To Vivian, sitting now on a hassock at the lady's feet and looking up at her with adoring eyes, she was indeed a star, a saint, a cloud of mystery.
She reached out a soft hand, white, slender, delicately kept, wearing one thin gold ring, and stroked the girl's smooth hair. Vivian seized the hand and kissed it, blushing as she did so.
"You foolish child! Don't waste your young affection on an old lady like me."
"Old! You! You don't look as old as I do this minute!" said the girl with hushed intensity.
"Life wears on you, I'm afraid, my dear.... Do you ever hear from him?"
To no one else, not even to Susie, could Vivian speak of what now seemed the tragedy of her lost youth.
"No," said she. "Never now. He did write once or twice—at first."
"He writes to his aunt, of course?"
"Yes," said Vivian. "But not often. And he never—says anything."
"I understand. Poor child! You must be true, and wait." And the lady turned the thin ring on her finger. Vivian watched her in a passion of admiring tenderness.