_Oughtn't_ she?"

"Er--theoretically, Miss O'Shaughnessy, she _ought_!"

"Very well, then. I am proud that I _am_, and so ought you to be, too.
... It's strange how I'm misunderstood! My family say the same thing--
Esmeralda, Geoffrey, Stanor himself, and it hurts, for no one before has
ever doubted if I could love..." She was silent for a minute, twisting
her fingers together in restless fashion, then looking suddenly into his
face she asked: "What do you know about it to be so sure? Have _you_
ever been in love?"

Stephen flushed.

"Never. No. I was--My accident cut me off from all such things."

"What a pity! She would have helped you through." She smiled into his
eyes with a beautiful sweetness. "Well, Mr Glynn, if I am too
reasonable to please you, perhaps Stanor will make up for it. You
mayn't find it so easy to influence _him_."

"I'm sure of that. I look forward to a stiff time, but if you are on my
side we shall bring him round. Now perhaps I had better continue my way
to the house and see Mrs Hilliard. This is pre-eminently your
business, as you say, but still--"

"She'll expect it! Yes--" Pixie rose to her feet with an air of
depression--"and she'll _crow_! They'll _all_ crow! It's what they
wanted, and when you come and lay down an ultimatum, they'll rejoice and
triumph." Her small face assumed an aspect of acute dejection. "That's
the worst of being the youngest. ... It's a trying thing when your
family insist on sitting in committees about your own affairs, when you
understand them so much better yourself. I'm not even supposed to
understand the feelings of my own heart without a sister to translate
them for me. Shouldn't you think, now, a girl of twenty--nearly
twenty-one--is old enough to know that?"

"I don't think it is a foregone conclusion. More things than years go
to the formation of character, Miss O'Shaughnessy, and if you will allow
me to say so, you seem to me very young for your age."

"_I_ always was," sighed Pixie sadly. "They've said that all my life.
Some people always _are_ young, and some are old. There was a girl at
school, middle-aged at thirteen, poor creature, and had been from her
birth. My sister Bridgie will never be more than seventeen if she lives
to a hundred, and I mean myself to stick at twenty. It doesn't mean
trying to look younger than you are, or being ashamed of your age, and
silly, and frivolous: it's just keeping your _heart_ young!