smiled gratefully.

"I am so glad you understand," she said. "I am always doing things on
impulse. I fancy I am indispensable, I suppose, and then all at once I
think what a little donkey I am to have interfered. It is so easy to
think oneself important to other people's welfare when one isn't a bit."

"Aren't you?" said Doctor Hilary quietly.

"Of course not," replied Trix. There was a hint of indignation in her
voice. "And please don't say I am, or else it will make me feel that you
think I said what I did say just in order that you might contradict me.
Like fishing for a compliment, you know. And I didn't mean that in the
least, I didn't truly."

Doctor Hilary smiled, a queer little smile.

"I know you didn't mean that. But all the same I am going to contradict
you."

Trix looked up. "Oh well," she began, laughing and half resignedly. And
then something in Doctor Hilary's face made her stop suddenly, her heart
beating at a mad pace.

"You have become very important in my life," he said quietly. "I did not
realize how important, till you went away."

Trix was silent.

"I am not very good at making pretty speeches," said Doctor Hilary
steadily, "but I hope you understand exactly what I mean. You have become
so important to my welfare that I should find it exceedingly difficult to
go on living without you. I suppose I should do it somehow if I must, but
probably I should make a very poor job of it." He stopped.

Trix gave a sudden little intake of her breath. For a moment there was a
dead silence. Then:--

"Will you always feed me when I am depressed?" she asked. And there was a
little quiver half of laughter, half of tears, in her voice.

CHAPTER XXXI

MIDNIGHT REFLECTIONS

"Yes, Tibby angel, you were quite right."

It was the sixth time Trix had made the same remark in the last half
hour, and she had made it each time with the same attentive deliberation
as if the words were being only once spoken, though she knew she would
probably have to say them at least six times more.

She was sitting in front of her bedroom fire clad in a blue
dressing-gown. Miss Tibbutt was sitting in an armchair opposite to her.
She had come into the room presumably for two minutes only, to see that
Trix had all she wanted, but after she had fluttered for full ten minutes
from dressing-table to bed, and back to dressing-table again, talking all
the time, Trix had firmly pushed her into an armchair.

Miss Tibbutt