"What would you do, Pauline?" pleaded Gladys. "There must be some reason why he doesn't speak. It isn't fair to me—it isn't fair! I could stand anything—even giving him up—better than this uncertainty. It's—it's breaking my heart—I who thought I didn't have a heart."
"No, it isn't fair," said Pauline, to herself rather than to Gladys.
"I suppose you don't sympathize with me," Gladys went on. "I know you don't like him. I've noticed how strained and distant you are toward each other. And you seem to avoid each other. And he'll never talk of you to me. Did you have some sort of misunderstanding at college?"
"Yes," said Pauline, slowly. "A—a misunderstanding."
"And you both remember it, after all these years?"
"Yes," said Pauline.
"How relentless you are," said Gladys, "and how tenacious!" But she was too intent upon her own affairs to pursue a subject which seemed to lead away from them. Presently she rose.
"I'll be ashamed of having confessed when I see you in daylight. But I don't care. I shan't be sorry. I feel a little better. After all, why should I be ashamed of any one knowing I care for him?" And she sighed, laughed, went into the house, whistling softly—sad, depressed, but hopeful, feeling deep down that she surely must win where she had never known what it was to lose.
Pauline looked after her. "No, it isn't fair," she repeated. She stayed on the veranda, walking slowly to and fro not to make up her mind, for she had done that while Gladys was confessing, but to decide how she could best accomplish what she saw she must now no longer delay. It was not until two hours later that she went up to bed.
When Gladys came down at nine the next morning Pauline had just gone out—"I think, Miss Gladys, she told the coachman to drive to her father's," said the butler.