er father's elbow. Her adoration of him had stood between her and
experience. She knew nothing of humanity except Marcus Arundel. And he
was hardly typical--a shy, proud, head-in-the-air sort of man, who would
have been greatly loved if he had not shrunk morbidly from human
contacts. Sheila's Irish mother had wooed and won him and had made a
merry midsummer madness in his life, as brief as a dream. Sheila was all
that remained of it. But, for all her quietness, the shadow of his
broken heart upon her spirit, she was a Puck. She could make laughter
and mischief for him and for herself--not for any one else yet; she was
too shy. But that might come. Only, Puck laughter is a little unearthly,
a little delicate. The ear of Millings might not be attuned.... Just
now, Sheila felt that she would never laugh again. Sylvester's humor
certainly did not move her. She almost choked trying to swallow
becomingly the mother-in-law anecdote.

But Sylvester's talk, his questions, even his jokes, were not what most
oppressed her. Sometimes, looking up, she would find him staring at her
over the top of his newspaper as though he were speculating about
something, weighing her, judging her by some inner measurement. It was
rather like the way her father had looked a model over to see if she
would fit his dream.

At such moments Sylvester's small brown eyes were the eyes of an
artist, of a visionary. They embarrassed her painfully. What was it,
after all, that he expected of her? For an expectation of some kind he
most certainly had, and it could hardly have to do with her skill in
washing dishes.

She asked him a few small questions as they drew near to Millings. The
strangeness of the country they were now running through excited her and
fired her courage--these orange-colored cliffs, these purple buttes,
these strange twisting canons with their fierce green streams.

"Please tell me about Mrs. Hudson and your daughters?" she asked.

This was a few hours before they were to come to Millings. They had
changed trains at a big, bare, glaring city several hours before and
were now in a small, gritty car with imitation-leather seats. They were
running through a gorge, and below and ahead Sheila could see the brown
plain with its patches of snow and, like a large group of red toy
houses, the town of Millings, far away but astonishingly distinct in the
clear air.

Sylvester, considering her question, turned his emerald slowly.

"The girls