Her lower lip trembled; she steadied it between her teeth, gazed miserably at the floor, and beat a desolate tattoo on it with the tip of her foil.

“I am being well paid for my disobedience,” she whimpered.  “Now I can’t go out for a week; and it’s April; and when I do go out I’ll be so anxious all the while, peeping furtively at every man who passes and wondering whether his name might be George....  And it is going to be horridly awkward, too....  Fancy their bringing up some harmless dancing man named George to present to me next winter, and I, terrified, picking up my debutante skirts and running....  I’ll actually be obliged to flee from every man until I know his name isn’t George.  Oh, dear!  Oh, dear!  What an awful outlook for this summer when we open the house at Oyster Bay!  What a terrible vista for next winter!”

She naively dabbed a tear from her long lashes with the back of her gauntlet.

Her maid came, announcing luncheon, but she would have none of it, nor any other offered office, including a bath and a house gown.

“You go away somewhere, Bowles,” she said, “and please, don’t come near me, and don’t let anybody come anywhere in my distant vicinity, because I am v-very unhappy, Bowles, and deserve to be—­and I—­I desire to be alone with c-conscience.”

“But, Miss Sybilla——­”

“No, no, no!  I don’t even wish to hear your voice—­or anybody’s.  I don’t wish to hear a single human sound of any description.  I—­what is that scraping noise in the library?”

“A man, Miss Sybilla——­”

“A man! W-what’s his name?”

“I don’t know, miss.  He’s a workman—­a paper hanger.”

“Oh!”

“Did you wish me to ask him to stop scraping, miss?”

Sybilla laughed:  “No, thank you.”  And she continued, amused at herself after her maid had withdrawn, strolling about the gymnasium, making passes with her foil at ring, bar, and punching bag.  Her anxiety, too, was subsiding.  The young have no very great capacity for continued anxiety.  Besides, the first healthy hint of incredulity was already creeping in.  And as she strolled about, swishing her foil, she mused aloud at her ease: 

“What an extraordinary and horrid machine!... How can it do such exceedingly common things?  And what a perfectly unpleasant way to fall in love—­by machinery!...  I had rather not know who I am some day to—­to like—­very much....  It is far more interesting to meet a man by accident, and never suspect you may ever come to care for him, than to buy a ticket, walk over to a machine full of psychic waves and ring up some strange man somewhere on earth.”

With a shudder of disdain she dropped on to a lounge and took her face between both hands.

She was like her sisters, tall, prettily built, and articulated, with the same narrow feet and hands—­always graceful when lounging, no matter what position her slim limbs fell into.