"You've got no business preferring it." Kitty snapped the buttons of
her glove with tearful emphasis. "Mrs. Jamieson said last night that
a person with eyes and eyelashes like yours had no right to live as
you are living, with just an old woman to do things for you. She
came down to see why you were here, but you wouldn't tell her. She
can't understand any more than I can."

I kissed Kitty good-by, but I did not try to make her understand. I
no longer try to make people understand things. Many of them can't.
Kitty is a dear child, adorably blue-eyed and pink-cheeked, and
possessed of an amount of worldly wisdom that is always amazing and
at times distressing, but much that interests me has, so far, never
interested her. Refusing to study, she has little education, but she
has traveled a good deal, speaks excellent French, dances perfectly,
dresses admirably, and has charming manners when she wishes. I love
her very much, but I no longer feel it is my duty to live with her.

I am not living in Scarborough Square because I feel it is my duty to
live here. Thank Heaven, I don't have to tell any one why I am here!




CHAPTER III

Kitty's mother had been dead only a year when Aunt Matilda, who had
adopted me several years earlier on the death of my parents, married
her father. I was twelve and Kitty eight when the marriage took
place, and with canny care I tried to shield her from the severity of