had had a price put upon them. Of all the boys who came to the Tresslyn
house, young Braden Thorpe was the heir with the most potent possibility.
He did not know it then, but now he knew that on the occasion of his
smashing a magnificent porcelain vase the forgiving kiss that Mrs.
Tresslyn bestowed upon his flaming cheek was not due to pity but to
farsightedness. Somehow he now felt that he could smash every fragile and
inanimate thing in sight, and still escape the kiss.

Not the least regal and imposing object in the room was the woman who
stood beside the fireplace, smiling as she always smiled when a situation
was at its worst and she at her best. Her high-bred, aristocratic face was
as insensitive to an inward softness as a chiseled block of marble is to
the eye that gazes upon it in rapt admiration. She had trained herself to
smile in the face of the disagreeable; she had acquired the _art_ of
tranquillity. This long anticipated interview with her daughter's cast-
off, bewildered lover was inevitable. They had known that he would come,
insistent. She had not kept him waiting. When he came to the house the day
after his arrival from England, following close upon a cablegram sent the
day after the news of Anne's defection had struck him like a thunderbolt,
she was ready to receive him.

And now, quite as calmly and indifferently, she was ready to say good-bye
to him forever,—to this man who until a fortnight before had considered
himself, and rightly too, to be the affianced husband of her daughter. He
meant nothing to her. Her world was complete without him. He possessed her
daughter's love,—and all the love she would ever know perhaps,—but even
that did not produce within her the slightest qualm. Doubtless Anne would
go on loving him to the end of her days. It is the prerogative of women
who do not marry for love; it is their right to love the men they do not
marry provided they honour the men they do, and keep their skirts clear