y," answered Elnora. "But I would believe her also. If
only I could meet her I soon would know."

"I don't see how that is to be accomplished," said Philip, "but I am
perfectly willing. There is no reason why you should not meet her,
except that she probably would lose her temper and insult you."

"Not to any extent," said Elnora calmly. "I have a tongue of my own,
while I am not without some small sense of personal values."

Philip glanced at her and began to laugh. Very different of facial
formation and colouring, Elnora at times closely resembled her mother.
She joined in his laugh ruefully.

"The point is this," she said. "Some one is going to be hurt, most
dreadfully. If the decision as to whom it shall be rests with me, I must
know it is the right one. Of course, no one ever hinted it to you, but
you are a very attractive man, Philip. You are mighty good to look at,
and you have a trained, refined mind, that makes you most interesting.
For years Edith Carr has felt that you were hers. Now, how is she going
to change? I have been thinking--thinking deep and long, Phil. If I
were in her place, I simply could not give you up, unless you had made
yourself unworthy of love. Undoubtedly, you never seemed so desirable
to her as just now, when she is told she can't have you. What I think is
that she will come to claim you yet."

"You overlook the fact that it is not in a woman's power to throw away
a man and pick him up at pleasure," said Philip with some warmth. "She
publicly and repeatedly cast me off. I accepted her decision as publicly
as it was made. You have done all your thinking from a wrong viewpoint.
You seem to have an idea that it lies with you to decide what I shall
do, that if you say the word, I shall return to Edith. Put that thought
out of your head! Now, and for all time to come, she is a matter of
indifference to me. She killed all feeling in my heart for her so
completely that I do not even dread meeting her.

"If I hated her, or was angry with her, I could not be sure the
feeling would not die. As it is, she has deadened me into a creature of
indifference. So you just revise your viewpoint a little, Elnora. Cease
thinking it is for you to decide what I shall do, and that I will obey
you. I make my own decisions in reference to any woman, save you. The
question you are to decide is whether I may remain here, associating
with you as I did last summer; but with the difference that it is
understood