AUTRES TEMPS... 

By Edith Wharton

Copyright, 1916, By Charles Scribner's Sons

I

Mrs. Lidcote, as the huge menacing mass of New York defined itself faroff across the waters, shrank back into her corner of the deck and satlistening with a kind of unreasoning terror to the steady onward driveof the screws. 

She had set out on the voyage quietly enough, --in what she called her"reasonable" mood, --but the week at sea had given her too much time tothink of things and had left her too long alone with the past. 

When she was alone, it was always the past that occupied her. Shecouldn't get away from it, and she didn't any longer care to. Duringher long years of exile she had made her terms with it, had learnedto accept the fact that it would always be there, huge, obstructing, encumbering, bigger and more dominant than anything the future couldever conjure up. And, at any rate, she was sure of it, she understoodit, knew how to reckon with it; she had learned to screen and manage andprotect it as one does an afflicted member of one's family. 

There had never been any danger of her being allowed to forget the past. It looked out at her from the face of every acquaintance, it appearedsuddenly in the eyes of strangers when a word enlightened them: "Yes, _the_ Mrs. Lidcote, don't you know?" It had sprung at her the first dayout, when, across the dining-room, from the captain's table, she hadseen Mrs. Lorin Boulger's revolving eye-glass pause and the eye behindit grow as blank as a dropped blind. The next day, of course, thecaptain had asked: "You know your ambassadress, Mrs. Boulger?" and shehad replied that, No, she seldom left Florence, and hadn't been to Romefor more than a day since the Boulgers had been sent to Italy. She wasso used to these phrases that it cost her no effort to repeat them. Andthe captain had promptly changed the subject. 

No, she didn't, as a rule, mind the past, because she was used to it andunderstood it. It was a great concrete fact in her path that she had towalk around every time she moved in any direction. But now, in thelight of the unhappy event that had summoned her from Italy, --the suddenunanticipated news of her daughter's divorce from Horace Pursh andremarriage with Wilbour Barkley--the past, her own poor miserable past, started up at her with eyes of accusation, became, to her disorderedfancy, like the afflicted relative suddenly breaking away from nursesand keepers and publicly parading the horror and misery she had, all thelong years, so patiently screened and secluded. 

Yes, there it had stood before her through the agitated weeks since thenews had come--during her interminable journey from India, where Leila'sletter had overtaken her, and the feverish halt in her apartment inFlorence, where she had had to stop and gather up her possessions for afresh start--there it had stood grinning at her with a new balefillnesswhich seemed to say: "Oh, but you've got to look at me _now_, becauseI'm not only your own past but Leila's present. "

Certainly it was a master-stroke of those arch-ironists of the shearsand spindle to duplicate her own story in her daughter's. Mrs. Lidcotehad always somewhat grimly fancied that, having so signally failed tobe of use to Leila in other ways, she would at least serve her as awarning. She had even abstained from defending herself, from makingthe best of her case, had stoically refused to plead extenuatingcircumstances, lest Leila's impulsive sympathy should lead to deductionsthat might react disastrously on her own life. And now that very thinghad happened, and Mrs. Lidcote could hear the whole of New York sayingwith one voice: "Yes, Leila's done just what her mother did. With suchan example what could you expect?"

Yet if she had been an example, poor woman, she had been an awful one;she had been, she would have supposed, of more use as a deterrent thana hundred blameless mothers as incentives. For how could any one whohad seen anything of her life in the last eighteen years have had thecourage to repeat so disastrous an experiment?

Well, logic in such cases didn't count, example didn't count, nothingprobably counted but having the same impulses in the blood; and that wasthe dark inheritance she had bestowed upon her daughter. Leila hadn'tconsciously copied her; she had simply "taken after" her, had been aprojection of her own long-past rebellion. 

Mrs. Lidcote had deplored, when she started, that the _Utopia_ was aslow steamer, and would take eight full days to bring her to her unhappydaughter; but now, as the moment of reunion approached, she wouldwillingly have turned the boat about and fled back to the high seas. Itwas not only because she felt still so unprepared to face what New Yorkhad in store for her, but because she needed more time to dispose ofwhat the _Utopia_ had already given her. The past was bad enough, but the present and future were worse, because they were lesscomprehensible, and because, as she grew older, surprises andinconsequences troubled her more than the worst certainties. 

There was Mrs. Boulger, for instance. In the light, or rather thedarkness, of new developments, it might really be that Mrs. Boulgerhad not meant to cut her, but had simply failed to recognize her. Mrs. Lidcote had arrived at this hypothesis simply by listening to theconversation of the persons sitting next to her on deck--two livelyyoung women with the latest Paris hats on their heads and the latestNew York ideas in them. These ladies, as to whom it would have beenimpossible for a person with Mrs. Lidcote's old-fashioned categories todetermine whether they were married or unmarried, "nice" or "horrid, " orany one or other of the definite things which young women, in heryouth and her society, were conveniently assumed to be, had revealeda familiarity with the world of New York that, again according to Mrs. Lidcote's traditions, should have implied a recognized place in it. Butin the present fluid state of manners what did anything imply exceptwhat their hats implied--that no one could tell what was coming next?

