idn't guess how wholly
his little comrade loved him, though he did realize her utter
selflessness. She never asked him troublesome questions, never
annoyed him with irritating jealousy, made no demands upon him. Was
he not himself? Very well, then: did not that suffice? Denise didn't
think: she felt. She had the exquisite wisdom of the heart, and in
her small hands the flower of Peter Champneys's youth opened and
blossomed. He was young, he was loved, he was busy. Oh, but it was a
good world to be alive in! He whistled while he worked. And how he
worked! To this period belong those angelic heads, chestnut-haired,
wistfully smiling, with blue eyes that look deep into one's heart.
The airy butterfly that signs these canvases is not so much a symbol
as a prescience.

When was it he first noticed that for all his love and care he
wasn't going to be able to keep Denise? How did he learn that the
great last lover was wooing her away? She was not less happy. A deep
and still joy radiated from her, her eyes had the clear and
cloudless happiness of a child's. But he observed that on their
pleasant excursions into the country she tired quickly. Her little
light feet didn't run any more. She preferred to sit cuddled against
his side, holding his hand in both hers, her head pressed against
his shoulder. She didn't talk, but then, he was used to her silence;
that was one of her sweetest charms. Her cheek grew thinner, but the
rose in it deepened. Then the pretty dresses he loved to lavish upon
her began to hang loosely upon her little body.

It was a frightened young man who called in doctors and specialists.
But, as Henri had once told him, they do not last long, these frail
blondes. Also, she was of the sort that loves--and that, you
understand, is fatal!

Stocks, who had made a great pet of Peter's pretty sweetheart,
blubbered when he learned the truth, and the younger Checkleigh,
who delighted to sketch her, left off because his hand shook so, and
he couldn't see clearly. The Spanish student in the velvet coat, who
could sing lustily to a guitar, came and sang for her, not the
ribald songs the Quartier heard from him, but the beautiful and soft
love songs he had heard as a child in Andalusia--how love is an
immortal rose one carries through the gates of the grave into the
gates of paradise. And the Quartier, which knows so much sorrow as
well as so much joy, came with its gayest gossip to make her smile.
Peter himself lived