“Possibly!  But that doesn’t make any difference with me.  You may as well realize that I’ve got beyond the point where nice considerations of that sort weigh with me.  If you’d ever been in love you’d understand that such things don’t count at all.  It’s your chance to save the reason and happiness of an otherwise perfectly good brother.”

“There is nothing I wouldn’t do for your happiness—­nothing.  But —­Oh, it’s preposterous!”

Dan relapsed into gloomy silence, and they had a very uncomfortable meal.  Unable to bear his continued lack of spirits, Eliza again referred to the subject, and tried until late in the evening to argue him out of his mood.  But the longer they talked the more plainly she saw that his feeling for Natalie was not fanciful, but sincere and deep.  She continued to scout his suggestion that she could help him by captivating O’Neil, and stoutly maintained that she had no attraction for men; nevertheless, when she went to her room she examined herself critically in her mirror.  This done, she gave herself over to her favorite relaxation.

First she exchanged her walking-skirt, her prim shirtwaist and jacket, for a rose-pink wrapper which she furtively brought out of a closet.  It was a very elaborate wrapper, all fluffy lace and ruffles and bows, and it had cost Eliza a sum which she strove desperately to forget.  She donned silk stockings and a pair of tiny bedroom slippers; then seating herself once more at her dresser, she let down her hair.  She invariably wore it tightly drawn back—­so tightly, in fact, that Dan had more than once complained that it pulled her eyebrows out of place.  On this occasion, however, she crimped it, she curled it, she brought it forward about her face in soft riotous puffs and strands, patting it into becoming shape with dexterous fingers until it formed a golden frame for her piquant features.

Now this was no unusual performance for her.  In the midnight solitude of her chamber she regularly gave rein to the feminine side of her nature.  By day she was the severe, matter-of-fact, businesslike Eliza Appleton, deaf to romance, lost to illusion, and unresponsive to masculine attention; but deep in her heart were all the instincts and longings of femininity, and at such times as this they came uppermost.  Her bedroom had none of the Puritanical primness which marked her habit of dress; it was in no way suggestive of the masculine character which she so proudly paraded upon the street.  On the contrary, it was a bower of daintiness, and was crowded with all the senseless fripperies of a school-girl.  Carefully hidden away beneath her starched shirtwaists was much lingerie—­bewildering creations to match the pink wrapper—­and this she petted and talked to adoringly when no one could hear.

Eliza read much when she was unobserved—­romances and improbable tales of fine ladies and gallant squires.  There were times, too, when she wrote, chewing her pencil in the perplexities of vividly colored love scenes; but she always destroyed these manuscripts before the curious sun could spy upon her labors.  In such ecstatic flights of fancy the beautiful heroine was a languorous brunette with hair of raven hue and soulful eyes in which slumbered the mystery of a tropic night.  She had a Grecian nose, moreover, and her name was Violet.