They seemed, at any rate, to frequent a group of idle and opulent peoplewho executed the same gestures and revolved on the same pivots as Mrs. Lidcote's daughter and her friends: their Coras, Matties and Mabelsseemed at any moment likely to reveal familiar patronymics, and onceone of the speakers, summing up a discussion of which Mrs. Lidcote hadmissed the beginning, had affirmed with headlong confidence: "Leila? Oh, _Leila's_ all right. "

Could it be _her_ Leila, the mother had wondered, with a sharp thrill ofapprehension? If only they would mention surnames! But their talk leapedelliptically from allusion to allusion, their unfinished sentencesdangled over bottomless pits of conjecture, and they gave theirbewildered hearer the impression not so much of talking only of theirintimates, as of being intimate with every one alive. 

Her old friend Franklin Ide could have told her, perhaps; but here wasthe last day of the voyage, and she hadn't yet found courage to ask him. Great as had been the joy of discovering his name on the passenger-listand seeing his friendly bearded face in the throng against the taffrailat Cherbourg, she had as yet said nothing to him except, when they hadmet: "Of course I'm going out to Leila. "

She had said nothing to Franklin Ide because she had alwaysinstinctively shrunk from taking him into her confidence. She was surehe felt sorry for her, sorrier perhaps than any one had ever felt;but he had always paid her the supreme tribute of not showing it. Hisattitude allowed her to imagine that compassion was not the basis of hisfeeling for her, and it was part of her joy in his friendship that itwas the one relation seemingly unconditioned by her state, the only onein which she could think and feel and behave like any other woman. 

Now, however, as the problem of New York loomed nearer, she began toregret that she had not spoken, had not at least questioned him aboutthe hints she had gathered on the way. He did not know the two ladiesnext to her, he did not even, as it chanced, know Mrs. Lorin Boulger;but he knew New York, and New York was the sphinx whose riddle she mustread or perish. 

Almost as the thought passed through her mind his stooping shouldersand grizzled head detached themselves against the blaze of light in thewest, and he sauntered down the empty deck and dropped into the chair ather side. 

"You're expecting the Barkleys to meet you, I suppose?" he asked. 

It was the first time she had heard any one pronounce her daughter'snew name, and it occurred to her that her friend, who was shy andinarticulate, had been trying to say it all the way over and had at lastshot it out at her only because he felt it must be now or never. 

"I don't know. I cabled, of course. But I believe she's at--they'reat--_his_ place somewhere. "

"Oh, Barkley's; yes, near Lenox, isn't it? But she's sure to come totown to meet you. "

He said it so easily and naturally that her own constraint was relieved, and suddenly, before she knew what she meant to do, she had burst out:"She may dislike the idea of seeing people. "

Ide, whose absent short-sighted gaze had been fixed on the slowlygliding water, turned in his seat to stare at his companion. 

"Who? Leila?" he said with an incredulous laugh. 

Mrs. Lidcote flushed to her faded hair and grew pale again. "It took_me_ a long time--to get used to it, " she said. 

His look grew gently commiserating. "I think you'll find--" he pausedfor a word--"that things are different now--altogether easier. "

"That's what I've been wondering--ever since we started. " She wasdetermined now to speak. She moved nearer, so that their arms touched, and she could drop her voice to a murmur. "You see, it all came on me ina flash. My going off to India and Siam on that long trip kept meaway from letters for weeks at a time; and she didn't want to tell mebeforehand--oh, I understand _that_, poor child! You know how good she'salways been to me; how she's tried to spare me. And she knew, of course, what a state of horror I'd be in. She knew I'd rush off to her at onceand try to stop it. So she never gave me a hint of anything, and sheeven managed to muzzle Susy Suffern--you know Susy is the one of thefamily who keeps me informed about things at home. I don't yet see howshe prevented Susy's telling me; but she did. And her first letter, theone I got up at Bangkok, simply said the thing was over--the divorce, Imean--and that the very next day she'd--well, I suppose there was nouse waiting; and _he_ seems to have behaved as well as possible, to havewanted to marry her as much as--"

"Who? Barkley?" he helped her out. "I should say so! Why what do yousuppose--" He interrupted himself. "He'll be devoted to her, I assureyou. "

"Oh, of course; I'm sure he will. He's written me--really beautifully. But it's a terrible strain on a man's devotion. I'm not sure that Leilarealizes--"

Ide sounded again his little reassuring laugh. "I'm not sure that yourealize. _They're_ all right. "

It was the very phrase that the young lady in the next seat had appliedto the unknown "Leila, " and its recurrence on Ide's lips flushed Mrs. Lidcote with fresh courage. 

"I wish I knew just what you mean. The two young women next to me--theones with the wonderful hats--have been talking in the same way. "

"What? About Leila?"

"About _a_ Leila; I fancied it might be mine. And about society ingeneral. All their friends seem to be divorced; some of them seemto announce their engagements before they get their decree. One ofthem--_her_ name was Mabel--as far as I could make out, her husbandfound out that she meant to divorce him by noticing that she wore a newengagement-ring. "

"Well, you see Leila did everything 'regularly, ' as the French say, " Iderejoined. 

"Yes; but are these people in society? The people my neighbours talkabout?"

He shrugged his shoulders. "It would take an arbitration commission agood many sittings to define the boundaries of society nowadays. Butat any rate they're in New York; and I assure you you're _not_; you'refarther and farther from it. "

"But I've been back there several times to see Leila. " She hesitatedand looked away from him. Then she brought out slowly: "And I've nevernoticed--the least change--in--in my own case--"

"Oh, " he sounded deprecatingly, and she trembled with the fear of havinggone too far. But the hour was past when such scruples could restrainher. She must know where she was and where Leila was. "Mrs. Boulgerstill cuts me, " she brought out with an embarrassed laugh. 

"Are you sure? You've probably cut _her_; if not now, at least in thepast. And in a cut if you're not first you're nowhere. That's what keepsup so many quarrels. "

The word roused Mrs. Lidcote to a renewed sense of realities. "But thePursues, " she said--"the Pursues are so strong! There are so many ofthem, and they all back each other up, just as my husband's family did. I know what it means to have a clan against one. They're stronger thanany number of separate friends. The Pursues will _never_ forgive Leilafor leaving Horace. Why, his mother opposed his marrying her becauseof--of me. She tried to get Leila to promise that she wouldn't see mewhen they went to Europe on their honeymoon. And now she'll say it wasmy example. "

Her companion, vaguely stroking his beard, mused a moment upon this;then he asked, with seeming irrelevance, "What did Leila say when youwrote that you were coming?"

"She said it wasn't the least necessary, but that I'd better come, because it was the only way to convince me that it wasn't. "

"Well, then, that proves she's not afraid of the Purshes. "

She breathed a long sigh of remembrance. "Oh, just at first, youknow--one never is. "

He laid his hand on hers with a gesture of intelligence and pity. "You'll see, you'll see, " he said. 

A shadow lengthened down the deck before them, and a steward stoodthere, proffering a Marconigram. 

"Oh, now I shall know!" she exclaimed. 

She tore the message open, and then let it fall on her knees, droppingher hands on it in silence. 

Ide's enquiry roused her: "It's all right?"

"Oh, quite right. Perfectly. She can't come; but she's sending SusySuffern. She says Susy will explain. " After another silence she added, with a sudden gush of bitterness: "As if I needed any explanation!"

She felt Ide's hesitating glance upon her. "She's in the country?"

"Yes. 'Prevented last moment. Longing for you, expecting you. Love fromboth. ' Don't you _see_, the poor darling, that she couldn't face it?"

"No, I don't. " He waited. "Do you mean to go to her immediately?"

"It will be too late to catch a train this evening; but I shall takethe first to-morrow morning. " She considered a moment. "'Perhaps it'sbetter. I need a talk with Susy first. She's to meet me at the dock, andI'll take her straight back to the hotel with me. "

As she developed this plan, she had the sense that Ide was stillthoughtfully, even gravely, considering her. When she ceased, heremained silent a moment; then he said almost ceremoniously: "If yourtalk with Miss Suffern doesn't last too late, may I come and see youwhen it's over? I shall be dining at my club, and I'll call you up atabout ten, if I may. I'm off to Chicago on business to-morrow morning, and it would be a satisfaction to know, before I start, that yourcousin's been able to reassure you, as I know she will. "

He spoke with a shy deliberateness that, even to Mrs. Lidcote's troubledperceptions, sounded a long-silenced note of feeling. Perhaps thebreaking down of the barrier of reticence between them had releasedunsuspected emotions in both. The tone of his appeal moved her curiouslyand loosened the tight strain of her fears. 

"Oh, yes, come--do come, " she said, rising. The huge threat of New Yorkwas imminent now, dwarfing, under long reaches of embattled masonry, thegreat deck she stood on and all the little specks of life it carried. One of them, drifting nearer, took the shape of her maid, followed byluggage-laden stewards, and signing to her that it was time to go below. As they descended to the main deck, the throng swept her against Mrs. Lorin Boulger's shoulder, and she heard the ambassadress call out tosome one, over the vexed sea of hats: "So sorry! I should have beendelighted, but I've promised to spend Sunday with some friends atLenox. "

II

Susy Suffern's explanation did not end till after ten o'clock, and shehad just gone when Franklin Ide, who, complying with an old New Yorktradition, had caused himself to be preceded by a long white box ofroses, was shown into Mrs. Lidcote's sitting-room. 

He came forward with his shy half-humorous smile and, taking her hand, looked at her for a moment without speaking. 

"It's all right, " he then pronounced. 

Mrs. Lidcote returned his smile. "It's extraordinary. Everything'schanged. Even Susy has changed; and you know the extent to which Susyused to represent the old New York. There's no old New York left, itseems. She talked in the most amazing way. She snaps her fingers at thePursues. She told me--_me_, that every woman had a right to happinessand that self-expression was the highest duty. She accused me ofmisunderstanding Leila; she said my point of view was conventional!She was bursting with pride at having been in the secret, and wearinga brooch that Wilbour Barkley'd given her!" Franklin Ide had seatedhimself in the arm-chair she had pushed forward for him under theelectric chandelier. He threw back his head and laughed. "What did Itell you?"

"Yes; but I can't believe that Susy's not mistaken. Poor dear, she hasthe habit of lost causes; and she may feel that, having stuck to me, shecan do no less than stick to Leila. "

"But she didn't--did she?--openly defy the world for you? She didn'tsnap her fingers at the Lidcotes?"

Mrs. Lidcote shook her head, still smiling. "No. It was enough to defy_my_ family. It was doubtful at one time if they would tolerate herseeing me, and she almost had to disinfect herself after each visit. Ibelieve that at first my sister-in-law wouldn't let the girls come downwhen Susy dined with her. "

"Well, isn't your cousin's present attitude the best possible proof thattimes have changed?"

"Yes, yes; I know. " She leaned forward from her sofa-corner, fixing hereyes on his thin kindly face, which gleamed on her indistinctlythrough her tears. "If it's true, it's--it's dazzling. She says Leila'sperfectly happy. It's as if an angel had gone about lifting gravestones, and the buried people walked again, and the living didn't shrink fromthem. "

"That's about it, " he assented. 

