Portia drew in a long puff, then eyed her cigarette thoughtfully through
the slowly expelled smoke. "The result is," she concluded, "that you
have grown up into a big, splendid, fearless, confiding creature that
it's perfectly inevitable some man like Rodney Aldrich would go straight
out of his head about. And there you are."

A troubled questioning look came into the younger sister's eyes. "I've
been lazy and selfish, I know," she said. "Perhaps more than I thought.
I haven't meant to be. But ... Do you think I'm any good at all?"

"That's the real injustice of it," said Portia; "that you are. You've
stayed big and simple. It couldn't possibly occur to you now to say to
yourself, 'Poor old Portia! She's always been jealous because mother
liked me best, and now she's just green with envy because I'm going to
marry Rodney Aldrich.'"

She wouldn't stop to hear Rose's protest. "I know it couldn't," she went
on. "That's what I say. And yet there's more than a little truth in it,
I suppose. Oh, I don't mean I'm sorry you're going to be happy--I
believe you are, you know. I'm just a little sorry for myself. Curious,
anyway, to see where I've missed all the big important things you've
kept. I've been afraid of my instincts, I suppose. Never able to take a
leap because I've always stopped to look, first. I'm too narrow between
the cheek-bones, perhaps. Anyhow, here I stay, grinding along, wondering
what it's all about and what after all's the use.... While you, you
baby! are going to find out."

What Rose wanted to do was to gather her sister up in her arms and kiss
her. But the faint ironic smile on Portia's fine lips, the twist of her
eyebrows, the poise of her body as she sat up in bed watching the