Une nuit blanche—and the young seem less able to withstand its corroding alchemy than the old. It had left its terrible and pallid mark on Desboro; and on Jacqueline it had set its phantom sign. That youthfully flushed and bright-eyed loveliness which always characterised the girl had whitened to ashes over night.
And now, as she entered the sunny breakfast room in her delicate Chinese morning robes, the change in her was startlingly apparent; for the dead-gold lustre of her hair accented the pallor of a new and strange and transparent beauty; the eyes, tinted by the deeper shadows under them, looked larger and more violet; and she seemed smaller and more slender; and there was a snowy quality to the skin that made the vivid lips appear painted.
Desboro came forward from the recess of the window; and whether in his haggard and altered features she read of his long night's vigil, or whether in his eyes she learned again how she herself had changed, was not plain to either of them; but her eyes suddenly filled and she turned sharply and stood with the back of one slender hand across her eyes.
Neither had spoken; neither spoke for a full minute. Then she walked to the window and looked out. The mating sparrows were very noisy.
Not a tear fell; she touched her eyes with a bit of lace, drew a long, deep, steady breath and turned toward him.
"It is all over—forgive me, Jim. I did not mean to greet you this way. I won't do it again——"
She offered her hand with a faint smile, and he lifted it and touched it to his lips.
"It's all over, all ended," she repeated. "Such a curious phenomenon happened to me at sunrise this morning."
"What?"
"I was born," she said, laughing. "Isn't it odd to be born at my age? So as soon as I realised what had happened, I went and looked out of the window; and there was the world, Jim—a big, round, wonderful planet, all over hills and trees and valleys and brooks! I don't know how I recognised it, having just been born into it, but somehow I did. And I knew the sun, too, the minute I saw it shining on my window and felt it on my face and throat. Isn't that a wonderful way to begin life?"