She drew a deep breath, and sat looking away from him down the longperspective of lamp-fringed streets over which her windows hung. 

"I can understand how happy you must be, " he began at length. 

She turned to him impetuously. "Yes, yes; I'm happy. But I'm lonely, too--lonelier than ever. I didn't take up much room in the world before;but now--where is there a corner for me? Oh. Since I've begun to confessmyself, why shouldn't I go on? Telling you this lifts a gravestone from_me!_ You see, before this, Leila needed me. She was unhappy, and I knewit, and though we hardly ever talked of it I felt that, in a way, thethought that I'd been through the same thing, and down to the dregs ofit, helped her. And her needing me helped _me_. And when the news ofher marriage came my first thought was that now she'd need me morethan ever, that she'd have no one but me to turn to. Yes, under all mydistress there was a fierce joy in that. It was so new and wonderfulto feel again that there was one person who wouldn't be able to get onwithout me! And now what you and Susy tell me seems to have taken mychild from me; and just at first that's all I can feel. "

"Of course it's all you feel. " He looked at her musingly. "Why didn'tLeila come to meet you?"

"That was really my fault. You see, I'd cabled that I was not sure ofbeing able to get off on the _Utopia_, and apparently my second cablewas delayed, and when she received it she'd already asked some peopleover Sunday--one or two of her old friends, Susy says. I'm so glad theyshould have wanted to go to her at once; but naturally I'd rather havebeen alone with her. "

"You still mean to go, then?"

"Oh, I must. Susy wanted to drag me off to Ridgefield with her overSunday, and Leila sent me word that of course I might go if I wantedto, and that I was not to think of her; but I know how disappointed shewould be. Susy said she was afraid I might be upset at her having peopleto stay, and that, if I minded, she wouldn't urge me to come. But if_they_ don't mind, why should I? And of course, if they're willing to goto Leila it must mean--"

"Of course. I'm glad you recognize that, " Franklin Ide exclaimedabruptly. He stood up and went over to her, taking her hand with one ofhis quick gestures. "There's something I want to say to you, " he began--*****

The next morning, in the train, through all the other contendingthoughts in Mrs. Lidcote's mind there ran the warm undercurrent of whatFranklin Ide had wanted to say to her. 

He had wanted, she knew, to say it once before, when, nearly eightyears earlier, the hazard of meeting at the end of a rainy autumn ina deserted Swiss hotel had thrown them for a fortnight into unwontedpropinquity. They had walked and talked together, borrowed each other'sbooks and newspapers, spent the long chill evenings over the fire in thedim lamplight of her little pitch-pine sitting-room; and she had beenwonderfully comforted by his presence, and hard frozen places in her hadmelted, and she had known that she would be desperately sorry when hewent. And then, just at the end, in his odd indirect way, he had let hersee that it rested with her to have him stay. She could still relive thesleepless night she had given to that discovery. It was preposterous, ofcourse, to think of repaying his devotion by accepting such a sacrifice;but how find reasons to convince him? She could not bear to lethim think her less touched, less inclined to him than she was: thegenerosity of his love deserved that she should repay it with the truth. Yet how let him see what she felt, and yet refuse what he offered? Howconfess to him what had been on her lips when he made the offer: "I'veseen what it did to one man; and there must never, never be another"?The tacit ignoring of her past had been the element in which theirfriendship lived, and she could not suddenly, to him of all men, beginto talk of herself like a guilty woman in a play. Somehow, in the end, she had managed it, had averted a direct explanation, had made himunderstand that her life was over, that she existed only for herdaughter, and that a more definite word from him would have been almosta breach of delicacy. She was so used to be having as if her life wereover! And, at any rate, he had taken her hint, and she had been able tospare her sensitiveness and his. The next year, when he came to Florenceto see her, they met again in the old friendly way; and that till nowhad continued to be the tenor of their intimacy. 

And now, suddenly and unexpectedly, he had brought up the questionagain, directly this time, and in such a form that she could not evadeit: putting the renewal of his plea, after so long an interval, on theground that, on her own showing, her chief argument against it no longerexisted. 

"You tell me Leila's happy. If she's happy, she doesn't need you--needyou, that is, in the same way as before. You wanted, I know, to bealways in reach, always free and available if she should suddenly callyou to her or take refuge with you. I understood that--I respected it. I didn't urge my case because I saw it was useless. You couldn't, Iunderstood well enough, have felt free to take such happiness as lifewith me might give you while she was unhappy, and, as you imagined, with no hope of release. Even then I didn't feel as you did about it; Iunderstood better the trend of things here. But ten years ago the changehadn't really come; and I had no way of convincing you that it wascoming. Still, I always fancied that Leila might not think her case wasclosed, and so I chose to think that ours wasn't either. Let me go onthinking so, at any rate, till you've seen her, and confirmed with yourown eyes what Susy Suffern tells you. "

III

All through what Susy Suffern told and retold her during theirfour-hours' flight to the hills this plea of Ide's kept coming back toMrs. Lidcote. She did not yet know what she felt as to its bearing onher own fate, but it was something on which her confused thoughtscould stay themselves amid the welter of new impressions, and she wasinexpressibly glad that he had said what he had, and said it at thatparticular moment. It helped her to hold fast to her identity in therush of strange names and new categories that her cousin's talk pouredout on her. 

