And thus passed the summer that she had planned for rest. November found her making plans for winter. Her last winter’s work had been sent to her, one volume with its new illustrations, and the other, with but one new picture; her father had looked forward to them; she sent copies to Elsie, Mabel, and Sue, also to Felix Harrison and Mr. Hammerton; Miss Jewett and Mrs. Towne made pretty and loving speeches over theirs; Tessa wondered, why, when she had written them with all her heart, they should seem so little to her now.
“Where is your novel, Lady Blue,” Mr. Hammerton, asked one evening.
“I think that I shall live it first,” she answered, seriously. “I couldn’t love my ideal well enough to put him into a book, and the real hero would only be lovable and commonplace, and no one would care to read about him—no one would care for him but me.”
“It must be something of an experience to learn that one’s ideal can not be loved, and rather humiliating to find one’s self in love with some one below one’s standard.”
“That’s what life is for,—to have an experience, isn’t it?”
“It seems to be some people’s experience,” he said, looking as wise as an owl, and as unsympathetic.
November found Sue making plans, also. Her plans came out in this wise: she called one morning to talk to Tessa; Tessa was sewing in her own chamber, and Sue ran up lightly, as lightly as in the days before Gerald Lake had come to Dunellen.
“Busy!” she said blithely, her flowing crape veil fluttering at the door.
“Not too busy. Come in.”
Sue talked for an hour with her gloves on, then, carelessly, as she described some pretty thing that the Professor’s wife had brought from over the sea, she drew the glove from her left hand, watching Tessa’s face. The quick color—the quick, indignant color—repaid the manœuvre; the wedding ring—the new wedding ring—was gone, and in its stead blazed a cluster of diamonds.