"Last night at the dance," she continued, "I heard a woman saying that I
didn't look the least bit like Paul, and I wondered who he was."

"Perhaps some one in her own family," said Josiah at last.

"Must have been," Mary carelessly nodded. They went on chatting and
presently Josiah was himself again.

"What are you going to do about Walter Cabot?" he asked, looking at her
with love in his sombre eyes.

Mary made a helpless gesture.

"Has he asked you yet?"

"Yes," she said in a muffled voice, "--often."

"Why don't you take him?"

Again Mary made her helpless gesture and, for a long moment she too was
on the point of opening her heart. But again heredity, training and
age-old tradition stood between them, finger on lip.

"I sometimes have such a feeling that I want to do something in the
world," she nearly told him. "And if I married Wally, it would spoil it
all. I sometimes have such dreams--such wonderful dreams of doing
something--of being somebody--and I know that if I married Wally I should
never be able to dream like that again--"