"Oh, Susan!" exclaimed Virginia, and turned away. "Perhaps I oughtn't to have said it, Jinny--but, no, I ought to tell you just what I think, and I don't regret it." "Mother said the same thing to me," responded Virginia, looking as if she were on the point of tears; "but that is just because neither of you know him as I do." "He is a Treadwell and so am I, and the chief characteristic of every Treadwell is that he is going to get the thing he wants most. It doesn't make any difference whether it is money or love or fame, the thing he wants most he will get sooner or later. So all I mean is that you needn't spoil Oliver by giving him the universe before he wants it." "I can't give him the universe. I can only give him myself." Stooping over, Susan kissed her. "Happy, happy little Jinny!" "There are only two things that trouble me, dear--one is going away from mother and father, and the other is that you are not so happy as I am." "Some day I may get the thing I want like every other Treadwell." "Do you mean going to college?" "No," said Susan, "I don't mean that," and into her calm grey eyes a new light shone for an instant. A clairvoyance, deeper than knowledge, came to Virginia while she looked at her. "You darling!" she exclaimed. "I never suspected!" "There's nothing to suspect, Jinny. I was only joking." "Why, it never crossed my mind that you would think of him for a minute." "He hasn't thought of me for a minute yet." "The idea! He'd be wild about you in ten seconds if he ever thought----" "He was wild about you ten seconds ago, dear." "He never was. It was just his fancy. Why, you are made for each other." A laugh broke from Susan, but with that large and quiet candour which was characteristic of her, she did not seek to evade or deny Virginia's suspicion. That her friend should discover her feeling for John Henry seemed to her as natural as that she should be conscious of it herself--for they were intimate with that full and perfect intimacy which exists only between two women who trust each other. "There goes Miss Willy," said Susan, looking through the window to where the little dressmaker tripped down the stone steps to the street. "Mother wants to have early supper, so I must be running away." "Good-bye, darling. Oh, Susan, I never loved you as I do now. It will be all right--I trust and pray that it will! And, just think, you will walk out of church together at my wedding!" For a minute, standing on the threshold, Susan looked back at her with an expression of tender amusement in her eyes. "Don't imagine that I'm unhappy, dear," she said, "because I'm not--it isn't that kind--and, after all, even an unrequited affection may be simply an added interest in life, if we choose to take it that way."