Sahwah’s feelings toward Veronica were crystallizing daily into a deep affection.  In the old days she had not been moved by any great feeling of affection for her; she pitied her along with the rest and enjoyed her society after a fashion, but she stood not a little in awe of her mercurial temperament and her aristocratic ways, and much preferred the friendship of the simple, dispassionate Winnebagos.  But now that she and Veronica had met after a year’s separation, Sahwah suddenly realized that the dark-eyed, temperamental little Hungarian girl had an irresistible fascination for her; that her heart had gone out to her completely.  Sahwah was by nature cool and unemotional, and not given to those sudden flares of friendship with which so many girls are constantly being consumed, which burn brilliantly for a short season and them go out of their own accord; it usually took a long time to kindle a friendship with her.  Sahwah herself could not understand her sudden, fierce, almost motherly love for Veronica.  It had not been of gradual growth like her other friendships; it had been born all in an instant that first night of her arrival at Carver House, when Veronica had played and through Sahwah’s heart there had gone a strange thrill of sadness, a yearning for something which she could not understand.

From that time on Sahwah could hardly bear to have Veronica out of her sight; she wanted to be with her all day long; she was filled with a desire to protect her, to mother her, to caress her, to make her great dark eyes light with laughter, to go off alone with her, to discuss with her in private confidences the momentous affairs of girlhood.

Sahwah’s soul was being strangely stirred in many ways these last few days.  A queer restlessness had taken possession of her, totally foreign to her old tranquil, composed state of mind.  Unexplainedly she found herself growing moody and dreamy; at times she had a curious feeling of having just experienced something, but what it was she could not remember; her mind went groping in its subconscious self for something which constantly eluded it, her heart—­

  “Went crooning a low song it could not learn,
  But wandered over it, as one who gropes
  For a forgotten chord upon a lyre.”

At times she was filled with a great sadness, a poignant world-sorrow; at times with an indescribable exaltation, a longing to burst forth into triumphant song and tell the whole world of her gladness.  Without knowing why or wherefore, she was vaguely conscious that in some way she was different from what she was before she came to Carver House, and she also knew that things would never be just as they were before.  Somehow or other the focus had changed, a corner had been turned.

Equally unexplainable was the way in which these strange moods, these dim flashes, were subtly bound up with Veronica.  It was Veronica that seemed to inspire these feelings, and similarly, it was these feelings that seemed to draw her to Veronica.  Sahwah had never bothered her head about Destiny, that strange power that moves us about at will, like chessmen, and who, laying her hand upon us, makes our ways cross and intertwine themselves to work out her purposes; she only knew that in some way she was changing, and that her heart had gone out in a great flood of affection for Veronica Lehar.