“It’s so beautifully fine; it seems such a pity not to show it all, dear.  Now look at yourself!” And from the recesses of her pocket she produced a little mirror.  “I’m sure Tod will simply love it like that.  It’ll be such a nice change for him.”

Kirsteen, with just a faint wrinkling of her lips and eyebrows, waited till she had finished.  Then she said: 

“Yes, Mother, dear, I’m sure he will,” and replaced the fillet.  A patient, half-sad, half-quizzical smile visited Frances Freeland’s lips, as who should say:  ’Yes, I know you think that I’m a fuss-box, but it really is a pity that you wear it so, darling!’

At sight of that smile, Kirsteen got up and kissed her gravely on the forehead.

When Nedda came back from a fruitless search for Tod, her bag was already in the little spare bedroom and Frances Freeland gone.  The girl had never yet been alone with her aunt, for whom she had a fervent admiration not unmixed with awe.  She idealized her, of course, thinking of her as one might think of a picture or statue, a symbolic figure, standing for liberty and justice and the redress of wrong.  Her never-varying garb of blue assisted the girl’s fancy, for blue was always the color of ideals and aspiration—­was not blue sky the nearest one could get to heaven—­were not blue violets the flowers of spring?  Then, too, Kirsteen was a woman with whom it would be quite impossible to gossip or small-talk; with her one could but simply and directly say what one felt, and only that over things which really mattered.  And this seemed to Nedda so splendid that it sufficed in itself to prevent the girl from saying anything whatever.  She longed to, all the same, feeling that to be closer to her aunt meant to be closer to Derek.  Yet, with all, she knew that her own nature was very different; this, perhaps, egged her on, and made her aunt seem all the more exciting.  She waited breathless till Kirsteen said: 

“Yes, you and Derek must know each other better.  The worst kind of prison in the world is a mistaken marriage.”

Nedda nodded fervently.  “It must be.  But I think one knows, Aunt Kirsteen!”

She felt as if she were being searched right down to the soul before the answer came: 

“Perhaps.  I knew myself.  I have seen others who did—­a few.  I think you might.”

Nedda flushed from sheer joy.  “I could never go on if I didn’t love.  I feel I couldn’t, even if I’d started.”

With another long look through narrowing eyes, Kirsteen answered: 

“Yes.  You would want truth.  But after marriage truth is an unhappy thing, Nedda, if you have made a mistake.”

“It must be dreadful.  Awful.”

“So don’t make a mistake, my dear—­and don’t let him.”

Nedda answered solemnly: 

“I won’t—­oh, I won’t!”

Kirsteen had turned away to the window, and Nedda heard her say quietly to herself: