* * * * *

There was something in the quiet, restrained tone of the letter, with its
details of homely, everyday news, and the tidings of his care and
interest in her little house, that touched Sylvia far more than many
pages of passionate outpouring of loneliness and longing could have done.
She knew that the loneliness and longing were there, even though he would
not say so, and she turned from the great bunch of American Beauties
which had also come in with her breakfast-tray, with something akin
almost to disgust as she thought of Austin's tiny bunch of arbutus--his
"bouquet des fiancailles," as he had called it--the only thing, besides
the little star, that he had ever given her. She called her maid, and
announced that in the future she would never be at home to a certain
caller; then she reached for the telephone beside her bed and cancelled
all her engagements for the next few days, on the plea of not feeling
well, which was perfectly true; and then she called up Western Union, and
dispatched a long telegram, after which she indulged in a comforting and
salutary outburst of tears.

"It will serve me quite right if he won't come," she sobbed. "I wouldn't
if I were he, not one step--and he's just as stubborn as I am. I never
was half good enough for him, and now I've neglected him, and frittered
away my time, and even flirted with other men--when I'd scratch out the
eyes of any other woman if she dared to look at him. It's to be hoped
that he doesn't find out what a frivolous, empty-headed, silly, vain
little fool I am--though it probably would be better for him in the end
if he did."

Sylvia passed a very unhappy day, as she richly deserved to do. For the
woman who gives a man a new ideal to live for, and then, carelessly,