rted, horrible, disloyal words? Do you slam the door of
your sympathy in my face, and turn me away? No, please, please don't do
that--anyhow don't do it quite yet. Wait till I've explained as well as
I can--if any explanation is possible.

"I want you to know all the truth and understand entirely, so I must
even tell you a thing that seems absurd to tell. It would be absurd, if
it were not for the thing's consequences. When I was fourteen my mother
and I came away from America, where we'd lived ever since I was born,
came to live in Paris, though she is English by birth. A cousin of
hers, an officer in the British army, was on leave from his regiment
just then. He ran over to Paris, to amuse himself, not to see us; but
as he knew we were there, he called. He was twenty-seven--thirteen
years older than I--and I thought he was like all the heroes of all the
novels I'd ever read, in the form of one perfectly handsome, perfectly
fascinating man. He treated me like a child, and teased me a little
about being a 'flapper,' but that only made me look up to him more,
because he seemed so high above me, and wonderful and unattainable,
like a prince.

"Perhaps he saw how I felt, and gloried in it as great fun. He gave me
his picture in uniform, and I worshiped it humbly, as a little Eastern
girl might worship an idol. Soon he went to India, but I saw him once
again, nearly two years afterwards, when I was almost sixteen. I had
never forgotten my 'prince,' and after he came back he flirted with
me--rather cruelly, I think. When I realized--just as he was saying
good-by, that he'd only been playing a little, it all but broke my
heart--what I thought was my heart. I used actually to _enjoy_ being
miserable, and telling myself I should never love again--just as if I'd
been a grown-up woman. I was even angry with my frivolous self when I
found that I was getting over it. For I did get over it very soon, and
before I was seventeen I could look back and laugh at my childish
silliness. That was over five years ago, for I am twenty-two now; and
all my real life has come since then.

"My mother and I were poor, until a little while ago. She is very good
really and very charming, and absolutely unselfish, so I'm not picking
flaws in her if I have to explain to you that she was selfish for _me_.
Being English herself, she has always thought--in spite of marrying an
American and going to live in America--that there's nothing quite so
good i