"Not for worlds, I assure you. He is a most beautiful creature, and I
admire him very much, though he is perhaps hardly the sort of man I
should have expected both you girls to rave about. And as for you, I
thought you were too good to rave about anybody! You are unlike yourself
this morning, and more like Doreen."

Queenie laughed again that satirical little laugh which made a man
wonder what her thoughts exactly were.

"You say that because you don't know anything about me. I don't talk
when Doreen is talking, because then nobody would listen to me. I could
talk, too, if anybody ever talked to me."

"But one sees so little of you," pleaded Dudley. "You are generally out
district-visiting, or busy for Mrs. Wedmore, so that one hasn't a chance
of knowing you well. And one has got an idea that you are too good to
waste your time in idle conversation with a mere man!"

"Good!" cried Queenie contemptuously. "There's nothing good about my
district-visiting. I like it, Doreen goes about telling people it is
good of me. But that's only because she wouldn't care about it herself.
I like fussing about and thinking I am making myself useful. It's like
mamma's knitting, which gets her the reputation of being very
industrious, while all the time she enjoys it very much."

"But you yourself said you were 'devoted to good works,' I quote your
very words."

"That was only in fun. It's what Doreen says of me. You must have heard
her. She is much better than I am--really much, more unselfish--much
more amiable. Only because she's always bright and full of fun, she
doesn't get the credit of any of her good qualities. People think she's
only indulging her own inclination when she keeps us all amused and
happy all day long. But they don't know that she can suffer just as much
as anybody else, and that it costs her an effort to be lively for our
sakes when she feels miserable."

Queenie spoke with a little feeling in her usually hard, dry voice.
Dudley was silent for a long time when she had finished speaking. At
last they looked up at the same moment and met each other's eyes. And
the reserved, harassed man felt his heart go out to the girl, with her
quiet shrewdness and undemonstrative affection for her brilliant sister.

"Your quiet eyes see a great deal more than one would think, Queenie,"
he said at last. "I suppose they have seen that there is
something--something wrong--with--"

He spoke very slowly, and finally he stopp