sleep there beside her while she slept, but mother wouldn't
understand and there would be questions which she didn't know how to
answer.

Mother was offended with her. Dimly she felt unhappy about that, but
she was too happy to be definitely unhappy. Anyway, mother followed
to unfasten her dress, to help take down her hair, to plait the
mouse-coloured braids. She wanted to be alone, yet she liked the
touch of mother's hands, unusually gentle and tender. Why was mother
gentle and tender with her when she was offended?

At last mother kissed her good night, and she was alone in her
little bed. It was hard to get to sleep. What an eventful party it
had been! Since supper time she seemed to have lived years and
years. She had been a success even though Raymond Bonner had said--
that. Anyway, Jim was a better dancer than Raymond, and handsomer
and nicer--besides the uniform. He was more poetical too--much more.
What was it he had said about liking her? . . . better dancer than
any other. . . Funny she should feel so happy after Raymond . . .
Maybe she was just a vain, inconstant, coquettish . . .

She strove to focus on the possibility of her frailty. She turned
her face to the window. Through the lace curtains shone the
moonlight, the gleaming path along which she had so often flown out
to be a fairy. But to-night she didn't wish to be a fairy; just to
be herself . . .

The moonlight flowed in and engulfed her, a great, eternal, golden-
white mystery. And its mystery became her mystery. She was the
mystery of the moon, of the universe, of Life. And the tune in her