“I must go,” she said hurriedly.  “I don’t know what Vassie’ll say at me staying up here like this.”

“It was awfully nice of you to come,” said Ishmael, taking the little hand that lay idle against a flounce.  She made no motion to withdraw it or to move away, and glancing up at her he saw there were tears in her eyes.  As he looked they slipped over her lashes and rolled down her cheeks.  She made no effort to stay them, nor did she sob—­she cried with the effortless sorrow of a tired child.

“Phoebe! why, what’s the matter?  Are you unhappy about anything?  Phoebe, do tell me what it is?”

She shook her head but stammered out: 

“It’s nothing, but I’m sort of frightened....  I can’t tell you about what.  And I thought you might be able to help me and put it all right, but you can’t.”

“How do you know I can’t?  You haven’t tried me.”

“Yes, I have,” she said, half-laughing now through her tears that were already dry upon her cheeks.  Whatever thought, whatever fear, whatever glimpsing of dread possibilities in herself or in some other person had brought her to his side that afternoon was already weighing less unbearably upon her, though she had failed in her attempt to find an easing.  Her mind simply could not sustain for long one idea, and in the passing moment she was always able to find distraction.  She found it now in Vassie, who came sweeping in, slightly flushed and with a lighter manner than that with which she had ushered in Phoebe.  She bore her off with promise of tea and a look at new gowns with none the less determination, but the sight of tearstains on Phoebe’s cheek at once softened and relieved her.

Ishmael was left with a vague feeling that he had failed Phoebe in something she had expected of him.  Yet for himself he was cheered by her visit, for it had served to bring him out of that dead, still peace where he had been for so many days, that had not lightened even with returning strength, but that had been swept away by the breath of the commonplace Phoebe brought with her.

As to Vassie, she was occupied with wondering whether the passionate yet careless caresses that Killigrew had lavished on her that afternoon “meant anything” or not.  He had told her that in France they always said that “love was an affair of the skin....”  And she knew she had a perfect skin.  Killigrew had told her it was perfect to stroke as well as gaze upon; none of her English swains had ever told her that.  She always looked on Killigrew as a foreigner because he was so alien to herself.