I don't care whether he does or not! He has disappointed me--he has embittered life for me--and for his parents.
We--I--I had every reason to believe that he and--you--" Something in Stephanie's gray eyes checked her.

When breeding goes to pieces it makes a worse mess of it than does sheer vulgarity.
"If I were Louis I would marry her," said Stephanie very quietly.

"I gave him that advice." She rose, looking down at Lily where she sat bowed over her wool-work, her face buried in her hands.
"Think about it; and talk patiently with Louis," she said gently.
Passing the stairs she glanced toward the telephone.

Louis was still talking to somebody in New York.
* * * * * It was partly fear of what her husband had hinted, partly terror of what she considered worse still--a legal marriage--that drove Lily Collis to write once more to Valerie West: "DEAR MISS WEST: It is not that I have any disposition to doubt your word to me, but, in view of the assurance you have given me, do you consider it wise to permit my brother's rather conspicuous attentions to you?
"Permit me, my dear Miss West, as an older woman with wider experience which years must bring, to suggest that it is due to yourself to curtail an intimacy which the world--of course mistakenly in your case--views always uncharitably.
"No man--and I include my brother as severely as I do any man--has a right to let the world form any misconception as to his intentions toward any woman.

If he does he is either ignorant or selfish and ruthless; and it behooves a girl to protect her own reputation.
"I write this in all faith and kindliness for your sake as well as for his.