Gladys regarded her rather closely as she nibbled with rather a bird-like movement at a sugared bun. "Madge, you've quite changed," she said. "You are actually beginning to take an interest in your fellow-creatures. That is so wise of you. Of course Evelyn Dundas is adorable; I'm hopelessly in love with him myself, but I should have thought he was just the sort of man who would not have interested you in the least. Nor would he have a few weeks ago. Dearest, you've stepped down from your pedestal, where you really used to be rather a statue, you know, like Galatea, and it does improve you so. I saw it the moment I came into the room. And just falling in love has done it all." A sudden look of pain came over Madge's face, and her companion, with a well-chosen pause, waited for her to express it in words. "Ah, Gladys, are you sure you are right?" she said. "Because I think I must tell you this even as I told Philip--I don't feel as if I had fallen in love. I like him, I esteem and respect him, but--but it isn't what I expected. I'm not--I hate the word--but I'm not thrilled." Gladys rustled sympathetically, and Madge went on: "I had it all out with my mother, too," she said, "who very sensibly said that as I had lived twenty-five years without falling in love in that sort of sense, I was very unlikely to begin now. On the other hand, she said that it was much better that I should be married than remain single. And so I am going to marry Philip Home." Again Gladys rustled sympathetically, and gave a murmured "Yes," for Madge evidently had more to say. "Anyhow, I have been honest with him," she said, "and I have told him that. And he seems to think that it can easily form the basis for happiness, and accepts it. But tell me, am I frightfully cold-blooded? And have I any right to marry him?" Gladys' quick little brain had hopped over a dozen aspects of this question, and pecked, so to speak, at a dozen different fruits, while Madge was speaking; but with a whirr of wings she was back again, up to time as usual. "No, not the least cold-blooded, and you have every right to marry him," she said. "For you may be quite sure that you soon will be in love with him, because I assure you that already it has made an enormous difference in you. How do I know that? I can't possibly tell you, any more than you can tell exactly why a person looks ill. You say her face looks drawn. What's drawn? Why, the same as ill. You've woke up, dearest; you've come to life. Life! there's nothing in the world so good as that." Madge leaned forward, and spoke more eagerly. "Yes, you're right," she said, "though I don't know that your reason is right I have somehow come to life. But it puzzles me a little to know how it has happened, or why."