“You cannot mean this,” said Everard, troubled. “You never could be happy there; why should you change now? Herbert and you have been together all your lives; and if he marries--” Here Everard drew a long breath and made a pause. “You could not be happy with Monsieur, your stepfather, and all the little Mirfleurs,” he said. “One can live, one can get on, without being happy,” cried Reine. Then she laughed. “What is the use of talking? One has to do what one must. Let me go in, please. Balconies and moonlights are not good. To think too much, to talk folly, may be very well for you who can do what you please, but they are not good for girls. I am going in now.” “Wait one moment, Reine. Cannot you do what you please?--not only for yourself, but for others. Everything will be changed if you go; as for me, you don’t care about me, what I feel--but Herbert. He has always been your charge; you have thought of him before everything--” “And so I do now,” cried the girl. Two big tears dropped out of her eyes. “So I do now! Bertie shall not think me a burden, shall not complain of me if I should die. Let me pass, please. Everard, may I not even have so much of my own will as to go out or in if I like? I do not ask much more.” Everard stood aside, but he caught the edge of her loose sleeve as she passed him, and detained her still a moment. “What are you thinking of? what have you in your mind?” he said humbly. “Have you changed, or have I changed, or what has gone wrong? I don’t understand you, Reine.” She stood for a moment hesitating, as if she might have changed her tone; but what was there to say? “I am not changed that I know of; I cannot tell whether you are changed or not,” she said. “Nothing is wrong; it is tout simple, as mamma says.” What was tout simple? Everard had not a notion what was in her mind, or how it was that the delicate poise had been disturbed, and Reine taught to feel the disadvantage of her womanhood. She had not been in the habit of thinking or feeling anything of the kind. She had not been aware even for years and years, as her mother had said, whether she was girl or boy. The discovery had come all at once. Everard pondered dimly and with perplexity how much he had to do with it, or what it was. But indeed he had nothing to do with it; the question between Reine and himself was a totally different question from the other which was for the moment supreme in her mind. Had she been free to think of it, I do not suppose Reine would have felt in much doubt as to her power over Everard. But it was the other phase of her life which was uppermost for the moment.