Her sensitive lips were edged with a smile, but there was no mirth in her clear eyes: "Mrs.Collis, perhaps you are waiting for me to say something about your letter and my answer to it.

I did not mean to embarrass you by not speaking of it, but I was not certain that the initiative lay with me." Lily reddened: "It lies with _me_, Miss West--the initiative.

I mean--" She hesitated, suddenly realising how difficult it had become to go on,--how utterly unprepared she was to encounter passive resistance from such composure as this young girl already displayed.
"You wrote to me about your anxiety concerning Mr.Neville," said Valerie, gently.
"Yes--I did, Miss West.

You will surely understand--and forgive me--if I say to you that I am still a prey to deepest anxiety." "Why ?" The question was so candid, so direct that for a moment Lily remained silent.

But the dark, clear, friendly eyes were asking for an answer, and the woman of the world who knew how to meet most situations and how to dominate them, searched her experience in vain for the proper words to use in this one.
After a moment Valerie's eyes dropped, and she resumed her sewing; and Lily bit her lip and composed her mind to its delicate task: "Miss West," she said, "what I have to say is not going to be very agreeable to either of us.