[Illustration: "Tall, transparently pale, negative in character.">[
His father glanced up over his spectacles, and he hesitated; then, as his father resumed his reading:
"I don't mean Stephanie, mother."
His father laid aside his book and removed, the thin gold-rimmed spectacles.
"I understand from Lily that we are to be prepared to receive Stephanie
Swift as your affianced wife," he said. "I shall be gratified. Stephen
Swift was my oldest friend."
"Lily was mistaken, father. Stephanie and I are merely very good friends. I have no idea of asking her to marry me."
"I had been given to understand otherwise, Louis. I am disappointed."
Louis Neville looked out of the window, considering, yet conscious of the hopelessness of it all.
"Who is this girl, Louis?" asked his mother, pulling the white-and-lilac wool shawl closer around her thin shoulders.
"Her name is Valerie West."