"Why shouldn't she be proud of her victory? Any woman would. All women are delighted to catch husbands! I dare say Madame Lepelletier would have enjoyed being Mrs. Floyd Grandon." "Marcia, do not make such an idiot of yourself!" A sudden horrible fear rushes over Violet. "You do not mean," she says, "that Mr. Grandon----" What is it she shall ask? Was there some broken engagement? They came from Europe together. "She does not mean anything----" begins Gertrude; but Marcia interrupts, snappishly,-- "I _do_ mean something, too, if you please, _Miss_ Grandon," with a bitter emphasis on the Miss. "And I think turn about fair play. She jilted Floyd and he jilted her, it amounts to just that, and for once Violet came off best, though I doubt----" Violet is very white now, and her eyes look like points of clear flame, not anger. Something has fallen on her with crushing weight, but she still lives. Gertrude rises with dignity. "Marcia," she says, in a tone of command, "this is my room, and you will oblige me by leaving it." "Oh, how fine we are, Mrs. Professor!" and Marcia gives an exasperating laugh; but as Gertrude approaches she suddenly slips away and slams the door behind her. "My dear child," and Gertrude takes the small figure in her arms, kissing the cold lips, "do not mind what she has said. Let me tell you the story. When they were just grown up and really did not know their own minds, Floyd and Irene Stanwood became engaged. She went to Paris with her mother and married a French count, and a few years after, when we were there, Floyd met her without the least bit of sentiment. He never was anything of a despairing lover. She was very lovely then, but not nearly so handsome as now. When we heard they were coming home together from Europe, last summer, we supposed they had made up the old affair. She had no friends or relatives, and we are third or fourth cousins, so he brought her here. This was more than a month before he even saw you, and in that time if he _had_ loved her he would have asked her to marry him; don't you see?" She gives a long, quivering breath, but her lips are dry. It is not simply a thought of marriage. "And I am sure if she had been very much in love with him, she would have managed to entangle him. Fascinating women of the world can do that in so many ways. They are simply good friends. Why," she declares, smilingly, "suppose I was to make myself miserable because you translated for the professor, you would think me no end of a dunce! It is just the same. Marcia has a love for making mischief, but you must not allow her ever to sow any distrust between you and Floyd. The woman a man chooses is his _true_ love," says Gertrude, waxing enthusiastic, "not the one he may have fancied or dreamed over long before. Now, you will not worry about this? Get the roses back to your cheeks, for there come Floyd and Eugene, and we must dress for dinner."