h Pink. But, although she knew he was suffering, his
quietness deceived her. She had the theory of youth about love, that it
was a violent thing, tempestuous and passionate. She thought that love
demanded, not knowing that love gives first, and then asks. She could
not know how he felt about his love for her, that it lay in a sort of
cathedral shrine in his heart. There were holy days when saints left
their niches and were shown in city streets, but until that holy day
came they remained in the church.

"You will remember that, won't you?"

"I'll remember, Willy."

"I won't be a nuisance, you know. I've never had any hope, so I won't
make you unhappy. And don't be unhappy about me, Lily. I would rather
love you, even knowing I can't have you, than be loved by anybody else."

Perhaps, had he shown more hurt, he would have made it seem more real to
her. But he was frightfully anxious not to cause her pain.

"I'm really very happy, loving you," he added, and smiled down at her
reassuringly. But he had for all that a wild primitive impulse which
almost overcame him for a moment, to pick her up in his arms and carry
her out the door and away with him. Somewhere, anywhere. Away from that
grim old house, and that despotic little man, to liberty and happiness
and--William Wallace Cameron.

Ellen came in, divided between uneasiness and delight, and inquired
painstakingly about his mother, and his uncle in California, and the
Presbyterian minister. But she was uncomfortable and uneasy and refused
to sit down, and Willy watched her furtively slipping out again with a
slight frown. It was not right, somehow, this dividing of the world into
classes, those who served and those who were served. But he had an idea
that it was those below who made the distinction, nowadays. It was the
masses who insisted on isolating the classes. They made kings, perhaps
that they might some day reach up and pull them off their thrones. At
the top of the stairs Ellen found Mademoiselle, who fixed her with cold
eyes.

"What were you doing down there," she demanded.

"Miss Lily sent for me, to see that young man I told you about."

"How dare you go down? And into the library?"

"I've just told you," said Ellen, her face setting. "She sent for me."

"Why didn't you say you were in bed?"

"I'm no liar, Mademoiselle. Besides, I guess it's no crime to see a boy
I've known all his life, and his mother and me like sisters."

"You are a fool," sai