generously insist that Violet shall accompany them because Floyd is
always busy. It may be foolish, but it is very sweet, and Violet's
heart aches with a pain thrust out of sight, for the heart of eighteen
has not yet learned to despise sweetness. The level, empty years
stretch out so interminably.

She has tried to comfort herself with the sorrows of others as a
medicine. Lucia Brade, who has carried her preference for Eugene so
openly, must be secretly brokenhearted, she thinks, and she looks for
heavy eyes and a smileless face. But no, while there was hope Lucia
waited; now that he is gone irrevocably, she bestirs herself instead of
donning sackcloth. She is twenty, and of the eligibles about she must
select a husband; so she no longer snubs the young men, but makes
herself amiable and seductive, is always going or having company. There
is no grave buried in her heart, only a rather mortifying sense of
failure that she will eradicate as soon as possible.

Even Eugene seems to recover from the passion she feared would blight
his life. She is sincerely glad, and yet--is _she_ incapable of
inspiring a lasting regard? Is there some fatal lack in her? Gertrude
is delightfully pleasant, but she misses some old grace in her. It is
her husband who has taken possession of the empty soul and filled it to
the exclusion of others. What the professor says and does and thinks