She liked her phrase; it seemed to her exactly to define her
feeling for Scarborough. She liked it so well that she repeated
it to herself reassuringly many times in the next few weeks.



VII.

PAULINE AWAKENS.


In the last week of March came a succession of warm rains. The
leaves burst from their impatient hiding just within the cracks
in the gray bark. And on Monday the unclouded sun was
irradiating a pale green world from a pale blue sky. The four
windows of Pauline and Olivia's sitting-room were up; a warm,
scented wind was blowing this way and that the strays of
Pauline's red-brown hair as she sat at the table, her eyes on a
book, her thoughts on a letter--Dumont's first letter on landing
in America. A knock, and she frowned slightly.

"Come!" she cried, her expression slowly veering toward
welcome.

The door swung back and in came Scarborough. Not the awkward
youth of last October, but still unable wholly to conceal how
much at a disadvantage he felt before the woman he particularly
wished to please.

"Yes--I'm ten minutes early," he said, apology in his tone for