Zora gathered up the clothes and things and shaded the windows, glancing the while down on the street.
“Everybody is going, going,” she murmured. “I wonder where. Don’t they ever get there?”
‚ÄúFew arrive,‚Äù said Mrs. ¬ÝVanderpool. Zora softly bent and passed her cool soft hand over her forehead.
“Then why do they go?”
“The zest of the search, perhaps.”
“No,” said Zora as she noiselessly left the room and closed the door; “no, they are searching for something they have lost. Perhaps they, too, are searching for the Way,” and the tears blinded her eyes.
Mrs. ¬ÝVanderpool lay in the quiet darkened room with a puzzled smile on her lips. A month ago she had not dreamed that human interest in anybody would take so strong a hold upon her as her liking for Zora had done.
She was a woman of unusual personal charm, but her own interest and affections were seldom stirred. Had she been compelled to earn a living she would have made a successful teacher or manipulator of men. As it was, she viewed the human scene with detached and cynical interest. She had no children, few near relations, a husband who went his way and still was a gentleman.
Essentially Mrs. ¬ÝVanderpool was unmoral. She held the code of her social set with sportsmanlike honor; but even beyond this she stooped to no intrigue, because none interested her. She had all the elements of power save the motive for doing anything in particular. For the first time, perhaps, Zora gave her life a peculiar human interest. She did not love the girl, but she was intensely interested in her; some of