“You poor child,” she whispered.  “You dear, brave, generous girl!  God knows whether I am right or wrong.  I am only trying to do my duty—­trying to do what is best for him.”

Valerie looked at her curiously: 

“Yes, you cannot choose but think of him if you really love him....  That is the way it is with love.”

Afterward, sewing by the window, she could scarcely see the stitches for the clinging tears.  But they dried on her lashes; not one fell.  And when Rita came in breezily to join her at luncheon she was ready, her costume mended and folded in her hand-satchel, and there remained scarcely even a redness of the lids to betray her.

That evening she did not stop for tea at Neville’s studio; and, later, when he telephoned, asking her to dine with him, she pleaded the feminine prerogative of tea in her room and going to bed early for a change.  But she lay awake until midnight trying to think out a modus vivendi for Neville and herself which, would involve no sacrifice on his part and no unhappiness for anybody except, perhaps, for herself.

The morning was dull and threatened rain, and she awoke with a slight headache, remembering that she had dreamed all night of weeping.

In her mail there was a note from Querida asking her to stop for a few moments at his studio that afternoon, several business communications, and a long letter from Mrs. Collis which she read lying in bed, one hand resting on her aching temples: 

“MY DEAR Miss WEST:  Our interview this morning has left me with a somewhat confused sense of indebtedness to you and an admiration and respect for your character which I wished very much to convey to you this morning, but which I was at a loss to express.

“You are not only kind and reasonable, but so entirely unselfish that my own attitude in this unhappy matter has seemed to me harsh and ungracious.

“I went to you entertaining a very different idea of you, and very different sentiments from the opinion which I took away with me.  I admit that my call on you was not made with any agreeable anticipations; but I was determined to see you and learn for myself what manner of woman had so disturbed us all.

“In justice to you—­in grateful recognition of your tact and gentleness, I am venturing to express to you now my very thorough respect for you, my sense of deep obligation, and my sympathy—­which I am afraid you may not care for.

“That it would not be suitable for a marriage to take place between my brother and yourself is, it appears, as evident to you as it is to his own family.  Yet, will you permit me to wish that it were otherwise?  I do wish it; I wish that the circumstances had made such a marriage possible.  I say this to you in spite of the fact that we have always expected my brother to marry into a family which has been intimate with our own family for many generations.  It is a tribute to your character which I am unwilling to suppress; which I believe I owe to you, to say that, had circumstances been different, you might have been made welcome among us.