Page:The Sacred Fount (New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1901).djvu/125

 "Why, what they're all talking about. That she is so awfully radiant. That she's so tremendously happy. It's the question," he explained, "of what in the world she has to make her so."

I winced a little, but tried not to show it. "My dear man, how do I know?"

"She thinks you know," he after a moment answered.

I could only stare. "Mrs. Server thinks I know what makes her happy?" I the more easily represented such a conviction as monstrous in that it truly had its surprise for me.

But Brissenden now was all with his own thought. "She isn't happy."

"You mean that that's what's the matter with her under her appearance? Then what makes the appearance so extraordinary?"

"Why, exactly what I mention—that one doesn't see anything whatever in her to correspond to it."

I hesitated. "Do you mean in her circumstances?"

"Yes—or in her character. Her circumstances are nothing wonderful. She has none too much money; she has had three children and lost them; and nobody that belongs to her appears ever to have been particularly nice to her."

I turned it over. "How you do get on with her!" 119