her; the sun was
becoming oppressive; her white-shod feet dragged a little, which was so
unusual that she straightened her head and shoulders with nervous
abruptness.

"What on earth is the matter with me?" she said, half aloud, to herself.

During these last two months, and apparently apropos of nothing at all,
an unaccustomed sense of depression sometimes crept upon her.

At first she disregarded it as the purely physical lassitude of spring,
but now it was beginning to disquiet her. Once a hazy suspicion took
shape--hastily dismissed--that some sense, some temporarily suppressed
desire was troubling her. The same idea had awakened again that evening
on the terrace when the faint odour from the decanter attracted her. And
again she suspected, and shrank away into herself, shocked, frightened,
surprised, yet still defiantly incredulous.

Yet her suspicions had been correct. It was habit, disturbed by the
tardiness of accustomed tribute, that stirred at moments, demanding
recognition.

Since that night in early spring when fear and horror of herself had
suddenly checked a custom which she had hitherto supposed to be nothing
worse than foolish, twice--at times inadvertently, at times
deliberately--she had sought relief from sleepless nervousness and this
new depression in the old and apparently harmless manner of her
girlhood. For weeks now she had exercised little control of herself,
feeling immune, yet it scared her a little to recognise again in herself
the restless premonitions of desire. For here, in the sunshine of the
forest-bordered highway, that same dull uneasiness was stirring once
more.

It was true, other things had stirred her to uneasiness that morning--an
indefinable impression concerning Kathleen--a definite one which
concerned Rosalie Dysart and Duane, and which began to exasperate her.

All her elasticity was gone now; tired without reason, she plodded on
along the road in her little white shoes, head bent, brown eyes
brooding, striving to fix her wandering thoughts on Duane Mallett to
fight down the threatening murmurs of a peril still scarcely
comprehended.

"Anyway," she said half aloud, "even if I ever could care for him, I
dare not let myself do it with this absurd inclination always
threatening me."

She had said it! Scarcely yet understanding the purport of her own
words, yet electrified, glaringly enlightened by them, she halted. A
confused sense that something vital had occurred in