Perhaps she was more silent and more irritable than usual, but Eleanor Bethune’s heartache for love never led her to the smallest social impropriety.  Whatever she suffered, she did not refuse the proper mixture of colors in her hat, or neglect her tithe of the mint, anise and cummin due to her position.

Eleanor’s reticence, however, had this good effect—­it compelled Alice to talk Smith’s singular behavior over with Carrol; and somehow, in discussing Smith, they got to understand each other; so that, after all, it was Alice’s and not Eleanor’s bridal shopping that was to do.  And there is something very assuaging to grief in this occupation.  Before it was completed, Eleanor had quite recovered her placid, sunshiny temper.

“Consolation, thy name is satin and lace!” said Alice, thankfully, to herself, as she saw Eleanor so tired and happy about the wedding finery.

At first Alice had been quite sure that she would go to Paris, and nowhere else; but Eleanor noticed that in less than a week Carrol’s influence was paramount.  “We have got a better idea, Eleanor—­quite a novel one,” she said, one morning.  “We are going to make our bridal trip in Carrol’s yacht!”

“Whose idea is that?”

“Carrol’s and mine too, of course.  Carrol says it is the jolliest life.  You leave all your cares and bills on shore behind you.  You issue your own sailing orders, and sail away into space with an easy conscience”

“But I thought you were bent on a European trip?”

“The yacht will be ever so much nicer.  Think of the nuisance of ticket-offices and waiting-rooms and second-class hotels and troublesome letters waiting for you at your banker’s, and disagreeable paragraphs in the newspapers.  I think Carrol’s idea is splendid.”

So the marriage took place at the end of the season, and Alice and Carrol sailed happily away into the unknown.  Eleanor was at a loss what to do with herself.  She wanted to go to Europe; but Mr. Smith had gone there, and she felt sure that some unlucky accident would throw them together.  It was not her nature to court embarrassments; so Europe was out of the question.

While she was hesitating she called one day on Celeste Reid—­a beautiful girl who had been a great belle, but was now a confirmed invalid.  “I am going to try the air of Colorado, Mrs. Bethune,” she said.  “Papa has heard wonderful stories about it.  Come with our party.  We shall have a special car, and the trip will at least have the charm of novelty.”

“And I love the mountains, Celeste.  I will join you with pleasure.  I was dreading the old routine in the old places; but this will be delightful.”

Thus it happened that one evening in the following August Mrs. Bethune found herself slowly strolling down the principal street in Denver.  It was a splendid sunset, and in its glory the Rocky Mountains rose like Titanic palaces built of amethyst, gold and silver.  Suddenly the look of intense pleasure on her face was changed for one of wonder and annoyance.  It had become her duty in a moment to do a very disagreeable thing; but duty was a kind of religion to Eleanor Bethune; she never thought of shirking it.