With the progress of the journey Miss Suffern's communications grewmore and more amazing. She was like a cicerone preparing the mind of aninexperienced traveller for the marvels about to burst on it. 

"You won't know Leila. She's had her pearls reset. Sargent's to painther. Oh, and I was to tell you that she hopes you won't mind being theleast bit squeezed over Sunday. The house was built by Wilbour's father, you know, and it's rather old-fashioned--only ten spare bedrooms. Ofcourse that's small for what they mean to do, and she'll show you thenew plans they've had made. Their idea is to keep the present house as awing. She told me to explain--she's so dreadfully sorry not to be ableto give you a sitting-room just at first. They're thinking of Egypt fornext winter, unless, of course, Wilbour gets his appointment. Oh, didn'tshe write you about that? Why, he wants Borne, you know--the secondsecretaryship. Or, rather, he wanted England; but Leila insisted that ifthey went abroad she must be near you. And of course what she says islaw. Oh, they quite hope they'll get it. You see Horace's uncle is inthe Cabinet, --one of the assistant secretaries, --and I believe he has agood deal of pull--"

"Horace's uncle? You mean Wilbour's, I suppose, " Mrs. Lidcoteinterjected, with a gasp of which a fraction was given to Miss Suffern'sflippant use of the language. 

"Wilbour's? No, I don't. I mean Horace's. There's no bad feeling betweenthem, I assure you. Since Horace's engagement was announced--you didn'tknow Horace was engaged? Why, he's marrying one of Bishop Thorbury'sgirls: the red-haired one who wrote the novel that every one's talkingabout, 'This Flesh of Mine. ' They're to be married in the cathedral. Ofcourse Horace _can_, because it was Leila who--but, as I say, there'snot the _least_ feeling, and Horace wrote himself to his uncle aboutWilbour. "

Mrs. Lidcote's thoughts fled back to what she had said to Ide the daybefore on the deck of the _Utopia_. "I didn't take up much room before, but now where is there a corner for me?" Where indeed in this crowded, topsy-turvey world, with its headlong changes and helter-skelterreadjustments, its new tolerances and indifferences and accommodations, was there room for a character fashioned by slower sterner processes anda life broken under their inexorable pressure? And then, in a flash, she viewed the chaos from a new angle, and order seemed to move upon thevoid. If the old processes were changed, her case was changed with them;she, too, was a part of the general readjustment, a tiny fragment of thenew pattern worked out in bolder freer harmonies. Since her daughter hadno penalty to pay, was not she herself released by the same stroke? Therich arrears of youth and joy were gone; but was there not time enoughleft to accumulate new stores of happiness? That, of course, was whatFranklin Ide had felt and had meant her to feel. He had seen at oncewhat the change in her daughter's situation would make in her view ofher own. It was almost--wondrously enough!--as if Leila's folly had beenthe means of vindicating hers. 

*****

Everything else for the moment faded for Mrs. Lidcote in the glow of herdaughter's embrace. It was unnatural, it was almost terrifying, to findherself standing on a strange threshold, under an unknown roof, in a bighall full of pictures, flowers, firelight, and hurrying servants, andin this spacious unfamiliar confusion to discover Leila, bareheaded, laughing, authoritative, with a strange young man jovially echoing herwelcome and transmitting her orders; but once Mrs. Lidcote had her childon her breast, and her child's "It's all right, you old darling!" in herears, every other feeling was lost in the deep sense of well-being thatonly Leila's hug could give. 

The sense was still with her, warming her veins and pleasantlyfluttering her heart, as she went up to her room after luncheon. Alittle constrained by the presence of visitors, and not altogether sorryto defer for a few hours the "long talk" with her daughter for which shesomehow felt herself tremulously unready, she had withdrawn, on the pleaof fatigue, to the bright luxurious bedroom into which Leila had againand again apologized for having been obliged to squeeze her. The roomwas bigger and finer than any in her small apartment in Florence; but itwas not the standard of affluence implied in her daughter's tone aboutit that chiefly struck her, nor yet the finish and complexity of itsappointments. It was the look it shared with the rest of the house, andwith the perspective of the gardens beneath its windows, of being partof an "establishment"--of something solid, avowed, founded on sacramentsand precedents and principles. There was nothing about the place, orabout Leila and Wilbour, that suggested either passion or peril: theirrelation seemed as comfortable as their furniture and as respectable astheir balance at the bank. 

This was, in the whole confusing experience, the thing that confusedMrs. Lidcote most, that gave her at once the deepest feeling of securityfor Leila and the strongest sense of apprehension for herself. Yes, there was something oppressive in the completeness and compactness ofLeila's well-being. Ide had been right: her daughter did not need her. Leila, with her first embrace, had unconsciously attested the fact inthe same phrase as Ide himself and as the two young women with the hats. "It's all right, you old darling!" she had said; and her mother satalone, trying to fit herself into the new scheme of things which such acertainty betokened. 

Her first distinct feeling was one of irrational resentment. If such achange was to come, why had it not come sooner? Here was she, a womannot yet old, who had paid with the best years of her life for the theftof the happiness that her daughter's contemporaries were taking astheir due. There was no sense, no sequence, in it. She had had what shewanted, but she had had to pay too much for it. She had had to pay thelast bitterest price of learning that love has a price: that it is worthso much and no more. She had known the anguish of watching the man sheloved discover this first, and of reading the discovery in his eyes. Itwas a part of her history that she had not trusted herself to thinkof for a long time past: she always took a big turn about that hauntedcorner. But now, at the sight of the young man downstairs, so openly andjovially Leila's, she was overwhelmed at the senseless waste of her ownadventure, and wrung with the irony of perceiving that the successor failure of the deepest human experiences may hang on a matter ofchronology. 

