She sank down into the low-seated rocker with a native grace which could not escape the beauty-loving eye of the girl, and with proud-poised head and silent tongue listened to Frona as the minutes ticked away, and observed with impersonal amusement Frona’s painful toil at making conversation.

“What has she come for?” Frona asked herself, as she talked on furs and weather and indifferent things.

“If you do not say something, Lucile, I shall get nervous, soon,” she ventured at last in desperation.  “Has anything happened?”

Lucile went over to the mirror and picked up, from among the trinkets beneath, a tiny open-work miniature of Frona.  “This is you?  How old were you?”

“Sixteen.”

“A sylph, but a cold northern one.”

“The blood warms late with us,” Frona reproved; “but is—­”

“None the less warm for that,” Lucile laughed.  “And how old are you now?”

“Twenty.”

“Twenty,” Lucile repeated, slowly.  “Twenty,” and resumed her seat.  “You are twenty.  And I am twenty-four.”

“So little difference as that!”

“But our blood warms early.”  Lucile voiced her reproach across the unfathomable gulf which four years could not plumb.

Frona could hardly hide her vexation.  Lucile went over and looked at the miniature again and returned.

“What do you think of love?” she asked abruptly, her face softening unheralded into a smile.

“Love?” the girl quavered.

“Yes, love.  What do you know about it?  What do you think of it?”

A flood of definitions, glowing and rosy, sped to her tongue, but Frona swept them aside and answered, “Love is immolation.”

“Very good—­sacrifice.  And, now, does it pay?”

“Yes, it pays.  Of course it pays.  Who can doubt it?”

Lucile’s eyes twinkled amusedly.

“Why do you smile?” Frona asked.

“Look at me, Frona.”  Lucile stood up and her face blazed.  “I am twenty-four.  Not altogether a fright; not altogether a dunce.  I have a heart.  I have good red blood and warm.  And I have loved.  I do not remember the pay.  I know only that I have paid.”

“And in the paying were paid,” Frona took up warmly.  “The price was the reward.  If love be fallible, yet you have loved; you have done, you have served.  What more would you?”

“The whelpage love,” Lucile sneered.

“Oh!  You are unfair.”

“I do you justice,” Lucile insisted firmly.  “You would tell me that you know; that you have gone unveiled and seen clear-eyed; that without placing more than lips to the brim you have divined the taste of the dregs, and that the taste is good.  Bah!  The whelpage love!  And, oh, Frona, I know; you are full womanly and broad, and lend no ear to little things, but”—­she tapped a slender finger to forehead—­“it is all here.  It is a heady brew, and you have smelled the fumes overmuch.  But drain the dregs, turn down the glass, and say that it is good.  No, God forbid!” she cried, passionately.  “There are good loves.  You should find no masquerade, but one fair and shining.”