"Cécile...!" Hermione crossed the room and dropped on the transome beside her sister, who had sunk down amongst the cushions. "What is it, dear?" Cécile caught her breath and choked back a sob. Tenderness in Hermione touched her, where in Paula she would have thought nothing of it. She pressed her hands over her eyes, then dropped both arms, and looked intently at her sister. "Hermione," she said, "are you in love with Harold Applebo?" Hermione turned to her a very startled face. "No!" she answered, emphatically. "Are you sure?" "Of course I am! I never met him but once in my life!" "Nor I," answered Cécile, and sprang to her feet, "but I am madly, insanely, desperately in love with him! It's silly, I know! It's unreasonable, and unmaidenly ... anything you like. But I can't think of anything but this man! What _is_ it, Hermione? Am I crazy?" She turned to her sister with a half-sob. Hermione saw that Cécile's hands were clenched so tightly as to drive the finger-nails into the delicate skin. Her face was colourless, except for two crimson spots on either cheek and the red line of her lips. Hermione was not only startled, but tremendously surprised. She had always thought rather contemptuously of Cécile's possible capacity for deep feeling, and rather pityingly of Paula's, ultimately concluding that she, Hermione, was blessed, or cursed, with all that there was in the family! "But, my dear," cried Hermione, "you never spoke to him but once!" "I know it," replied Cécile, wearily. "I'm a crazy fool! It's quite shameless of me, is it not?" She gave a bitter little laugh. "The man has put a spell on me! I can't close my eyes without seeing that yellow mane and those sleepy amber eyes ... and they are not so sleepy, either, when you look closely! It's a possession! What am I to do? And the worst of it is, I know that he has some sort of a tender sentiment for me. Oh, why doesn't he come over here and say so, instead of keeping me on pins and needles with his everlasting verses?" Hermione looked thoughtfully at her sister. For an instant she was on the point of telling Cécile bluntly that the verses were actually intended for herself. But she was quite aware of her sister's unconscious vanity, and felt that to do so would arouse her undying resentment. So she merely asked:-- "Do you really care for him? Or is it only a sort of infatuation?" "So far, I don't see how it can be more than infatuation," replied Cécile, frankly; "but I think that I might easily care ... and care a great deal, when I came to know him. You can scarcely be said to be in love with a person you don't know. As it is, I sometimes feel as if I hated him! It is not even an infatuation. I am fascinated, I suppose ... as you sometimes see a bird fascinated by a cat. There is something about his lazy, indifferent, cat-like look and manner that makes me feel at times like whacking him!" She laughed, nervously.