“How could you imagine anything else? That I could prefer Beauregard Dabney to you!” “That’s easy to say,” he replied. “But there was your family—I knew what they’d prefer, and I saw how they were struggling to keep us apart. And what was I to think—why should you be giving him your time, unless you wanted to let me know——” “Ah, don’t say that! Don’t say that!” she cried, quickly. “It’s wicked that such a thing should have happened.” “We must learn to talk things out frankly,” he said. “For one thing you must not let your family come between us again. You must free me from this dreadful fear that they are going to take you from me.” And suddenly Sylvia blazed up. All the misunderstanding had come from the opposition of her family, and her unwillingness to talk to Frank about it. “I never saw it so clearly before,” she exclaimed. “Frank, I can never make them see things my way. And they’ll always have this dreadful power over me—because I love them so!” “What can you do then?” he asked. “I’m going to betray them to you!” she cried. And as he looked puzzled, she went on, “I’m going to tell you about them! I’m going to tell you everything they’ve said and done, and everything they may say and do in the future!” “And that,” said Frank to me, “was the most loving thing she ever said!” Such was the power, in Sylvia’s world, of the ideal of the Family! BOOK II _Sylvia Lingers_ § 1 At the railroad station in Boston, on an afternoon in May, Sylvia Castleman and Mrs. Tuis were arriving from New York. You must picture Sylvia in a pale grey cloak, with a pale blue blouse; also a grey hat with broad brim and “bluets” on top. You can imagine, perhaps, how her colors shone from under it. She was meeting Frank for the first time in eight months. The host of the occasion was Cousin Harley Chilton, now also a student at Harvard. It was mid-afternoon, and he had borrowed a motor-car to show her something of Cambridge. Their bags were sent to their hotel in the city, and Frank took his place by Sylvia’s side. They had to talk about commonplaces, but he could feel her delight and eagerness like an electric radiance. As they flew over the long bridge, he wrapped a robe about her. What a thrill went through him as he touched her! “Oh, I’m so happy! so happy!” she exclaimed, her eyes shining into his. He had given her a new name in his letters, and he whispered it now into her ear: “Lady Sunshine! Lady Sunshine!” They came to a vista of dark stone buildings, buried in the foliage of enormous elms. “Here are the grounds,” he said; and Sylvia cried, “Oh Harley, go slowly. I want to see them.” Her cousin complied, and Frank began pointing out the various buildings by name. But suddenly the car drew in by the curb and stopped. Harley leaned forward, remarking, “Spark-plug loose, I think.”