But thinking of psychic things--and far away in the folds of that bare Mexican valley Anthony had time to think--something psychic came from Miss Exeter's letters which he had not felt in her personality. He could not call it exactly conceit, but it was like a conviction of beauty. He did not know how to describe it, but it made him think of an essay by a novelist which he had read, when or where he could not remember--was it by Stevenson?--in which the writer had spoken of the uncontrollable way in which heroines whom you constantly described as lovely kept turning plain and uninteresting on your hands; and the other way round--how heroines, with just a few words of friendly description, suddenly walked through your pages as tremendous beauties, with no assistance from you. Clara Middleton, in the Egoist, had been cited as one of the latter class. Well, it seemed to him that this girl was like that. He had seen her--a nice-looking young woman, but her letters were the letters of a beauty. Probably it was the profound subconscious egotism of the woman coming out. The point was that she was getting away with it. He wrote and asked Durland to send him a photograph of her. But it did not need much diplomacy on the part of Pearl to prevent its ever being dispatched. As a matter of fact, she did not dread discovery very much. It seemed to her it would be nothing more than an awkward moment--after all, he already knew her better than he had ever known Augusta--only before he came back she must have worked all the desired miracles. Far from dreading his return, she looked forward to it with veiled excitement--great fun, like taking off your masks at a fancy ball. She had been with the Conway family almost a month when she witnessed the first trial of strength between the hostile factions--Dolly against Antonia. There was only one spare room in the cottage since the governess had come. Dolly announced at luncheon, very casually, that she had invited Allen Williams to spend the following Sunday with them. Antonia broke out at once with the passionate sense of defeat that betrays the young. She had invited her best, indeed her only, friend Olive, who was to be abandoned by her family, for the coming Sunday.