Then gradually the thought of Ide returned to her. "I chose to thinkthat our case wasn't closed, " he had said. She had been deeply touchedby that. To every one else her case had been closed so long! _Finis_ wasscrawled all over her. But here was one man who had believed and waited, and what if what he believed in and waited for were coming true? IfLeila's "all right" should really foreshadow hers?

As yet, of course, it was impossible to tell. She had fancied, indeed, when she entered the drawing-room before luncheon, that a too-suddenhush had fallen on the assembled group of Leila's friends, on theslender vociferous young women and the lounging golf-stockinged youngmen. They had all received her politely, with the kind of petrifiedpoliteness that may be either a tribute to age or a protest at laxity;but to them, of course, she must be an old woman because she was Leila'smother, and in a society so dominated by youth the mere presence ofmaturity was a constraint. 

One of the young girls, however, had presently emerged from the group, and, attaching herself to Mrs. Lidcote, had listened to her with ablue gaze of admiration which gave the older woman a sudden happyconsciousness of her long-forgotten social graces. It was agreeable tofind herself attracting this young Charlotte Wynn, whose mother had beenamong her closest friends, and in whom something of the soberness andsoftness of the earlier manners had survived. But the little colloquy, broken up by the announcement of luncheon, could of course result innothing more definite than this reminiscent emotion. 

No, she could not yet tell how her own case was to be fitted into thenew order of things; but there were more people--"older people" Leilahad put it--arriving by the afternoon train, and that evening at dinnershe would doubtless be able to judge. She began to wonder nervously whothe new-comers might be. Probably she would be spared the embarrassmentof finding old acquaintances among them; but it was odd that herdaughter had mentioned no names. 

Leila had proposed that, later in the afternoon, Wilbour should takeher mother for a drive: she said she wanted them to have a "nice, quiettalk. " But Mrs. Lidcote wished her talk with Leila to come first, andhad, moreover, at luncheon, caught stray allusions to an impendingtennis-match in which her son-in-law was engaged. Her fatigue had been asufficient pretext for declining the drive, and she had begged Leila tothink of her as peacefully resting in her room till such time as theycould snatch their quiet moment. 

"Before tea, then, you duck!" Leila with a last kiss had decided; andpresently Mrs. Lidcote, through her open window, had heard the freshloud voices of her daughter's visitors chiming across the gardens fromthe tennis-court. 

IV

Leila had come and gone, and they had had their talk. It had not lastedas long as Mrs. Lidcote wished, for in the middle of it Leila had beensummoned to the telephone to receive an important message from town, andhad sent word to her mother that she couldn't come back just then, as one of the young ladies had been called away unexpectedly andarrangements had to be made for her departure. But the mother anddaughter had had almost an hour together, and Mrs. Lidcote was happy. She had never seen Leila so tender, so solicitous. The only thing thattroubled her was the very excess of this solicitude, the exaggeratedexpression of her daughter's annoyance that their first moments togethershould have been marred by the presence of strangers. 

"Not strangers to me, darling, since they're friends of yours, " hermother had assured her. 

"Yes; but I know your feeling, you queer wild mother. I know how you'vealways hated people. " (_Hated people!_ Had Leila forgotten why?)"And that's why I told Susy that if you preferred to go with her toRidgefield on Sunday I should perfectly understand, and patiently waitfor our good hug. But you didn't really mind them at luncheon, did you, dearest?"

Mrs. Lidcote, at that, had suddenly thrown a startled look at herdaughter. "I don't mind things of that kind any longer, " she had simplyanswered. 

"But that doesn't console me for having exposed you to the bother of it, for having let you come here when I ought to have _ordered_ you off toRidgefield with Susy. If Susy hadn't been stupid she'd have made you gothere with her. I hate to think of you up here all alone. "

Again Mrs. Lidcote tried to read something more than a rather obtusedevotion in her daughter's radiant gaze. "I'm glad to have had a restthis afternoon, dear; and later--"

"Oh, yes, later, when all this fuss is over, we'll more than make up forit, sha'n't we, you precious darling?" And at this point Leila had beensummoned to the telephone, leaving Mrs. Lidcote to her conjectures. 

These were still floating before her in cloudy uncertainty when MissSuffern tapped at the door. 

"You've come to take me down to tea? I'd forgotten how late it was, "Mrs. Lidcote exclaimed. 

Miss Suffern, a plump peering little woman, with prim hair and aconciliatory smile, nervously adjusted the pendent bugles of herelaborate black dress. Miss Suffern was always in mourning, and alwayscommemorating the demise of distant relatives by wearing the discardedwardrobe of their next of kin. "It isn't _exactly_ mourning, " she wouldsay; "but it's the only stitch of black poor Julia had--and of courseGeorge was only my mother's step-cousin. "

As she came forward Mrs. Lidcote found herself humorously wonderingwhether she were mourning Horace Pursh's divorce in one of his mother'sold black satins. 

