With a gesture that appeared to sweep her last remaining illusion behind her, she started resolutely up the drive to the house.

After all, whatever came, she would not let them think that she was either afraid of life or disappointed in love.

She would not mope, and she would not show the white feather.

On one point she was passionately determined--no man, by any method known to the drama of sex, was going to break her heart! She had quickened her steps while she made her resolve; and, a minute later, she broke into a run when she saw that Corinna's car stood at the door and that Corinna waited for her in the hall.

Had the girl only realized it, Corinna's heart also was troubled; and the visit was one result of the discouraging talk she had had recently with Stephen.
"I had to go down town, so I stopped on the way back to speak to you." Though she said no word of her anxiety, Patty could hear it in every note of her expressive voice and feel it in the protective pressure of her arm.