Nance stared at her averted face. "Oh, that!" she said contemptuously. "That's nothing! You don't mean to say you're bothering about her! They all do things like that to-day. It doesn't mean a thing! I thought you had more sense!"
"Yes, it does mean–a great deal!" said Gloria slowly, her hard, sad, young eyes looking far away through the window down the slope of the hill. "It sort of wipes out–a lot–that was–dear!" Her words came slower, her eyelids drooped, her lips drooped at their corners and were trembling as she spoke. "It makes it–he doesn't seem–to belong to me–anymore!"
Gloria suddenly dropped into a chair and dropped her gaze to the floor, but there came no tears. The tears were all slowing down into her heart. They seemed to drown her inside, but she lifted her eyes and met the cold gaze of Nance, saw the curl of her lip.
"I didn't think you had a jealous nature!" The words cut like knives.
Gloria shook her head. "It's not jealousy!" she said. "It's something wider, more final than jealousy. Jealousy you feel for a day and get over. This is something that puts me out into another sphere somehow, just makes me feel he never has belonged to me–None of it–has ever–been–real!"
Nance looked into those hopeless, lovely eyes and tried to break their look with her own glance. But Gloria's eyes did not change.
"How absurd!" said Nance. "Stan worshipped the very ground you walked on, Glory. He couldn't say enough about you at home. He was simply crazy about you!"
Gloria looked at her as if she were not looking into her eyes at all, but saw something beyond her, something that outweighed what had been said.
"Yes?" she answered in that strange voice that sounded like a negative. Nance drew her brows together and studied her.
"Oh, Gloria, don't be difficult–now–when all this is happening! Don't be trivial! I know it's hard on you, but don't get notions. Everybody in our set knows how devoted Stan was to you!"
"Yes?" said Gloria again and still looked at that vision of a strange girl in the distance just beyond Nance's head. A girl that was not of her kind. A girl who was no respecter of other people's rights. A girl lying dead beside her bridegroom.
"Gloria, you're not going to make more trouble, are you?" Nance spoke sharply, with a kind of hard agony in her voice.
"Make trouble?" said Gloria in a soft, amazed voice. "I make trouble? There is no trouble left to make, is there Nance? No, of course I'm not going to make trouble. I'm aching for you now, for the trouble you have already to bear. Is there anything that I can do to help in any way? I have a feeling there is something I should be doing, but I can't seem to think what it is!"
Gloria spoke in her gentle wistful voice out from under the crushing blow that had fallen upon her. There were tears in Vanna's eyes, but there were no tears in Gloria's eyes. There was hard, agonizing comprehension in Nance's face, but Gloria kept that stricken smile on her lips and offered to help. The other two girls watched her, uncomprehending.
"You're a strange girl, Glory!" said Nance at last. "I can see you are making this thing a lot harder for yourself than it has any need to be, a lot harder than it really is. Stan was just a carefree boy. You never thought he was an angel, did you? Yet you are taking it further even than death. You are taking the blow at your spirit instead of just your life. And you don't need to do that. It's hard enough just on the surface, goodness knows! Why should you want to go further? You can't live in your spirit that way on earth. You just can't. You'd die if you tried to. It isn't being done!"
"I've just been finding out that I can't live if my spirit isn't satisfied!" said Gloria, giving her a strange, startled look. "That's why I don't know just how I'm going to bear it!"
Nance suddenly gave a great, deep, awful sob. "Oh, this is awful! It makes one feel as if there ought to be a God!" said Nance.
"I wonder if that could make any difference," said Gloria with a longing look.
"Oh, Glory," cried Vanna, "don't talk such awful things! If Dad should hear you what would he think? If you only would sit down and cry as you always do when you feel bad, I am sure it would help you."
"But this isn't just feeling bad, Vanna. And I can't cry. I think I'm bleeding inside. And I'm seeing so many things I never understood before!"
"Sit down, Glory dear, sit down," said Vanna. "I'm sure you oughtn't to be standing up. It takes your strength." She gave a frightened look at Nance.
"Yes, sit down, it takes your strength," said Nance, turning troubled eyes toward Gloria. "Can't you get her something to drink, Vanna? It's the shock. She isn't quite herself."
Gloria dropped into a chair with a wan smile. "Oh, yes, I'm myself, quite, Nance dear. Don't get that idea," she said quietly. "I've plenty of strength. You needn't worry about my strength. This isn't anything that has to do with strength. It's something that's way deeper than that. Strength is just your body. This is something that has touched the soul, and I'm not just sure I ever knew before I had a soul. Don't worry, Nance. I'm not out of my head. I wish with all my heart I could do something to help you bear your part of this, Nance dear!"
Nance stared at her hungrily an instant and gave a quick, meaningful glance toward Vanna. Vanna answered it with another frightened look. Then there came the sound of a car driving up, the sound of a key in the latch of the front door. "Oh, there's Dad!" said Vanna with relief, brushing away the quick tears, "I'm so glad he's come! He will know what to do. Don't go, Nance! Dad's great when you are in trouble!"
"Oh, I must go! I can't see anyone else to-day. I'll just slip out this back way. No, don't come. I must get back to Mother. I'll let you know when–Father gets back!"
She ended with a sob and was gone.
CHAPTER II
Gloria's mother had her way. It was a foregone conclusion that she would. She had managed the stage scenery and costuming for her two beautiful daughters since their advent into the world, and she was not one to relinquish her rights easily. If she could not stage a wedding, then at least a funeral should have its proper clothes.
Also, it appeared presently that this funeral was to be an affair. Gloria had hoped, had supposed, of course, that whatever ceremonials attended the death of her fiance would at least be private on account of the circumstances. But to her utter dismay, she discovered that the Asher family was going to ignore the circumstances and make a hero out of Stan. Whatever fashionable grief could do to make the last rites of the son and heir to their millions a thing to be remembered and respected, that was to be done. Stanwood Asher's mother meant that her son should not be put away in disgrace. He should lie in state, and his many friends should assemble and mourn properly at his untimely cutting off from the earth!
So Gloria saw that the awful days ahead of her must be lived through, and she set herself to endure. Meekly, like a white-faced robot, she submitted to her mother's ordering. She tried on and stood for fittings whenever she was called. There was one thing, however, that they could not get her to do. She would not take an interest in any of the smart black garments they brought for her approval. She would scarcely look at them. She shuddered when she came into the room where they were, and when they tried to get her to make a choice, she turned away with a sigh and said, "Oh, I don't care! Whatever you say. Just get the simplest thing there is!"
Then her mother would look hopelessly after her and sigh. "If Gloria would only take things as they come and be interested, it wouldn't be half so hard for her!" she said hopelessly to the observant fitter. "If we didn't have these practical interests of life like pretty clothes and social duties, how could we live through trying disappointments?"
The woman looked at her with wondering eyes. Pretty clothes and social duties played very little part in the life of the fitter.
So