"We can't blame you for preferring New York, when the Van Dams are so lovely to you," she said complacently. "But Ethel is delicate. Bermuda'll do her a world of good; though of course it's not fashionable.'"
"I'm sure you'll have a lovely trip," I said. "You must let me help you pack."
She was turning the house topsy-turvy in her zeal to sail by the next boat, the very next day. She succeeded; and when she left the house I left it, too; to come here; to the General; to a house that would two months ago have seemed a palace such as I could never dream of living in. It would suit me better to be independent, to be sometimes alone, to feel that I shouldn't have a shrewd woman's eyes so much upon me. But for the present—it is my refuge!
At Christmas I should have broken down and sobbed when I saw the last of the Bakers, instead of dropping honeyed sentences and undulating out of the room—like—like—. He called me once the Goddess glowing in her walk. I have changed this winter, mentally as well as physically.
CHAPTER II.
THE IRONY OF LIFE.
I've been feverishly gay since I came to Meg. I have walked between stormwinds—grief behind and grief that I must enter. I've dined and danced, and I've clenched my hands lest I might shriek, and I've longed to hide away and die.
But I won't die. I'm not like other women—a silly, whining pack, their hearts the same fluttering page blotted with the same tears wept in Hell or Heaven. Love is a draught for two—or one; wretched one!—to drink. My life is for the world.
Oh, I've been a child, caring only for the lights and the pretty things and the music; but I'm not blind now. I understand many things that were hidden from the plain girl from the West. I have lived a year in every day. I see as they are these people I have thought so kind. So rich I call them now; so smug, so socially jealous.