Millicent prolonged her stay in bed. She was aware that she made rather a charming invalid, and throned in her bed she received a gratifying court. The wise commenters became positive. “Millicent’s really in love, this time,” they said, “and their engagement will be announced before Tommy goes back to school.” Tommy, the drawling and indifferent, had given way to Tommy, the intense and devoted. Millicent was aware of her victory. The hearts with E.P. and O.W. had gone. Tommy’s, hidden by the photograph, reigned alone. Perhaps, she thought idly, after they were married she would have it cut into the glass. It was a pretty fancy. She toyed with the idea, toyed with it as she did with everything in her life; a languid, fickle amusement. The day before Tommy and Carl were to go back to school Millicent got up. She was paler, and more ethereally beautiful, she decided, with characteristic candor. The sweet peas which he had sent that morning looked rather well on her. She wondered, as she pinned them on, whether he would propose to-day or wait until the last. He was nervous; a little haggard, too, she noticed, when he came, and she knew that he would propose to-day. Her triumph was at hand, but suddenly she knew that she wanted more time to think. She must make him wait until to-morrow. They were on the couch again. He kissed her, and in the moment that their lips touched it came to her that Tommy was realty infatuated--but in another moment the old doubt had returned, and when he said: “Millicent, dear, I’ve only known you--” she stopped him, with a breathless flutter, and said, “To-morrow, Tommy, to-morrow afternoon; I _can’t_ tell you to-day!”... And she ran out of the room. Millicent did not appear at supper. She was locked in her room, her head buried in her arms on the dressing-table, thinking; half crying. It was the only crisis which had ever come into her life. Always before she had left this to the man; her own way had continued serenely untroubled. Once, in a fit of fancy, she reached up as if to erase the heart, but she did not complete the gesture. The next morning dragged slowly by. After lunch Millicent went to her desk, and in a fit of caprice wrote a letter. She read it, and started to tear it up. Then she changed her mind, and left it, sealed, on her desk. It was a quarter past two. Tommy ought to arrive very soon. She walked over to the pier-glass in the hall. Dispassionately she admired her beauty. She thought that she had never seen anyone so lovely. Others might be merely beautiful, hers was distinctive. Beauty was a power in itself; and when coupled with intellect--the power it might wield was infinite. Great beauties had made history--many of them had had humbler beginnings, by far, than she. She felt in that moment that she too might have been destined to rule.... French novels had taught her these things--and had failed to instil a sense of personal absurdity.