"If I lose her," he said to himself, "I must remember that—of course I ought to. King Cophetua and the beggar maid makes a very pretty story—but it doesn't sound so well the other way around. And then she's given me such a tremendous amount already—if I never get any more, I must be thankful for that."
Sally spent a rapturous week in New York, and came home with her modest trousseau all bought and glowing accounts of the good times she had had.
"The very first thing Sylvia did, the morning after we got there," she said, "was to buy a new limousine and hire a man to run it. My, you ought to see it! It's lined with pearl gray, and Sylvia keeps a gold vase with orchids—fresh ones every day—in it! She helped me choose all my things, and I never could have got half so much for my money, or had half such pretty things if she hadn't; and she began right off to get the most elegant clothes for herself, too! I knew Sylvia was pretty, but I never knew how pretty until I saw her in a low-necked white dress! We went to the theatre almost every evening, and saw all the sights, besides—it didn't take long to get around in that automobile, I can tell you! Perfect rafts of people kept coming to see her all the time, telling her how glad they were to see her back, and teasing her to do things with them. I bet she'll get married again in no time—there were dozens of men, all awfully rich and attractive and apparently just crazy about her! We went out twice to lunch, and once to dinner, at the grandest houses I ever even imagined, and every one was lovely to me, too, but of course it was only Sylvia they really cared about. I was about wild, I got so excited, but it didn't make any more impression on Sylvia than water rolling off a duck's back—she didn't seem the least bit different from when she was here, helping mother wash the supper dishes, and teaching Austin French. She took it all as a matter of course. I guess we didn't any of us realize how important she was."
"I did," said Austin.
"You!" exclaimed his sister, with withering scorn. "You've never been even civil to her, much less respectful or attentive! If you could see the way other men treat her—"
"I don't want to," said Austin, with more truth than his sister guessed.
A young, lovely, and agreeable widow, with a great deal of money, and no "impediments" in the way of either parents or children, is apt to find life made extremely pleasant for her by her friends; and every one felt, moreover, that "Sylvia had behaved so very well." For two months after her husband's death, she had lived in the greatest seclusion, too ill, too disillusioned and horror-stricken, too shattered in body and soul—as they all knew only too well—to see even her dearest friends. Then she had gone to the country, remaining there quietly for a year, regaining her health and spirits, and had now returned to her uncle's home, lightening her mourning, going out a little, taking up her old interests again one by one—a fitting and dignified prelude for a new establishment of her own. She could not help being pleased and gratified at the warmth of her reception; and she found, as Austin had predicted, that "New York looked pretty good to her." It is doubtful whether the taste for luxury, once acquired, is ever wholly lost, even though it may be temporarily cast aside; and Sylvia was too young and too human, as well as too healthy and happy again, not to enjoy herself very much, indeed.
For nearly a month she found each day so full and so delightful as it came, that she had no time to be lonely, and no thought of going away; but gradually she came to a realization of the fact that the days were too full; that there were no opportunities for resting and reading and "thinking things over"; that the quiet little dinners and luncheons of four and six, given in her honor, were gradually but surely becoming larger, more formal and more elaborate; that her circle of callers was no longer confined to her most intimate friends; that her telephone rang in and out of season; that the city was growing hot and dusty and tawdry, and that she herself was getting tired and nervous again. And when she waked one morning at eleven o'clock, after being up most of the night before, her head aching, her whole being weary and confused, it needed neither the insistent and disagreeable memory of a little incident of the previous evening, nor the letter from Austin that her maid brought in on her breakfast-tray, to make her realize that the tinsel of her gayety was getting tarnished.
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DEAREST (the letter ran):