"How could Miss Polly imagine that I'd think of Ben O'Hara after a love like that ?" she reflected indignantly.
And then, perhaps because for a shadow he was so solidly substantial, she became aware that O'Hara's image was trespassing upon the hallowed soil of her reverie.

To be sure, she had seen a great deal of him since George's death, when he had been so wonderfully considerate and helpful.
Scarcely a day had passed since then that he had not brightened by some reminder of his friendship.

They had spent long evenings together; and occasionally, accompanied by the delighted Miss Polly, they had gone to dinner at a restaurant and later to a concert or a play.

That he had been almost too kind it was impossible for her to deny; but she had tried her best to repay him--she had, when one came to the point, done as much as she could to remedy the defects of his education.

At first she had given zest, sympathy, eagerness, to her self-appointed task of making him over; then, as the months went by, a sense of doubt, of discouragement, of approaching failure, had tempered her enthusiasm, and at last she had realized that her work, except in the merest details, had been ineffectual and futile.