O'Valley has explained how rushed I have been with my classes,"
she began, prettily, "but I have thought of you in all your sorrow. I
lost my dear mother when I was too young to remember her, still it
means a bond between us.... Oh, you are not wearing black? Dear me,
that's too bad.... Well, you may have to go to somebody's funeral
where you feel you want to wear it--a black waist is always useful."

She managed to carry Steve off to look at a set of pink glass sherbet
cups she was to give her father for his birthday, and Mary was
conscious of a certain pity for the Gorgeous Girl--prompted not so
much by her present state of affairs as her inevitable future.

The last of January Steve was called away on a business trip through
the Middle West. Beatrice had no desire to go with him; she said she
simply could not conceive of having a good time in Indiana and
Illinois, and what was the sense in bearing with him in his misery?
But she was quite willing Steve should stay away as long as he was
needed by business entanglements. In fact, Beatrice now betrayed a
certain driving quality in trying to make him feel that as their
honeymoon was ended and everyone had entertained for them it was high
time Steve must retire from social life to a degree, and outdo her own
father in the making of a vast fortune. She seldom begged him to ride
with her or come home to luncheon to fritter away the best part of the
afternoon in a pursuit of silver-pheasant ornaments for the dinner
table. That phase of her selfishness was at an end. It was when Steve
demanded the luxury of merely staying at home with no chattering
peacocks of women and asinine, half-tipsy men playing with each other
until early morning that Beatrice refused her consent.

She did not wish any personal domestic life, Steve decided after
several experiences along these lines. She could not see the pleasure
in a Sunday afternoon hike; walking to see a sunset was absurd! All
very well to be whisked by at twenty miles an hour and give a careless
nod at the setting golden sphere, but to trudge through wintry roads
and up an icy hill and stand, frozen and fagged, weighted down by
sweaters, to----Dear me, Steve really needed to see a doctor! Perhaps
he had better start to play golf with papa!

Meals tete-a-tete caused her spirits to droop, and she soon fell into
the habit of waiting until Steve was away or having her luncheon in
her room. She was seldom up for breakfast, and when