"Oh, _did_ you mean to go down for tea?" Susy Suffern peered at her, alittle fluttered. "Leila sent me up to keep you company. She thought itwould be cozier for you to stay here. She was afraid you were feelingrather tired. "

"I was; but I've had the whole afternoon to rest in. And this wonderfulsofa to help me. "

"Leila told me to tell you that she'd rush up for a minute beforedinner, after everybody had arrived; but the train is always dreadfullylate. She's in despair at not giving you a sitting-room; she wanted toknow if I thought you really minded. "

"Of course I don't mind. It's not like Leila to think I should. " Mrs. Lidcote drew aside to make way for the housemaid, who appeared in thedoorway bearing a table spread with a bewildering variety of tea-cakes. 

"Leila saw to it herself, " Miss Suffern murmured as the door closed. "Her one idea is that you should feel happy here. "

It struck Mrs. Lidcote as one more mark of the subverted state ofthings that her daughter's solicitude should find expression in themultiplicity of sandwiches and the piping-hotness of muffins; but theneverything that had happened since her arrival seemed to increase herconfusion. 

The note of a motor-horn down the drive gave another turn to herthoughts. "Are those the new arrivals already?" she asked. 

"Oh, dear, no; they won't be here till after seven. " Miss Sufferncraned her head from the window to catch a glimpse of the motor. "Itmust be Charlotte leaving. "

"Was it the little Wynn girl who was called away in a hurry? I hope it'snot on account of illness. "

"Oh, no; I believe there was some mistake about dates. Her mothertelephoned her that she was expected at the Stepleys, at Fishkill, andshe had to be rushed over to Albany to catch a train. "

Mrs. Lidcote meditated. "I'm sorry. She's a charming young thing. Ihoped I should have another talk with her this evening after dinner. "

"Yes; it's too bad. " Miss Suffern's gaze grew vague. 

"You _do_ look tired, you know, " she continued, seating herself atthe tea-table and preparing to dispense its delicacies. "You must gostraight back to your sofa and let me wait on you. The excitement hastold on you more than you think, and you mustn't fight against it anylonger. Just stay quietly up here and let yourself go. You'll have Leilato yourself on Monday. "

Mrs. Lidcote received the tea-cup which her cousin proffered, but showedno other disposition to obey her injunctions. For a moment she stirredher tea in silence; then she asked: "Is it your idea that I should stayquietly up here till Monday?"

Miss Suffern set down her cup with a gesture so sudden that itendangered an adjacent plate of scones. When she had assured herself ofthe safety of the scones she looked up with a fluttered laugh. "Perhaps, dear, by to-morrow you'll be feeling differently. The air here, youknow--"

"Yes, I know. " Mrs. Lidcote bent forward to help herself to a scone. "Who's arriving this evening?" she asked. 

Miss Suffern frowned and peered. "You know my wretched head for names. Leila told me--but there are so many--"

"So many? She didn't tell me she expected a big party. "

"Oh, not big: but rather outside of her little group. And of course, asit's the first time, she's a little excited at having the older set. "

"The older set? Our contemporaries, you mean?"

"Why--yes. " Miss Suffern paused as if to gather herself up for a leap. "The Ashton Gileses, " she brought out. 

"The Ashton Gileses? Really? I shall be glad to see Mary Giles again. Itmust be eighteen years, " said Mrs. Lidcote steadily. 

"Yes, " Miss Suffern gasped, precipitately refilling her cup. 

"The Ashton Gileses; and who else?"

"Well, the Sam Fresbies. But the most important person, of course, isMrs. Lorin Boulger. "

"Mrs. Boulger? Leila didn't tell me she was coming. "

"Didn't she? I suppose she forgot everything when she saw you. But theparty was got up for Mrs. Boulger. You see, it's very important that sheshould--well, take a fancy to Leila and Wilbour; his being appointedto Rome virtually depends on it. And you know Leila insists on Rome inorder to be near you. So she asked Mary Giles, who's intimate with theBoulgers, if the visit couldn't possibly be arranged; and Mary's cablecaught Mrs. Boulger at Cherbourg. She's to be only a fortnight inAmerica; and getting her to come directly here was rather a triumph. "

"Yes; I see it was, " said Mrs. Lidcote. 

"You know, she's rather--rather fussy; and Mary was a little doubtfulif--"

"If she would, on account of Leila?" Mrs. Lidcote murmured. 

"Well, yes. In her official position. But luckily she's a friend of theBarkleys. And finding the Gileses and Fresbies here will make it allright. The times have changed!" Susy Suffern indulgently summed up. 

Mrs. Lidcote smiled. "Yes; a few years ago it would have seemedimprobable that I should ever again be dining with Mary Giles andHarriet Fresbie and Mrs. Lorin Boulger. "

Miss Suffern did not at the moment seem disposed to enlarge upon thistheme; and after an interval of silence Mrs. Lidcote suddenly resumed:"Do they know I'm here, by the way?"

The effect of her question was to produce in Miss Suffern an exaggeratedaccess of peering and frowning. She twitched the tea-things about, fingered her bugles, and, looking at the clock, exclaimed amazedly:"Mercy! Is it seven already?"

"Not that it can make any difference, I suppose, " Mrs. Lidcotecontinued. "But did Leila tell them I was coming?"

Miss Suffern looked at her with pain. "Why, you don't suppose, dearest, that Leila would do anything--"

Mrs. Lidcote went on: "For, of course, it's of the first importance, asyou say, that Mrs. Lorin Boulger should be favorably impressed, in orderthat Wilbour may have the best possible chance of getting Borne. "

"I _told_ Leila you'd feel that, dear. You see, it's actually on _your_account--so that they may get a post near you--that Leila invited Mrs. Boulger. "

"Yes, I see that. " Mrs. Lidcote, abruptly rising from her seat, turnedher eyes to the clock. "But, as you say, it's getting late. Oughtn't weto dress for dinner?"

