Anne continued to smile softly down on her mother. In her smile there was something veiled and tender, as faint as sunlight refracted from water--a radiance striking up from those mysterious depths that Kate had never yet reached. “We should all be so glad if it happened,” the girl continued; and Kate said to herself: “What she’s really thinking of when she smiles in that way is her own marriage....” She remembered the cryptic allusion of the football-faced youth at the Opera, and the way those vigilant lids of Anne’s had shut down on her vision. “Of course--poor Lilla!” Mrs. Clephane absently assented. Inwardly she was saying to herself that it would be impossible for her to go to Baltimore on that particular errand. Chris and Lilla--Chris and Lilla! The coupled names began again to jangle maddeningly through her brain. She stood up and moved away to the window. No, she couldn’t! “Next week, dear? It doesn’t matter--but I think you’ll have to go without me.” She spoke from the window, without turning her head toward her daughter, who had gone back to the easel. “Oh--.” There was distinct disappointment in Anne’s voice. “The fact is I’ve made two or three dinner engagements; I don’t think I can very well break them, do you? People have been so awfully kind--all my old friends,” Kate stammered, while the “couldn’t, couldn’t” kept booming on in her ears. “Besides,” she added, “why not take Nollie instead? A young party will be more amusing for Mr. Maclew.” Anne laughed. “Oh, I don’t believe he’ll notice Nollie and me,” she said with a gay significance; but added at once: “Of course you must do exactly as you please. That’s the foundation of our agreement, isn’t it?” “Our agreement?” “To be the two most perfect pals that ever were.” Mrs. Clephane sprang up impulsively and moved toward her daughter. “We _are_ that, aren’t we, Anne?” Anne’s lips dropped; she nodded, screwed her mouth up, and opened her other eyes--her painter’s eyes--on the branch of pyrus with its coral-like studding of red cups. “From the very first,” she agreed. * * * * * The young party went, Fred Landers beaming in attendance. The family thought it a pity that Mrs. Clephane should miss such a chance, for Horace Maclew was chary of exhibiting his books. But there was something absent-minded and perfunctory in the tone of these regrets; Kate could see that the family interest was passionately centred in Lilla. And she felt, more and more, that in the circumstances she herself was better out of the way. For, at the last moment, the party had been invited to stay at Horace Maclew’s; and to have assisted, in an almost official capacity, at the betrothal of Chris and Lilla, with all the solemnity and champagne likely to ensue in such a setting, was more than her newly healed nerves could have endured. It was easier to sit at home and wait, and try to prepare herself for this new and unbelievable situation. Chris and Lilla--!