"Molly," she said, "I don't believe that Sir Charles is going to mind very much." Molly met her eyes for an instant, very near, and a pale flash of telepathy passed between them. Then Strelsa smiled. "You mean Chrysos," said Molly. "Yes.... Don't you think so?" "She's little more than a child.... I don't know. Men are that way--men of Sir Charles's age and experience are likely to drift that way.... But if you are done with Sir Charles, what he does no longer interests me--except that the Lacys will become insufferable if----" "Don't talk that way, dear." "I don't _like_ the family--except Chrysos." "Then be glad for her--if it comes true.... Sir Charles is a dear--almost too perfectly ideal to be a man.... I do wish it for his sake.... He was a little unhappy over me I think." "He adores you still, you little villain!" whispered Molly, fondling her. "But--let poets sing and romancers rave--there's nothing that starves as quickly as love. And Sir Charles has been long fasting--good luck to him and more shame on you!" Strelsa laughed, cleared her brow and eyes of the soft bright hair, and, flinging out both arms, took Molly to her heart in a swift, hard embrace. "There!" she said, breathless, "I adore you anyhow, Molly.... I feel better, too. I'm glad you talked to me.... Do you think I'll get anything for my house?" "Yes, when you sell it. That's the hopeless part of it just at this time of year----" "Perhaps my luck will turn," said Strelsa. "You know I've had an awful lot of the other kind all my life." They laughed. Strelsa went on: "Perhaps when I sell everything I'll have enough left over to buy a little house up here near you, Molly, and have pigs and chickens and a cow!" "How long could you stand that kind of existence, silly?" Strelsa looked gravely back at her, then with a sigh: "It seems as though I could stand it forever, now. You know I seem to be changing a little all the while. First, when Mrs. Sprowl found me at Colorado Springs and persuaded me to come to New York I was mad for pleasure--crazy about anything that promised gaiety and amusement--anything to make me forget. "You know I never went anywhere in Colorado Springs; I was too ill--ill most of the time.... And Mrs. Sprowl said she knew my mother--it's curious, but mother never said anything about her--and she cared for fashionable people. "So I came to New York last winter--and you know the rest--I got tired physically, first; then so many wanted to marry me--and so many women urged me to do so many things--and I was unhappy about Rix--and then came this awful financial crash----" "Stop thinking of it!"