They all laughed, and Del went into the house.  “Estelle—­no woman, no matter who—­could hope to get a better husband than Lorry,” she was thinking.  “And, now that he’s superintendent, there’s no reason why they shouldn’t marry.  What a fine thing, what an American thing, that a man with no chance at all in the start should be able to develop himself so that a girl like Estelle could—­yes, and should—­be proud of his love and proud to love him.”  She recalled how Lorry at the high school was about the most amusing of the boys, with the best natural manner, and far and away the best dancer; how he used to be invited everywhere, until excitement about fashion and “family” reached Saint X; how he was then gradually dropped until he, realizing what was the matter, haughtily “cut” all his former friends and associates.  “We’ve certainly been racing downhill these last few years.  Where the Wilmots used to be about the only silly people in town, there are scores of families now with noses in the air and eyes looking eagerly about for chances to snub.  But, on the other hand, there’s the university, and Arthur—­and Dory.”  She dismissed Lorry and Estelle and Saint X’s fashionable strivings and, in the library, sat down to compose a letter to Dory—­no easy task in those days, when there were seething in her mind and heart so much that she longed to tell him but ought not, so much that she ought to tell but could not.

Lorry had acted as if he were about to depart, while Adelaide was there; he resumed his seat on the steps at Estelle’s feet as soon as she disappeared.  “I suppose I ought to go,” said he, with a humorous glance up at her face with its regular features and steadfast eyes.

She ran her slim fingers through his hair, let the tips of them linger an instant on his lips before she took her hand away.

“I couldn’t let you go just yet,” said she slowly, absently.  “This is the climax of the day.  In this great, silent, dim light all my dreams—­all our dreams—­seem to become realities and to be trooping down from the sky to make us happy.”

A pause, then he:  “I can see them now.”  But soon he moved to rise.  “It frightens me to be as happy as I am this evening.  I must go, dear.  We’re getting bolder and bolder.  First thing you know, your brother will be suspecting—­and that means your mother.”

“I don’t seem to care any more,” replied the girl.  “Mother is really in much better health, and has got pretty well prepared to expect almost anything from me.  She has become resigned to me as a ‘working person.’  Then, too, I’m thoroughly inoculated with the habit of doing as I please.  I guess that’s from being independent and having my own money.  What a good thing money is!”

“So long as it means independence,” suggested Lorry; “but not after it means dependence.”