Robert Fairfield is not a man of many words.  He stood by me in an attitude of sympathetic silence.  He made to me an unspoken appeal.  In my heart there was a grateful answer.  A sad, smileless face was uplifted, and then my lips also gave answer.  It was a brief story.  It was my daily life of home oppression.  But it was not briefly told.  It ought not have been told at all; but I am human, so human.  The time had reached me when somebody must know, and the time had brought with it into my sorrowful presence this same Robert Fairfield.  I had barely known him.  An accidental introduction, a few dances at a ball, and once—­just once—­a brief but serious talk at a summer-night concert.  I was nothing to him; he was every thing to me; I loved him, I love him.  But custom, and rightly, too, keeps a woman silent.  He may know the story of my miserable home life, but he does not know—­and he must never know—­of the magnetic power which drew me toward him, made me tell my story, and left me with a regret and a tenderness which has closed my heart to any other who may chance to come.

[Illustration:  Miss Sophia Gilder, (of the Inner Sisterhood.)]

* * * * *

VI

       A Cold Gray Study.

* * * * *

A CASE OF COMPOUND FRACTURE.

Family Position, Wealth, and Personal Beauty are potent factors in the mysterious make-up of a social success, but they are not omnipotent.  A woman may have this desirable trinity, and yet be as nothing in the social world.  In fact, she may be without one, two, or all three, and yet achieve unaccountable success in a social way.

My first winter out was a flat failure.  I did not lack wealth and family position, but I was awkward and not beautiful; in short, ugly.  But my failure was not due to this lack of beauty, for other women far more ugly than I outshone me in every way. I did not know myself.  There is the key to many a mystery.  I tried to be like other women and—­failed.  I had a little individuality of my own, but for a time did not know it.

During that formative period I had one love-affair; at least, I did the loving and Gerome Meadows did the “affair,” for with him it was nothing more.  He was a man just a trifle above the average in looks and manners, intellect—­every thing.  He was always attractive and agreeable.  He was always making a graceful effort to please, and He was—­with me—­always successful.  He was four and twenty, yet he was a genuine boy.  He was full of a boy’s love and full of a boy’s charming susceptibility.  He was responsive to the different natures of many women.  He was peculiarly a loveable man.  He had diligently, conscientiously courted a goodly number of these different natured women; and they all had, at some one time, a tender leaning toward, without a positive love for, this Gerome Meadows.  I am one of the number.  Twice has he courted me, and twice have I refused him.  First, because he did not love me; second, because I did not love him.