“You’re perfectly beautiful now, Lily: your eyes are shining, and your cheeks have grown so pink all of a sudden —— ”
“Ah, they WERE pale, then — ghastly pale, when I came in? Why don’t you tell me frankly that I’m a wreck? My eyes are bright now because I’m so nervous — but in the mornings they look like lead. And I can see the lines coming in my face — the lines of worry and disappointment and failure! Every sleepless night leaves a new one — and how can I sleep, when I have such dreadful things to think about?”
“Dreadful things — what things?” asked Gerty, gently detaching her wrists from her friend’s feverish fingers.
“What things? Well, poverty, for one — and I don’t know any that’s more dreadful.” Lily turned away and sank with sudden weariness into the easy-chair near the tea-tab
