much for helping, as for having a good time for myself, that I
started on this trip. Bridgie said I'd been domestic long enough, and
needed to play for a change, and there's a well of something bubbling up
inside me that longs, simply _longs_, for a vent. Of course, if one
could combine the two..."

Joan Hilliard looked silently into the girl's bright face and made a
mental comparison. She thought of the round of change and amusement
which constituted her own life, and then of the little house in the
northern city in which Pixie's last years had been spent; of the
monotonous, if happy, round of duties, every day the same, from year's
end to year's end, of the shortage of means, of friends, of
opportunities, and a wave of compunction overwhelmed her. Esmeralda
never did things by halves; neither had she any false shame about
confessing her faults.

"I'm a selfish brute," she announced bluntly. "I deserve to be
punished. If I go on like this I _shall_ be some day! I'm always
thinking of myself, when I'm not in a temper with some one else. It's
an awful thing, Pixie, to be born into the world with a temper. And
now, Geoff has inherited it from me." She sighed, shook the reins, and
brightened resolutely. "Never mind, you _shall_ have a good time,
darling! There's a girl staying in the house now--you'll like her--and
two young men, and lots of people coming in and out."

Pixie heaved a sigh of beatific content.

"To-night? At once? That's what I love--to tumble pell-mell into a
whirl of dissipation. I never could bear to wait. I'm pining to see
Geoffrey and the boys, and all your wonderful new possessions. You must
be happy, Esmeralda, to have so much, and be so well, and pretty, and
rich. Aren't you just burstingly happy?"

Joan did not answer. She stared ahead over the horse's head with a
strange, rapt look in the wonderful eyes. An artist would have loved to
paint her at that moment, but it would not have been as a type of
happiness. The expression spoke rather of struggle, of restlessness,
and want--a spiritual want which lay ever at the back of the excitement
and glamour, clamouring to be filled.

Pixie looked at her sister, just once, and then averted her eyes. Hers
was the understanding which springs from love, and she realised that her
simple question had struck a tender spot. Instead of waiting for an
answer she switched the conversation to ordinary, impersonal topics, and
kept it there