"Of course it's my meddling."

"Of course it isn't. I asked your opinion, but I knew what I was going to do. Only, I did think him personally possible--which made the expediency, the mercenary view of it easier to contemplate."

She was becoming as frankly brutal as she knew how to be, which made the revolt the more ominous.

"You don't think you could endure him for an hour or two a day, Sylvia?"

"It is not that," said the girl almost sullenly.

"But--"

"I'm afraid of myself--call it inherited mischief if you like! If I let a man do to me what Mr. Siward did when I was only engaged to Howard, what might I do--"

"You are not that sort!" said Mrs. Ferrall bluntly. "Don't be exotic, Sylvia."

"How do you know--if I don't know? Most girls are kissed; I--well I didn't expect to be. But I was! I tell you, Grace, I don't know what I am or shall be. I'm unsafe; I know that much."

"It's moral and honest to realize it," said Mrs. Ferrall suavely; "and in doing so you insure your own safety. Sylvia dear, I wish I hadn't meddled; I'm meddling some more I suppose when I say to you, don't give Howard his conge for the present. It is a horridly common thing to dwell upon, but Howard is too materially important to be cut adrift on the impulse of the moment."

"I know it."

"You are too clever not to. Consider the matter wisely, dispa.s.sionately, intelligently, dear; then if by April you simply can't stand it--talk the thing over with me again," she ended rather vaguely and wistfully; for it had been her heart's desire to wed Sylvia's beauty and Quarrier's fortune, and the suitability of the one for the other was apparent enough to make even sterner moralists wobbly in their creed. Quarrier, as a detail of modern human architecture, she supposed might fit in somewhere, and took that for granted in laying the corner stone for her fairy palace which Sylvia was to inhabit. And now!--oh, vexation!--the neglected but essentially constructive detail of human architecture had buckled, knocking the dream palace and its princess and its splendour about her ears.

"Things never happen in real life," she observed plaintively; "only romances have plots where things work out. But we people in real life, we just go on and on in a badly constructed, plotless sort of way with no villains, no interesting situations, no climaxes, no ensemble. No, we grow old and irritable and meaner and meaner; we lose our good looks and digestions, and we die in hopeless discord with the unity required in a dollar and a half novel by a master of modern fiction."

"But some among us ama.s.s fortunes," suggested Sylvia, laughing.

"But we don't live happy ever after. n.o.body ever had enough money in real life."

"Some fall in love," observed Sylvia, musing.

"And they are not content, silly!"

"Why? Because n.o.body ever had enough love in real life," mocked Sylvia.

"You have said it, child. That is the malady of the world, and n.o.body knows it until some pretty ninny like you babbles the truth. And that is why we care for those immortals in romance, those fortunate lovers who, in fable, are given and give enough of love; those magic shapes in verse and tale whose hearts are satisfied when the mad author of their being inks his last period and goes to dinner."

Sylvia laughed awhile, then, chin on wrist, sat musing there, m.u.f.fled in her furs.

"As for love, I think I should be moderate in the asking, in the giving.

A little--to flavour routine--would be sufficient for me I fancy."

"You know so much about it," observed Mrs. Ferrall ironically.

"I am permitted to speculate, am I not?"

"Certainly. Only speculate in sound investments, dear."

"How can you make a sound investment in love? Isn't it always sheerest speculation?"

"Yes, that is why simple matrimony is usually a safer speculation than love."

"Yes, but--love isn't matrimony."

"Match that with its complementary plat.i.tude and you have the essence of modern fiction," observed Mrs. Ferrall. "Love is a subject talked to death, which explains the present shortage in the market I suppose.

You're not in love and you don't miss it. Why cultivate an artificial taste for it? If it ever comes naturally, you'll be astonished at your capacity for it, and the constant deterioration in quant.i.ty and quality of the visible supply. Goodness! my epigrams make me yawn--or is it age and the ill humour of the aged when the porridge spills over on the family cat?"

"I am the cat, I suppose," asked Sylvia, laughing.

"Yes you are--and you go tearing away, back up, fur on end, leaving me by the fire with no porridge and only the aroma of the singeing fur to comfort me.

Still there's one thing to comfort me."

"What?"

"Kitty-cats come back, dear."

"Oh, I suppose so.

Do you believe I could induce him to wear his hair any way except pompadour?

and, dear, his beard is so dreadfully silky.

Isn't there anything he could take for it?"

"Only a razor I'm afraid. Those long, thick, soft, eyelashes of his are ominous. Eyes of that sort ruin a man for my taste. He might just as reasonably wear my hat."

"But he can't follow the fashions in eyes," laughed Sylvia. "Oh, this is atrocious of us--it is simply horrible to sit here and say such things.

I am cold-blooded enough as it is--material enough, mean, covetous, contemptible--"

"Dear!" said Grace Ferrall mildly, "you are not choosing a husband; you are choosing a career. To criticise his investments might be bad taste; to be able to extract what amus.e.m.e.nt you can out of Howard is a direct mercy from Heaven. Otherwise you'd go mad, you know."

"Grace! Do you wish me to marry him?"

"What is the alternative, dear?"

"Why, nothing--self-respect, dowdiness, and peace."

"Is that all?"

"All I can see."

"Not Stephen Siward?"

"To marry? No. To enjoy, yes.

Grace, I have had such a good time with him; you don't know! He is such a boy--sometimes; and I--I believe that I am rather good for him.

Not that I'd ever again let him do that sort of thing.

Besides, his curiosity is quenched; I am the sort he supposed. Now he's found out he will be nice.

It's been days since I've had a talk with him. He tried to, but I wouldn't. Besides, the major has said nasty things about him when Howard was present; nothing definite, only hints, smiling silences, innuendoes on the verge of matters rather unfit; and I had nothing definite to refute. I could not even appear to understand or notice--it was all done in such a horridly vague way. But it only made me like him; and no doubt that actress he took to the Patroons is better company than he finds in nine places out of ten among his own sort."

"Oh," said Grace Ferrall slowly, "if that is the way you feel, I don't see why you shouldn't play with Mr. Siward whenever you like."

"Nor I. I've been a perfect fool not to.