CHAPTER XII.
SYLVIA JACKSON.
"Marry? Why should I? I am perfectly happy as I am. My father dotes on me and gives me everything I ask for. I know at least a score of men who regard me as the last thing in feminine perfection. I am perfectly content to remain as I am."
Sylvia Jackson, fair haired, ethereal, as Desmond O'Connor had described her, with large, rather sleepy, blue eyes, looked at Kathleen O'Connor in surprise.
"But you may fall in love," suggested Kathleen.
"Love? I really don't know what it means. I have always liked to have a few men about me and know that they will do whatever I ask, even to destroying themselves. But the passion is on their side."
The two girls were sitting in Kathleen's room, in evening dress, as they had come from the annual club ball in Grey Town. There was a fire in the grate, a lamp in a corner of the room was lighted and half turned up, but it shed a very subdued light on the room.
Kathleen remembered that Desmond had done his utmost at the ball to monopolise Sylvia Jackson, that they had disappeared for a considerable portion of the evening. She could still see her brother's flushed face and sparkling eyes as he returned from some dark corner with Sylvia on his arm. She had hoped to hear an avowal of love from Mrs. Quirk's guest.
"I fancied——," she began in a disappointed voice.