Daniel stared, not so much at the request as at the sudden change. It was as if she had dropped a mantle and revealed her true self. The tragedy and pathos which, a moment before, had made her so appealing, so childlike, vanished. She sat on the arm of the chair, a daring little figure, one hand stretched out, the other holding the match ready to strike. Her face, too, sharpened, and seemed to have lost its soft beauty. There was something keen and reckless about it, and the darkened lashes and reddened lips gave it a bizarre effect, almost like a mask. “Please--a cigarette!” she pleaded. Daniel thrust his hand into his pocket, produced his cigarette-case, and held it out. “Better smoke when mother isn’t on hand,” he counseled her. “She’s old-fashioned, you know.” Fanchon drew a long breath of content, lit the cigarette, and began to smoke. She smoked, daintily, her eyes changing and the long-fringed lashes shading them. Gradually, visibly, she relaxed, the sharpness softened, the eyes grew languorous. “What heaven!” she said after a moment. “It’s dreadful, isn’t it, when you’ve always smoked, and you can’t get it? I--I think I should have stolen it soon!” “I see!” Daniel laughed softly. “You should always smoke, Fanchon. Without it you’re a prey to sadness, to memories, to imagination. With a cigarette you’re happy!” “_Mais non_, I’m not happy!” She lifted her lashes and gave him a fleeting glance. “But it soothes me. I’m not happy, because”--she rose and stood looking at him, the cigarette in her fingers--“because I know you all wanted William to marry _her_!” With one of her sudden, birdlike dives, she touched the picture of Virginia Denbigh on the mantel. In spite of himself, Daniel started violently and colored. An impulse, as sudden and uncontrollable as her movement, made him spring to his feet. He wanted to snatch the picture from her hand; but he restrained himself, lifted his pipe from the table, and knocked the tobacco out into his father’s ash-tray. “Why do you think so?” he asked her quietly, beginning to refill the pipe. She laughed, but he saw that the hand which held Virginia’s picture was trembling. She did not answer him in words, but turned and looked at him over her shoulder, her dark eyes glowing in a face that seemed colorless except for the scarlet lips. Daniel, aware of the look, avoided it, a sudden fear in his heart. Something, something subtle and inexplicable, moved him. With an effort of self-control--greater than he knew--he took the picture of Virginia out of her hands and replaced it on the shelf. “Why do you think that about it?” he asked. She laughed. “I know it! I know the kind--_jeune fille à marier_! Whenever your mother looks at me in here, she looks at that picture and sighs. And your father stares at it and stares at me--comparing us!” She laughed again, a little wildly. “_Mon Dieu_, I know!” Daniel frowned.