had been as gay as a very decorous young grass-widow can be. Her whole existence, until her marriage, which had dropped, or lifted, her to graver levels, had been passed among elaborate social conditions, and wherever she might go she found the protection of a recognized background. She had multitudes of acquaintances and these surrounding nebulæ condensed, here and there, into the fixed stars of friendship. Not that such condensations were swift or frequent. Mrs. Upton was not easily intimate. Her very graces, her very kindnesses, her sympathy and sweetness, were, in a manner, outposts about an inner citadel and one might for years remain, hospitably entertained, yet kept at a distance. But the stars, when they did form, were very fixed. Of such were the two friends who now came in eager for tea, after their nipping drive: Mrs. Pakenham, English, mother of a large family, wife of a hard-worked M.P. and landowner; energetically interested in hunting, philanthropy, books and people; slender and vigorous, with a delicate, emaciated face, weather-beaten to a pale, crisp red, her eyes as blue as porcelain, her hair still gold, her smile of the kindest, and Mrs. Wake, American, rosy, rather stout, rather shabby, and extremely placid of mien. Mrs. Pakenham, after her drive, was beautifully tidy, furred as to shoulders and netted as to hair; Mrs. Wake was much disarranged and came in, smiling patiently, while she put back the disheveled locks from her brow. She was childless, a widow, very poor; eking out her insufficient income by novel-writing; unpopular novels that dealt, usually, with gloomy themes of monotonous and disappointed lives. She was, herself, anything but gloomy.
She gave her friend, now, swift, short glances, while, standing before her, her back to the fire, she put her hair behind her ears. She had known Valerie Upton from childhood, when they had both been the indulged daughters of wealthy homes, and through all the catastrophes and achievements of their lives they had kept in close touch with each other. Mrs. Wake's glances, now, were fond, but slightly quizzical, perhaps slightly critical. They took in her friend, her attitude, her beautifully "done" hair, her fresh, sweet face, so little faded, even her polished finger-nails, and they took in, very unobtrusively, the American letter on her lap. It was Mrs. Pakenham who spoke of the letter.
"You have heard, then, dear?"
"Yes, from Imogen."
Both had seen her stunned, undemonstrative pain in the first days of the bereavement; the cables had supplied all essential information. Her quiet, now, seemed to intimate that the letter contained no harrowing details.
"The poor child is well, I hope?"
"Yes, I think so; she doesn't speak much of herself; she is very brave."
Mrs. Pakenham, a friend of more recent date, had not known Mr. Upton, nor had she ever met Imogen.
"Eddy was with her, of course," said Mrs. Wake.
"Yes, and this young Mr. Pennington, who seems to have become a great friend. May Smith and Julia Halliwell, of course, must have helped her through it all. She says that people are very kind." Mrs. Upton spoke quietly. She did not offer to show the letter.
"Jack Pennington. Imogen met him when she went last year to Boston. You remember old Miss Pennington, his great-aunt, Valerie."
"Very well. But this Jack I've never met."
"He is, I hear, devoted to Imogen."
"So I infer."
"And the very nicest kind of young man, though over-serious."
"I inferred that, too."
"And now," said Mrs. Wake, "Eddy will be here on Saturday; but what of
Imogen?"
"Imogen says that she will come over at once, if I want her."
"Far the best plan. She will live with you here—until she marries Mr.
Pennington, or some other devotee," said Mrs. Pakenham comfortably.
Mrs. Upton looked up at her. "No, I shall go to her, until she marries Mr.
Pennington or some other devotee."
There was after this a slight pause, and it was Mrs. Pakenham who broke it with undiminished cheerfulness. "Perhaps, on the whole, that will be best, for the present. Of course it's a pity to have to shut up your home, just as you are so nicely installed for the winter. But, you mustn't let her delay, my dear, in getting married. You can't wait over there indefinitely, you know."
"Ah, it's just that that I must do," said Mrs. Upton.
There was, again, silence at this, perhaps over a further sense of fitness, but in it Mrs. Pakenham's eyes met Mrs. Wake's in a long interchange. Mrs. Upton, in the event of Imogen "delaying," would not stay; that was what, plainly, it intimated.
"Of course," said Mrs. Pakenham, after some moments of this silent acquiescence and silent skepticism, "that will make it very evident why you didn't stay before."
"Not necessarily. Imogen has no one with her now; my preferences as to a home would naturally go down before such an obvious duty."
"So that you will simply take up all the threads, yours and hers?"
"I shall try to."
"You think she'll like that?" Mrs. Pakenham inquired.
"Like what?" Mrs. Upton rather quickly asked.
"That you should take up her threads. Isn't she very self-reliant? Hasn't her life, the odd situation, made her so?"
At this Mrs. Upton, her eyes on the fire, blushed; faintly, yet the deepening of color was evident, and Mrs. Pakenham, leaning impulsively forward, put her hand on hers, saying, "Dear Valerie, I don't mean that you're responsible!"
"But I am responsible." Mrs. Upton did not look at her friend, though her hand closed gently on hers.
"For nothing with which you can reproach yourself, which you can even regret, then. It's well, altogether well, that a girl should be self-reliant and have her own threads."
"Not well, though," said Mrs. Wake, folding the much-entangled veil she had removed, "that a daughter should get on so perfectly without her mother."
"Really, I don't know about that"—Mrs. Pakenham was eager in generous theories—"not well for us poor mothers, perhaps, who find it difficult to believe that we are such background creatures."
"Not well for the daughter," Mrs. Wake rejoined. "In this case I think that
Imogen has been more harmed than Valerie."
"Harmed!" Mrs. Pakenham exclaimed, while Valerie Upton's eyes remained fixed on the fire. "How can she have been harmed? From all I hear of her she is the pink of perfection."
"She is a good girl."
"You mean that she's suffered?"
"No, I don't think that she has suffered."
Mrs. Wake was evidently determined to remain enigmatical; but Valerie Upton quietly drew aside her reserves. "That is the trouble, you think; she hasn't."
"That is a symptom of the trouble. She doesn't suffer; she judges. It's very harmful for a young girl to sit in judgment."
"But
