She was a keen-witted modern young woman of eighteen, with a well-trained mind stored with innumerable facts of science, but it must be admitted that at this moment she reverted with passionate completeness to quite another type.  She would have given—­she would have given a year of her life—­one of her fingers—­all her knowledge of history—­anything! if the Marshalls had possessed what she felt any decently prosperous grocer’s family ought to possess—­a well-appointed maid in the hall to open the door, take Mrs. Fiske’s card, show her into the living-room, and go decently and in order to summon the mistress of the house.  Instead she saw with envenomed foresight what would happen.  At the unusual sound of the bell, her mother, who was playing dominoes with Lawrence in one of his convalescences, would open the door with her apron still on, and her spectacles probably pushed up, rustic fashion, on top of her head.  And then their illustrious visitor, used as of course she was to ceremony in social matters, would not know whether this was the maid, or her hostess; and Mrs. Marshall would frankly show her surprise at seeing a richly dressed stranger on the doorstep, and would perhaps think she had made a mistake in the house; and Mrs. Fiske would not know whether to hand over the cards she held ready in her whitely gloved fingers—­in the interval between the clanging shut of the gate and the tinkle of the doorbell Sylvia endured a sick reaction against life, as an altogether hateful and horrid affair.

As a matter of fact, nothing of all this took place.  When the bell rang, her mother called out a tranquil request to her to go and open the door, and so it was Sylvia herself who confronted the unexpected visitor,—­Sylvia a little flurried and breathless, but ushering the guest into the house with her usual graceful charm of manner.

She had none of this as a moment later she went rather slowly upstairs to summon her mother.  It occurred to her that Mrs. Marshall might very reasonably be at a loss as to the reason of this call.  Indeed, she herself felt a sinking alarm at the definiteness of the demonstration.  What could Mrs. Fiske have to say to Mrs. Marshall that would not lead to some agitating crystallization of the dangerous solution which during the past months Mrs. Marshall’s daughter had been so industriously stirring up?  Mrs. Marshall showed the most open surprise at the announcement, “Mrs. Colonel Fiske to see me?  What in the world—­” she began, but after a glance at Sylvia’s down-hung head and twisting fingers, she stopped short, looking very grave, and rose to go, with no more comments.