I told her
to go ahead--but planchette wouldn't write. Cousin Parnelia laid it to
the blighting atmosphere of skepticism of this house."
Sylvia laughed again. Alone in the quiet house with her mother,
refreshed by sleep, aroused by her bath, safe, sheltered, secure, she
tried desperately not to think of the events of the day before. But in
spite of herself they came back to her in jagged flashes--above all,
the handsome blond face darkened by passion. She shivered repeatedly,
her voice was quite beyond her control, and once or twice her hands
trembled so that she laid down her knife and fork. She was silent
and talkative by turns--a phenomenon of which Mrs. Marshall took no
outward notice, although when the meal was finished she sent her
daughter out into the piercing December air with the command to
walk six miles before coming in. Sylvia recoiled at the prospect of
solitude. "Oh, I'd rather go and skate with Judy and Larry!" she
cried.
"Well, if you skate hard enough," her mother conceded.
* * * * *
The day after her return Sylvia had a long letter from Jermain Fiske,
a letter half apologetic, half aggrieved, passionately incredulous of
the seriousness of the break between them, and wholly unreconciled to
it. The upshot of his missive was that he was sorry if he had done
anything to offend her, but might he be everlastingly confounded if
he thought she had the slightest ground for complaint! Everything had
been going on so swimmingly--his father had taken the greatest notion
to her--had said (the very evening she'd cut and run that queer way)
that if he married that rippingly pretty Marshall girl he could have
the house and estate at Mercerton and enough to run it on, and could
practise as much or as little law as he pleased and go at once into
politics--and now she had gone and acted so--what in the world was
the matter with her--weren't they engaged to be married--couldn't an
engaged man kiss his girl--had he ever been anything but too polite
for words to her before she had promised to marry him--and what
_about_ that promise anyhow? His father had picked out the prettiest
little mare in the stables to give her when the engagement should be
announced--the Colonel was as much at a loss as he to make her out--if
the trouble was that she didn't want to live in Mercerton, he was sure
the Colonel would fix it up for them to go direct to Washington, where
with his father's connection she could imagine what an opening they'd
have! And above all he was crazy about her--he really was! He'd never
had any idea what it was to be in love before--he hadn't slept a wink
the night she'd gone away--just tossed on his bed and thought of her
and longed to have her in his arms again--Sylvia suddenly tore the
letter in two and cast it into the fire, breathing hard.
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