There was in her voice that soft, almost awed note with which an
unengaged girl regards a companion who has actually plighted her troth.
Cecil softened at the sound.

"Well--I suppose we are. Between ourselves. It's not public yet, but I
think it soon will be. Half a dozen years ago I should have been sure,
but I know better now. You can never be sure! Men are such brutes.
They think of nothing but themselves, and their own amusement."

"Some men!"

"Most men! Of course, every girl who falls in love thinks her own
particular man is the exception, and believes in him blindly until she
gets her heart broken for her pains. I believed in a man, too, years
ago, when I was not much older than you are now."

She paused, as though waiting for comment, but Claire sat silent,
listening with grave, tender eyes.

Cecil sent her a flickering smile.

"You are a nice child, Claire; you have some sense! I'll tell you,
because you never pried or asked questions. You would never have got
anything out of me that way, but sometimes I feel as if it would be a
relief to talk. I was twenty-three, and very pretty; not as pretty as
you are, perhaps, but very nearly, and he was twenty-eight, a lawyer--
brother of one of the girls. He came to one of the prize-givings, and
we were introduced. After that he made his people invite me once or
twice, and he found out where I was going in the summer holidays, and
came down to the same inn. He stayed a fortnight." Cecil sighed, and
stared dreamily at her cup. "Even now, Claire, after all that has
happened, I can never quite make up my mind to be sorry that he came.
It made things harder when the parting came, but I _had had it_. For
two whole weeks I had been as perfectly, blissfully happy as a human
creature can be! I had wakened every morning to feel that life was too
good to be true, I had gone to bed every night grudging the time for
sleep. A fortnight is not very long, but it's not every woman who gets
even as much as that. I shall never feel that happiness again, but I'm
glad that I know what it is like."

"But, Cecil dear, if--if Major Carew--"

Cecil shook her head.

"No! Never again. One may be happy enough, but it's never the same. I
can't feel now as I did then. The power has gone. I cared so much, you
see; I would have given my life for him a dozen times over. I thought
of him night and day for over a year; I lived for the times when we
could meet. It