For answer Evelyn only clung the closer.  There was a strange passion in the look of her big eyes as she glanced up at her sister.  Maria was too young herself to realize it, but the child had a dangerous temperament.  She had inherited none of her mother’s hard phlegmaticism.  She was glowing and tingling with emotion and life and feeling in every nerve and vein.  As she clung to her sister she trembled all over her lithe little body with the violence of her affection for her and her delight at meeting her again.  Evelyn had made a sort of heroine of her older sister.  Her imagination had glorified her, and now the sight of her did not disappoint her in the least.  Evelyn thought Maria, in her brown travelling-gown and big, brown-feathered hat, perfectly beautiful.  She was proud of her with a pride which reached ecstasy; she loved her with a love which reached ecstasy.

“So father goes to New York every day?” said Maria again.

“Yes,” said Evelyn.  Then she repeated her ecstatic “Oh, sister!”

To Maria herself the affection of the little girl was inexpressibly grateful.  She said to herself that she had something, after all.  She thought of Lily Merrill, and reflected how much more she loved Evelyn than she had loved George Ramsey, how much more precious a little, innocent, beautiful girl was than a man.  She felt somewhat reassured about her father’s health.  It did not seem to her that he could be very ill if he went to New York every day.

“Mamma has gone to the matinee,” said Evelyn, nestling luxuriously, like a kitten, against Maria.  “She said she would bring me some candy.  Mamma wore her new blue velvet gown, and she looked lovely, but”—­Evelyn hesitated a second, then she whispered with her lips close to Maria’s ear—­“I love you best.”

“Evelyn, darling, you must not say such things,” said Maria, severely.  “Of course, you love your own mother best.”

“No, I don’t,” persisted Evelyn.  “Maybe it’s wicked, but I don’t.  I love papa as well as I do you, but I don’t love mamma so well.  Mamma gets me pretty things to wear, and she smiles at me, but I don’t love her so much.  I can’t help it.”

“That is a naughty little girl,” said Maria.

“I can’t help it,” said Evelyn.  “Mamma can’t love anybody as hard as I can.  I can love anybody so hard it makes me shake all over, and I feel ill, but mamma can’t.  I love you so, Maria, that I don’t feel well.”

“Nonsense!” said Maria, but she kissed Evelyn again.

“I don’t—­honest,” said Evelyn.  Then she added, after a second’s pause, “If I tell you something, won’t you tell mamma—­honest?”

“I can’t promise if I don’t know what it is,” said Maria, with her school-teacher manner.

“It isn’t any harm, but mamma wouldn’t understand.  She never felt so, and she wouldn’t understand.  You won’t tell her, will you, sister?”

“No, I guess not,” said Maria.