You know how there are times in our lives when the days hang heavily, each moment dragging on leaden feet, weighted all the more grievously because we are ready to protest to our fellow-men, to ourselves perhaps, that the days are not grey, but each one as full of light as we would have it be. And if you do not know you are lucky. Or are you lucky? Are not the heavy clouds, which temporarily hide the golden sunshine, better than a dull monochrome of a life, in which neither cloud nor sunshine is existent? For is it not by the very brightness of the sun which has been, that we recognize the clouds which now obscure it? It is when the sun has never shone in its fullest splendour for us that we do not recognize the existence of the clouds, for to say that any life is passed in one unbroken dream of golden glory is to make a statement which one will dare to denounce as untrue. If there be the gold of joy, so there will come the clouds of sorrow, and a life without clouds is of necessity one without sun, a monochrome of a life, peaceful perhaps, but lacking in intensity.  
The days passed slowly for Anne. They no longer went by with the gay carelessness of a year, six months, nay, only three months ago. Take an interest out of your life, however chary you may have been of admitting the existence of that interest to your secret heart, and then fill your days with gaiety, friends, books, anything and everything but the one thing you want, and you will find it a method of subtraction and addition which is apt to result in a distinctly unsatisfactory sum total.
 
It is not to be supposed, however, that Anne wore her heart upon her sleeve for society daws to peck at. She hid it and its little ache deep under a charming courtliness which was, if anything, more charming than usual. And if she smiled a little more frequently, if a bon mot came more readily to her lips, after all they were but attempts to bury the heartache a bit deeper, and it was at least the real Anne who once more walked the earth.
 
 
She saw Millicent occasionally, but only occasionally. There was now between them a civil exchange of courtesies; an assumption, but merely an assumption, of the old friendly footing. On a certain afternoon in the White House Millicent had attempted to give a version of a particular story to Anne. To which Anne had responded that she already knew it. Millicent, however, had attempted to explain, and in explaining had told Anne one or two things Anne had not before known, which things had caused those aforementioned cracks in Millicent to gape with such ominous wideness that Millicent herself suddenly perceived them, and, worse still, saw that Anne perceived them. Anne had quietly announced that she preferred not to talk of the matter further: the part of it that concerned Millicent was her own affair, the part of it that concerned herself was hers. And so it had concluded, outwardly at all events. But it did not require a vast amount of acumen to perceive that their former friendly relationship was of necessity a trifle strained.
 
It is not to be inferred from this, however, that Anne and Millicent were anywhere near warfare with each other. Anne was far too much grande dame for such a proceeding. Also her sentiments towards Millicent were now those of pure indifference. Millicent had never counted a great deal in h............