d be nice. When people had nothing but
their self-esteem left them, no attractions, no courage, no health,
she'd just sit down beside them and make their self-esteem happy and
comfortable.

She needn't have been anything but young and gay and triumphant, but she
never shirked anybody else's pain. He had puzzled over her a good deal
because, as far as he could see, she hadn't the ordinary rules belonging
to good people--about church, and not playing cards for money, and
pulling people up. It wasn't right and wrong she was thinking of most;
it was other people's feelings.

He tried not to love her like that, because it made it worse. It was
like loving God and Peter; it mixed him all up.

He couldn't see straight because everything he saw turned into love of
her, and being with her seemed like being good; and it wasn't, of
course, if he concealed things.

The icy blue rink turned slowly into gold before he had quite made up
his mind what to do. Making up his mind had a good deal to do with
Lionel, so that he felt fairly safe about it. It was going to hurt
horribly, but if it only hurt him, it couldn't be said to matter. You
couldn't have a safe plan that didn't hurt somebody, and as long as it
didn't hurt the person it was made for, it could be counted a success.

Davos began to descend upon the rink, first the best skaters--Swedes,
Russians, and Germans--and then all the world. The speed-skaters stood
about in heavy fur coats down to their feet.

Claire came down surrounded by admirers. Winn heard her laugh before he
saw her, and after he had seen her he saw nothing else. She looked like
one of the fir-trees when the sun had caught it; she seemed aflame with
a quite peculiar radiance and joy. She flew toward Winn, imitating the
speed-skaters with one long swift stride of her skates.

"Ah," she cried, "isn't it a jolly morning? Isn't everything heavenly?
Aren't you glad you are alive?"

That was the kind of mood she was in. It was quite superfluous to ask if
she was nervous. She was just about as nervous as the sun was when it
ran over the mountains.

"There doesn't seem to be much the matter with you this morning," said
Winn, eying her thoughtfully.

The rink cleared at eleven and the band began to play.

The judges sat in different quarters of the rink so as to get the best
all-around impression of the skating. The audience, muffled up in furs,
crowded half-way up the valley, as if it were a gigantic amphit