"By wounding it, and at the expense of what fell dead beside it. Love died that day, little sister, and for that death there is no reincarnation." Again the feverish desire for escape came over her, seeming to burn through every vein, and she sprang to her feet and rang for the maid. "I’m likely to do almost anything to-night," she said. "Shall I make it a double event when you’re ready?" "A double—what?" "Double event—double wedding? I can easily do so. Is it a good way to drown your griefs, Silvie? Because the prospect of being alone after you and Jack marry actually terrifies me." "You little goose, you’ll live with us!" "I see myself doing it!—the superfluous spinster to be reckoned with, counted in at dinners, mollified by kindness, secretly feared for her acidulated tongue, to be employed later in either bribing or disciplining the children." "Di!" "What?" "If—in the—the——" "Course of human events——" "Jack and I have children," continued Silvette, flushing, "we’ll also have nurses to look out for the grubby little things." "Grubby! You don’t know what you’re saying. You’ll be the most adoring—and adorable mother——" "Well, please don’t talk about it.... I don’t care for children now.... I don’t know how I’ll feel later." Diana stood in the middle of the room—the smile fading from her face, her small hands clenching. "I’ve learned to like children," she said. "I’ve learned to love them, somehow—even babies.... I want one of my own," she added fiercely. "I wish for one very much; and if I can’t have one—and it’s impossible, of course—I—I’ll marry some man and have one!" "Good heavens!" exclaimed Silvette, horrified, "what are you talking about? I’ll let you have one of mine!" "I don’t want yours! How do you know you’ll have any? How do you know you’ll have more than one?" Her eyebrows were bent inward, her lips compressed; she turned her head and stared out at the stars—from where, they say, all babies come, and where they all return at last. "You know," she said calmly, "that I wouldn’t really do such a thing—even to have what I care for so much.... And yet—if a woman is tired, hopeless, alone, isn’t marrying some man a help to her? Can’t she stand the passing years better? Doesn’t it give her some respite from the eternal pain—here"—she laid a slim hand on her breast—"doesn’t it give her something to live for, especially if children should come? I don’t know, Silvie; I ask you because I’m tired and confused with the pain of it." "My darling!" She dropped her head on Silvette’s shoulder for a moment; then, as the maid knocked, lifted it calmly and bade her come in. That night at dinner she was very gay—a charming, sparkling, bewildering creature. Through and through Colonel Curmew shot intermittent pangs of jealousy and doubt, mercifully assuaged by hope; through and through Scott Wallace her blue eyes seemed to penetrate, exposing to her laughing gaze his youthful and very susceptible heart.