Gwendolyn worked at the buttons of her slippers.  The tears were falling again; but not tears of anger or resentment—­only of loneliness, of yearning.

The little white-and-blue frock fastened down the front.  She undid it, weeping softly the while, found her night-dress, put it on and climbed into bed.

The food was close at hand.  She did not touch it.  She was not hungry, only worn with her day-long combat.  She lay back among the pillows.  And as she looked up at the stars, each sent out gay little flashes of light to every side.

“Oh, moth-er!” she mourned.  “Everybody hates me!  Everybody hates me!”

Then came a comforting thought:  She would play the Dearest Pretend!

It was easy to make believe that a girlish figure was seated in the dark beside the bed; that a tender face was bending down, a gentle hand touching the troubled forehead, stroking the tangled hair.

“Oh, I want you all the time, moth-er!...  And I want you, my precious baby....  How much do you love me, moth-er?...  Love you?—­oh, big as the sky!...  Dear moth-er, may I eat at the grown-up table?...  All the time, sweetheart....  Goody!  And we’ll just let Miss Royle eat with Jane and—­”

She caught a stealthy rustle! rustle! rustle! from the direction of the hall.  She spoke more low then, but continued to chatter, her pretend-conversation, loving, confidential, and consoling.

Finally, “Moth-er,” she plead, “will you please sing?”

She sang.  Her voice was husky from crying.  More than once it quavered and broke.  But the song was one she had heard in the long, raftered living-room at Johnnie Blake’s.  And it soothed.

    “Oh, it is not while beauty and youth are thine o-o-own,
     And thy cheek is unstained by a tear,
     That the fervor and faith of a soul can be kno-o-own—­”

It grew faint.  It ended—­in a long sigh.  Then one small hand in the gentle make-believe grasp of another, she slept.

CHAPTER VII

Miss Royle looked sober as she sipped her orange-juice.  And she cut off the top of her breakfast egg as noiselessly as possible.  Her directions to Thomas, she half-whispered, or merely signaled them by a wave of her coffee-spoon.  Now and then she glanced across the room to the white-and-gold bed.  Then she beamed fondly.

As for Thomas, he fairly stole from tray to table, from table to tray, his face all concern.  Occasionally, if his glance followed Miss Royle’s, he smiled—­a broad, sympathetic smile.

And Jane was subdued and solicitous.  She sat beside the bed, holding a small hand—­which from time to time she patted encouragingly.

After the storm, calm.  The more tempestuous the storm, the more perfect the calm.  This was the rule of the nursery.  Gwendolyn, lying among the pillows, wished she could always feel weak and listless.  It made everyone so kind.