"You are shocked because I tell you the exact truth. I believe you would like it better if I should dress it up, and pretend to have all sorts of reasons. But I never have reasons, I only know how I feel; and you can't make me believe, either, that it isn't better to be true about your feelings whatever they are, than to tell lies just to make people think well of you." "Garda, promise me not to see Lucian in this way again; that is, not to plan to see him," said Margaret, with a kind of desperation in her tone. "Why, how can you suppose I would ever promise that?" asked Garda, astonished. "Very well. Then I shall speak to him myself." And as she stood there, her tall slender figure outlined in white, her dark blue eyes fixed on the girl, Margaret Harold looked almost menacing. "No, I don't think you would do that," answered Garda; "because as he doesn't care for me, it would be like throwing me at his head; and that you wouldn't like because you have a pride about it--for Evert's sake, I mean. Why don't you tell Evert instead of Lucian? I've thought of telling Evert myself. The idea of his needing to be told!" "It's because he has such a perfect belief in you," began Margaret. "He would never dream that you could--" She stopped, her lips had begun to tremble a little. But Garda was not paying heed to what Margaret was saying. "No, you'll never speak to Lucian," she repeated, "I know you never will; you couldn't." "You're right, I couldn't. And the reason would be because I should be ashamed--ashamed for you." But Garda was not moved by this. "I don't see why we should be ashamed of our real feelings," she said again, with a sort of sweet stolidity. "We go through life, Garda, more than half of us--women, I mean--obliged always to conceal our real feelings." "Then _that_ I never will do;" said Garda, warmly. "And you shall see whether I come out any the worse for it in the end." "You intend to do what you please, no matter who suffers?" "They needn't suffer, it's silly to suffer. They'd better go and do what _they_ please." "And you think that right? You see nothing wrong in it?" "Oh, right, wrong--I think it's right to be happy, as right as possibly can be; and wrong to be unhappy, as wrong as possibly can be; I think unhappy people do a great deal of harm in the world, besides being so very tiresome! I was a goose to be as unhappy as I was last winter; I might have known that I should either get over caring for him, or else that I should see him again. In this case both happened." After this declaration of principles the girl walked down the slope and out to the edge of the platform, where she stood in the moonlight looking northward up the lagoon. "I can just make out his sail," she said, calling back to Margaret, excitedly, and evidently having entirely forgotten her reasoning mood of the moment before. "The fog is rising. Come quick and look."