"One thing is certain; much as I love Gerald, nothing and nobody can ever be to me what Liol was and is. Is that very strange? am I entirely different to all other girls. How could any strange man, however dear, be as much in your life as a person like Liol, with whom your very heart-strings were entwined; who came when your heart was empty and filled it? My Lionel! my little brother! my last charge from my dead mother! Oh, if the years could only be wiped out and if I could see him again as he once was, the same sweet dear child, how happily I could die—yes, how happily I could give up everything—Gerald, everything. But—I must live; and Lionel is—oh, I can't say, I can't think what he is; and he is dying by inches; and there is only one other person in the world for whom I care, only one other person for whom I ever shall care but him; and I may have to give him up. If only Lionel didn't need me so; if only he didn't need all my money, all my thought, all my care—imagine my deserting him and starting to choose a trousseau. A trousseau! when any day he may need a shroud."
"A penny for your thoughts, Lynn."
Mrs. Hadwell had come up, unnoticed and was standing at Lynn's side.
"Did I startle you?" she asked, brightly. "You were looking straight in front of you like Cassandra or Joan of Arc or some other unpleasant historical character. What was it? Indigestion?"
"A fit of the blues, perhaps," said Lynn. "Don't mind me, Del. It was most ungrateful of me to cast a shade over the festivities and, to tell you the truth, I wasn't aware that I was doing it. Who has the highest score?"
"Erma Reed, so far. Isn't she a beauty? Lynn, what's the matter with you?"
"Nothing, silly!—that is, nothing much. You know we all get a little despondent at times."
"But not you, that is, not until lately. What has come over you?"
"Age, I suppose."
"If you don't want to confide in me, don't—"