For all answer, Zaidee raised her little face trustfully. Girard dropped on one knee, a very gallant figure of a gentleman, as he put both arms around the small, light form of the child and held her tightly to him for one brief instant while his lips pressed that warm cheek. When he strode lightly away, waving his hand behind him in farewell, it was with an odd, somber effect of having said good-by to a great deal. For the second time that day, it seemed that Zaidee had been the recipient of an emotion called forth by some one else. CHAPTER SEVENTEEN “Lois?” “Yes?” Dosia had come into the nursery, where Lois sat sewing, a canary overhead singing with shrill velocity in a stream of sunshine. Her look gave no invitation to Dosia. She did not want to talk; she was busy, as ever, with—no matter what she was doing—the self-fullness of her thoughts, which chained her like a slave. She had been longing to move into the other house, where, amid new surroundings, she could escape from the familiar walls and outlook that each brought its suggestion of pain, with the wearying iterancy of habit, no matter how she wanted to be happy. Dosia dropped half-unwillingly into a chair as she said: “I’ve something to tell you, Lois.” “Well?” “I’m engaged to George Sutton.” “Dosia!” Lois’ work fell from her hand as she stared at the girl. “I’m sure I don’t see that you need be surprised,” said Dosia. She looked pale and expressionless, as one who did not expect either sympathy or interest. “No, I suppose not,” said Lois. “Of course, I know he has been paying you a great deal of attention, but then, he has paid other girls almost as much.” She stopped, with her eyes fixed on Dosia. In a sense, she had rather hoped for this; the marriage would certainly solve many difficulties, and be a very fine thing for Dosia—if Dosia could——! Yet now the idea revolted Lois. To marry a man without loving him would have been to her, at any time or under any stress, a physical impossibility. Marriage for friendship or suitability or support was outside her scheme of comprehension. She spoke now with cold disapproval: “Dosia, you don’t know what you are doing. You don’t love George Sutton.” Dosia’s face took on the well-known obstinate expression. “He loves me, anyhow, and he is satisfied with me as I am. If he is satisfied, I don’t see why anyone else need object! He likes me just as I am, whether I care for him or not.” She clasped both hands over her knee as she went on with that unexplainable freakishness to which girlhood is sometimes maddeningly subject, when all feeling as well as reason seems in abeyance, though her voice was tremulous. “And I _do_ care for him. I like him better than anyone I know; we are sympathetic on a great many points. No one—_no one_ has been so kind to me as he! He doesn’t want anything but to make me happy.”