Yet she was not entirely unhappy. She had accepted the situation, and, knowing the worst, tried to readjust her life to an altered point of view. Her comfort lay in the thought that Jerry loved her. The enchantment of the days when she had dreamed a maiden’s dreams of a life with the one chosen man, was for ever gone. She marveled now at the rainbow radiance of that wonderful time when mere living had been so joyous, and happiness so easy and natural. But Jerry loved her. In the rending of the fabric of her dreams, the shattering of her ideals, that remained. She hugged it to her heart and it filled the empty present. Of the future she did not think, making no attempt to penetrate its veil. Only her youth whispered hope to her, and her natural buoyancy of temperament repeated the whisper. Of Jerry’s feelings toward her she knew, without being told, but one evening, late in the winter, he again spoke of them. It was at a party at Mrs. Davenport’s. For the first time during the season they had danced together. As a rule their intercourse was limited to the few words of casual acquaintanceship, greetings on the stairway, conventional commonplaces at suppers or over dinner-tables. Under this veil of indifference each was acutely conscious of the other’s presence, thrilled to the other’s voice, heard unexpectedly in a lull of conversation or the passing of couples in a crowded doorway. At Mrs. Davenport’s party Jerry had drunk freely of the champagne and the restraint he kept on himself was loosened. Moreover, Lupé was not present, and he felt reckless and daring. After a few turns among the circling couples they dropped out of the dance, and he drew June from the large room into a small conservatory. Here in the quiet coolness, amid the greenery of leaves and the drip of falling water, he took her two hands in his, and in the sentimental phrases of which he had such a mastery, told her of his love. She listened with down-drooped eyes, pale as the petals of the lilies round the fountain, the lace on her bosom vibrating with the beating of her heart. “Say you love me,” he had urged, pressing the hands he held, “I want to hear you say it.” “You know I do,” she whispered, “I don’t need to say it.” “But I want to hear you say those very words.” She said them, her voice just audible above the clear trickling of the falling water. “And you’ll go on loving me, even though we don’t see each other except in these crowded places, and I hardly dare to speak to you, or touch your hand?” “I always will. Separation, or distance, or time will make no difference. It’s--it’s--for always with me.”