Once she said earnestly:  “You’re fine, Sylvia!  I never knew a girl could be like you!” And once more she threw out casually:  “Do you know what I was going to do if I found out you and Felix—­if you hadn’t...?  I was going to jump the car over the turn there on Prospect Hill.”

Remembering the terrible young face of pain and wrath which she had watched on the way out, Sylvia believed her; or at least believed that she believed her.  In reality, her immortal youth was incapable of believing in the fact of death in any form.  But the words put a stamp of tragic sincerity on their wild expedition, and on her companion’s suffering.  She thought of the two weeks which lay before Molly, and turned away her eyes in sympathy....

* * * * *

Ten days after this, an announcement was made of the engagement of Mary Montgomery Sommerville, sole heiress of the great Montgomery fortune, to Felix Morrison, the well-known critic of aesthetics.

CHAPTER XXVI

MOLLY IN HER ELEMENT

Sylvia faced her aunt’s dictum with heartsick shrinking from its rigor; but she recognized it as an unexaggerated statement of the facts.  “You can’t go home now, Sylvia—­everybody would say you couldn’t stand seeing Molly’s snatch at Felix successful.  You really must stay on to let people see that you are another kind of girl from Molly, capable of impersonal interest in a man of Felix’s brains.”

Sylvia thought of making the obviously suitable remark that she cared nothing about what people thought, but such a claim was so preposterously untrue to her character that she could not bring the words past her lips.  As a matter of fact, she did care what people thought.  She always had!  She always would!  She remained silent, looking fixedly out of the great, plate-glass window, across the glorious sweep of blue mountain-slope and green valley commanded by Mrs. Marshall-Smith’s bedroom.  She did not resemble the romantic conception of a girl crossed in love.  She looked very quiet, no paler than usual, quite self-possessed.  The only change a keen eye could have noted was that now there was about her an atmosphere of slightly rigid dignity, which had not been there before.  She seemed less girlish.

No eyes could have been more keenly analytical than those of Mrs. Marshall-Smith.  She saw perfectly the new attribute, and realized perfectly what a resolute stiffening of the will it signified.  She had never admired and loved Sylvia more, and being a person adept in self-expression, she saturated her next speech with her admiration and affection.  “Of course, you know, my dear, that I’m not one of the herd.  I know entirely that your feeling for Felix was just what mine is—­immense admiration for his taste and accomplishments.  As a matter of fact it was apparent to every one that, even in spite of all Molly’s money, if you’d really cared to ...”