bright, how am I to
know that he will care for me any longer? And, if not----"

"If not! You are a mystery to me, Florence; you never professed before
to trouble yourself about your husband's love."

"If I am a mystery, you are a perfect baby, my dear boy--I might almost
say a perfect fool--in some respects. If he ceases to love me, he--don't
you know that he may still leave me penniless? I had no settlements."

Her voice sank almost to a whisper as she said the words.

"Is that it?" said Hubert coldly. "I did not give you credit for so much
worldly wisdom, Flossy. If that is your view of the case, I wonder that
you do not pay a little more attention to the General's wishes
sometimes. I have seen you treat him with very little consideration."

"He is so wearisome! One cannot always be on one's good behavior,"
Flossy murmured; "and, as long as one looks nice and gives him a word or
two now and then, just to keep him in good-humor----"

"So long, you think, he will be kind to you? Florence, you do not
understand the General's really noble nature. He is incapable of
unkindness to any living soul--least of all capable of it to you, whom
he loves so dearly. Do try to appreciate him a little more! He is
devoted to you, both as his wife and as the mother of his child." He
could not tell why she turned her head aside with a sharp gesture of
annoyance.

"The child--always the child!" she exclaimed. "I wish I had never had a
child at all!"

"We are straying from the point," said her brother coldly; "and we can
do no good by discussing your relations with your husband. I want to
know--as you say you can tell me--why Enid looks so ill."

Flossy took up her fan and began to examine the tips of the feathers.

"There is only one reason," she said slowly, "why a girl ever looks like
that. Only one thing turns a girl of seventeen into a drooping,
die-away, lackadaisical creature, such as Enid is just now."

"Speak kindly of her, at any rate," said Hubert. "She is a woman like
yourself, and there is only one interpretation to be put upon your
words."

"Naturally. You, as a novelist, dramatist, and poet, must know it well
enough," said his sister calmly. "Well, remember that you have insisted
on my telling you. Enid is in love. That is all. Nothing to make such a
fuss about it, is it?"

Hubert was silent for a minute or two. His brow was contracted, as if
with vexation or deep thought. Then he said abruptly--

"I suppose