“No, none,” said Virginia. She cleared her throat and repeated the words. They were indistinct at first, because of the dryness of her tongue and the roof of her mouth. She watched with hot, moveless eyes the slim fingers of Miss Erroll as she first crimped the curling bit of velvet between her fingers, with a deft, almost imperceptible movement, and forced the teeth of her little buckle through it. “How damp it smells!” she said, as she lifted it to her throat to put it on; “just as if it had been stuffed away in some old attic.” Virginia’s knees smote together. She put out her hand to steady herself, and sank heavily into a chair. “’Taint nuthin’--’tain’t nuthin’,” she said, roughly, as Mary ran to her side. “I’m better jess so. Don’ tech me, please. An’ please ter scuse me. I kyarn’ bear no one to tech me when--when I’m like this.” Alas! alas! Virginia, when were you ever “like this” before, in the whole course of your seventeen years of strength and health and placid, if bovine, contentment? * * * * * The dinner, thanks to Virginia, was a success. Roden’s wines were excellent. They were going to ask Virginia to sing for them. Roden said he thought it would please her so much. After dinner Mrs. Erroll sat down to the piano, and the sweethearts wandered off into the “greenhouse,” leaving open the door between the rooms. A rhomboid of pale yellow light from the candles on the dinner-table fell into the narrow, flower-crowded corridor, touching the great geranium-leaves into a soft distinctness, and showing here and there the flame-colored and snow-white glomes of blossom. Roden, out of sight of Mrs. Erroll, had straightway put an arm about the supple waist of his betrothed, and one of her hands had found its way to his short curls with a movement as of long habit. As the slanting light from the room beyond caught the sheen of her delicate throat above its velvet ribbon, he bent his head and pressed down his lips upon it and upon the bit of velvet. Virginia, by some strange coincidence or freak of fate, was at this moment crossing the lawn to put the mastiff pup into his kennel. Attracted by the unusual light in the greenhouse, she looked up. Looking up, she saw Roden as he stooped and kissed his sweetheart’s throat. She gave a fierce broken cry, like an angered beast, and turning, ran with all her might into the house. Poor Mrs. Erroll, summoning up musical ghosts from her maidenhood’s _répertoire_ on the old piano, thought that one of Roden’s horses had gone mad and galloped through the room. In the mean time Virginia, panting, wordless, seized Mary with one strong hand, and with the other tore off the velvet from about her neck. “I--I--I’ve read as how it was pizen; I jess remembered. Here’s yo’ buckle.” She rushed madly out again, and flinging herself upon the bare floor of her little bedroom, beat the hard boards with her hand and dragged at her loosened hair. VII.