"Oh, but she isn't."

And he listened while she gave him a long list of Mary's charms.
(Dear little, tender, unconscious Phoebe.)

"She sounds," he said, "very like you."

"She isn't the least bit like me. You don't know me."

"Don't I?"

"Mary's coming back at the end of the month. Then either I or Effie
will go away. Do you think you'll still be here?"

He seemed to her to answer absently.

"Which of you, did you say, was going away?"

"Well--it's Effie's turn."

"Yes," he said, "I think I shall still be here."

One night, a week later, the two sisters sat talking together long
after "Father" had been put to bed.

"Phoebe," said Effie, "why did you want me to come with you and
Mr. Gibson?"

"Because----" said Phoebe.

"My dear, it's you he likes, not me."

"Don't, Effie."

"But it's true," said Effie.

"How can you tell?" said Phoebe, and she felt perfidious.

"Isn't he always going about with you?"

But Phoebe was ingenious in the destruction of her own joy.

"Oh," said she, "that's his cunning. He likes you dreadfully. He
goes about with me, just to hide it."

"You goose."

"Are you sure, Effie, you don't care?"

"Not a rap."

"You never have? Not in the beginning?"

"Certainly not in the beginning. I only thought he might be nice for
you."

"You didn't even want to divide him?"

Effie shook her head vehemently.

"Well--he's the only thing I ever wanted all to myself. If----" Then
Phoebe looked frightened. "Effie," she said, "he's never said
anything."

"All the same, you _know_."

"Can you know?"

"I think so," said Effie.

III

Gibson had been talking a long time to Phoebe. They were sitting
together on the beach, under the shadow of the cliff. He was trying
to form Phoebe's mind. Phoebe's mind was deliciously young, and
it had the hunger and thirst of youth. A little shy and difficult to
approach, Phoebe's mind, but he had found out what it liked best,
and it pleased him to see how confidingly and delicately it, so to
speak, ate out of his hand.

He puzzled her a good deal. And she had a very pretty way of closing
her eyes when she was puzzled. In another woman it would have meant
that he was boring her; Phoebe did it to shut out the intolerable
light of knowledge.

"Ah!--don't," he cried.

"Don't shut my eyes? I always shut my eyes when I'm trying to
think," said Phoebe.

He said nothing. That was not what he had meant when he had said
"Don't."

"Am I bor