"What was it?" asked her companion. "Did you see a vision?"
"Maybe," said Sylvia. "Hush! The music is beginning."
All the rest of the evening she half hoped Phil would seek her out in the box but he had not come. And the next night had been the one when she had discovered Porter Robinson was a beast and an hour later had found herself rather unexpectedly engaged to Jack Amidon.
As for Phil, his will tugged at its moorings that night. He, too, had been moved by the music, and even more by the challenge of Sylvia's eyes. He had telephoned her the next day to try to make an engagement with her for the evening but Sylvia was submerged with engagements, had a tea, a dinner, a theater party, and so forth, already on hand, and her voice over the telephone was as cool and remote as a mountain stream. She even forgot to tell him she was leaving the city the next day. Sylvia's pride in its way matched Phil's own.
And so instead of spending the evening with Sylvia, Phil had dropped in to see Barbara, which is where this chapter really began.
He was certainly anything but good company that night. He sat somberly looking into the fire, answering Barb's casual chatter with brief absent-minded monosyllables. Barb, watching out of the corner of her eye, and with the sure intuition that love teaches, guessed the source of his gloom. She forgot all about her own hurt in sorrow for his and longed with all the mother in her to comfort him. Suddenly the silence which had fallen became intolerable, the weight of the unspoken thing too heavy to be endured another minute. So out of a clear sky Barb dropped a bomb.
"Phil, why don't you ask Sylvia to marry you?"
Phil jumped and stared and frowned.
"Reason's sufficiently obvious I should say. The gown and the furs and the pearls she had on last night probably cost more than my year's income."
"What of it? Gowns and furs and pearls aren't important. There are things that Sylvia cares much more about."