"I can't help it," said Molly, grimly. "I'm sorry, darling, but the moment your engagement to Langly is announced there'll be a horrid smash and some people are going to be spattered----" "It _isn't_ announced!" said the girl hotly. "Only you and Rix know about it except Langly and myself!" Molly Wycherly rose from her chair, went over and seated herself on the foot of the bed: "Tell me something, will you, Strelsa?" "What?" "Why does Langly desire to keep your engagement to him a secret?" "He wishes it for the present." "Why?" "For that very reason!" said Strelsa, fiercely--"because of the injustice the papers have done him in this miserable Ledwith matter. He chooses to wait until it is forgotten--in order to shield me, I suppose, from any libellous comment----" "You talk like a little idiot!" said Molly between her teeth. "Strelsa, I could shake you--if it would wake you up! Do you suppose for a moment that this Ledwith matter will be forgotten? Do you suppose if there were nothing in it but libel that he'd be afraid? You listen to me; that man is not apt to be afraid of anything, but he evidently _is_ afraid, now! Of what, then?" "Of my being annoyed by newspaper comment." "And you think it's merely that?" "Isn't it enough?" Molly laughed: "We're a hardened lot--some of us. But our most deadly fear is that the papers may _not_ notice us. No matter what they say if they'll only say something!--that's our necessity and our unadmitted prayer. Because we've neither brains nor culture nor any distinguishing virtue or ability--and we're nothing--absolutely nothing unless the papers create us! Don't tell me that any one among us is afraid of publicity!--not in the particular circle where you and I and Langly and his aunt pursue our eccentric orbits! "Plenty of wealthy and fashionable people dread publicity and shrink from it; plenty of them would gladly remain unchronicled and unsung. But it is not so among the fixed stars and planets and meteors and satellites of our particularly flamboyant constellation. I _know_. I also know that you don't really belong in it. But you'll either become accustomed to it or it will kill you if you don't drop--or soar, as you please--into some other section of eternal space." She sat swinging her foot, flushed, animated, her eyes and colour brilliant--a slim, exquisitely groomed woman with all the superficial smoothness of a girl save for the wisdom in her eyes and in her smile, alas! And the other's eyes reflected in their clear gray depths no such wisdom, only the haunting knowledge of sorrow and, vaguely, the inexplicable horror of man as he really is--or at least as she had only known him. Still swinging her pretty foot, a deliberate smile edging her lips, Molly said: "If you'll let me, I'll stand by you, darling." Strelsa stared at her without comprehension, then dropped her head back on the pillows.