Molly thanked her shyly, flushing a little. She would have preferred to refuse ‘Life,’ but her never-failing courtesy and tenderness for people’s feelings drove her to smile and accept. It was then that someone knocked on the studio door. Sally went to open it; cried, “Oh, Eileen,” and drew her in, an arm about her waist. She was not very like Jane’s drawing of her just now. The tragic elements of Life had conquered and beaten down its brilliance and joy; the rounded white cheeks were thin, and showed, instead of dimples, the fine structure of the face and jaw; the great deep blue eyes brooded sombrely under sad brows; she drooped a little as she stood. It was as if something had been quenched in her, and left her as a dead fire. The old flashing smile had left only the wan, strange ghost of itself. If Jane had drawn her now, or any time since the middle of August, she would rather have called the drawing “Wreckage.” To Eddy and all her friends she and her wrecked joy, her quenched vividness, stabbed at a pity beyond tears. Molly looked at her for a moment, and turned rosy red all over her wholesome little tanned face, and bent over a picture near her. Mrs. Crawford looked at her, through her, above her, and said to Jane, “Thank you so much for a delightful afternoon. We really must go now.” Jane said, slipping a hand into Eileen’s, “Oh, but you’ll have tea, won’t you? I’m so sorry; we ought to have had it earlier.... Do you know Mrs. Le Moine? Mrs. Crawford; and _you_ know each other, of course,” she connected Eileen and Molly with a smile, and Molly put out a timid hand. Mrs. Crawford’s bow was so slight that it might have been not a bow at all. “Thank you, but I’m afraid we mustn’t stop. We have enjoyed your delightful drawings exceedingly. Goodbye.” “Must you both go?” said Eddy to Molly. “Can’t you stop and have tea and go home with me afterwards?” “I’m afraid not,” Molly murmured, still rosy. “Are you coming with us, Eddy?” asked Molly’s aunt, in her sweet, sub-acid voice. “No? Goodbye then. Oh, don’t trouble, please, Miss Dawn; Eddy will show us out.” Her faint bow comprehended the company. Eddy came with them to their carriage. “I’m sorry you won’t stop,” he said. Mrs. Crawford’s fine eyebrows rose a little. “You could hardly expect me to stop, still less to let Molly stop, in company with a lady of Mrs. Le Moine’s reputation. She has elected to become, as you of course are aware, one of the persons whose acquaintance must be dispensed with by all but the unfastidious. You are not going to dispense with it, I perceive? Very well; but you must allow Molly and me to take the ordinary course of the world in such matters. Goodbye.”