Something wet and glistening fell on her chiffon dress. She hastily wiped it away and stared in amazement.
"Getting sentimental at my age?" she inquired in stupefaction. "Here, Estelle Hadwell, don't be a fool! You've got everything you ever wanted and you're ten times happier than anyone else you know. Think of your dresses and your jewelry and your friends and your—n-n-no, I don't know that you need think of him—not just now, at all events! But think of"—
She looked up, up the long, broad stairway, up to the big, quiet nursery. Then she smiled and tossed her head.
"I have everything, practically everything," she said, defiantly. "Everything but a sentimental experience which disappears, anyway, after six months of married life. I'm a fool, that's what I am! a discontented, ungrateful fool. The trouble with me is that I've got too much. If only—if only one of them doesn't"——
A spasm of agony crossed her face at the unwelcome thought; then she resolutely crossed the hall and opened an animated conversation with one of her numerous admirers. Lack of self-control was not one of the pretty Titania's failings.
Presently Lynn Thayer joined her, looking grave and perplexed. "May I have Mrs. Hadwell to myself for a few moments?" she asked, smiling in a rather forced way: then, putting her hand on Mrs. Hadwell's arm, she drew her aside.
"Del," she said in a low voice, "you know I am no prude and I don't make a fuss, unnecessarily, about anything; but I tell you plainly that you must speak to those young connections of yours."
"Why, what have the poor things been doing?" asked Mrs. Hadwell in amazement. "I noticed that they were awfully lively but, surely, at their age"—
"My dear Del, their conduct is outrageous. Particularly Bertie's. After all, if a boy of twenty chooses to act like a fool he simply gets severely snubbed and, in time, comes to his senses and is forgiven. But when a girl of the same age, a girl who has had every advantage, starts to act in her uncle's house like an extremely fast barmaid, why, you know as well as I do that it won't be forgotten in a hurry. What has got into them to-night I don't know; but the whole room is talking of their actions. Imagine Bertie asking that shy little recluse of a Simcoe to kiss her and pretending to weep when he hesitated"——
"Lynn!"