Miss Suffern, at the suggestion, stood up also, an agitated handamong her bugles. "I do wish I could persuade you to stay up here thisevening. I'm sure Leila'd be happier if you would. Really, you're muchtoo tired to come down. "

"What nonsense, Susy!" Mrs. Lidcote spoke with a sudden sharpness, herhand stretched to the bell. "When do we dine? At half-past eight? Then Imust really send you packing. At my age it takes time to dress. "

Miss Suffern, thus projected toward the threshold, lingered there torepeat: "Leila'll never forgive herself if you make an effort you're notup to. " But Mrs. Lidcote smiled on her without answering, and the icylightwave propelled her through the door. 

V

Mrs. Lidcote, though she had made the gesture of ringing for her maid, had not done so. 

When the door closed, she continued to stand motionless in the middleof her soft spacious room. The fire which had been kindled at twilightdanced on the brightness of silver and mirrors and sober gilding; andthe sofa toward which she had been urged by Miss Suffern heaped upits cushions in inviting proximity to a table laden with new books andpapers. She could not recall having ever been more luxuriously housed, or having ever had so strange a sense of being out alone, under thenight, in a windbeaten plain. She sat down by the fire and thought. 

A knock on the door made her lift her head, and she saw her daughteron the threshold. The intricate ordering of Leila's fair hair and theflying folds of her dressinggown showed that she had interrupted herdressing to hasten to her mother; but once in the room she paused amoment, smiling uncertainly, as though she had forgotten the object ofher haste. 

Mrs. Lidcote rose to her feet. "Time to dress, dearest? Don't scold! Ishan't be late. "

"To dress?" Leila stood before her with a puzzled look. "Why, I thought, dear--I mean, I hoped you'd decided just to stay here quietly and rest. "

Her mother smiled. "But I've been resting all the afternoon!"

"Yes, but--you know you _do_ look tired. And when Susy told me just nowthat you meant to make the effort--"

"You came to stop me?"

"I came to tell you that you needn't feel in the least obliged--"

"Of course. I understand that. "

There was a pause during which Leila, vaguely averting herself fromher mother's scrutiny, drifted toward the dressing-table and began todisturb the symmetry of the brushes and bottles laid out on it. 

"Do your visitors know that I'm here?" Mrs. Lidcote suddenly went on. 

"Do they--Of course--why, naturally, " Leila rejoined, absorbed intrying to turn the stopper of a salts-bottle. 

"Then won't they think it odd if I don't appear?"

"Oh, not in the least, dearest. I assure you they'll _all_ understand. "Leila laid down the bottle and turned back to her mother, her facealight with reassurance. 

Mrs. Lidcote stood motionless, her head erect, her smiling eyes on herdaughter's. "Will they think it odd if I _do_?"

Leila stopped short, her lips half parted to reply. As she paused, thecolour stole over her bare neck, swept up to her throat, and burst intoflame in her cheeks. Thence it sent its devastating crimson up to hervery temples, to the lobes of her ears, to the edges of her eyelids, beating all over her in fiery waves, as if fanned by some imperceptiblewind. 

Mrs. Lidcote silently watched the conflagration; then she turned awayher eyes with a slight laugh. "I only meant that I was afraid it mightupset the arrangement of your dinner-table if I didn't come down. If youcan assure me that it won't, I believe I'll take you at your word andgo back to this irresistible sofa. " She paused, as if waiting for herdaughter to speak; then she held out her arms. "Run off and dress, dearest; and don't have me on your mind. " She clasped Leila close, pressing a long kiss on the last afterglow of her subsiding blush. "I dofeel the least bit overdone, and if it won't inconvenience you to haveme drop out of things, I believe I'll basely take to my bed and staythere till your party scatters. And now run off, or you'll be late; andmake my excuses to them all. "

VI

The Barkleys' visitors had dispersed, and Mrs. Lidcote, completelyrestored by her two days' rest, found herself, on the following Mondayalone with her children and Miss Suffern. 

There was a note of jubilation in the air, for the party had "goneoff" so extraordinarily well, and so completely, as it appeared, to thesatisfaction of Mrs. Lorin Boulger, that Wilbour's early appointmentto Rome was almost to be counted on. So certain did this seem that theprospect of a prompt reunion mitigated the distress with which Leilalearned of her mother's decision to return almost immediately toItaly. No one understood this decision; it seemed to Leila absolutelyunintelligible that Mrs. Lidcote should not stay on with them till theirown fate was fixed, and Wilbour echoed her astonishment. 

"Why shouldn't you, as Leila says, wait here till we can all pack up andgo together?"

Mrs. Lidcote smiled her gratitude with her refusal. "After all, it's notyet sure that you'll be packing up. "

"Oh, you ought to have seen Wilbour with Mrs. Boulger, " Leila triumphed. 

"No, you ought to have seen Leila with her, " Leila's husband exulted. 

Miss Suffern enthusiastically appended: "I _do_ think inviting HarrietFresbie was a stroke of genius!"

"Oh, we'll be with you soon, " Leila laughed. "So soon that it's reallyfoolish to separate. "

But Mrs. Lidcote held out with the quiet firmness which her daughterknew it was useless to oppose. After her long months in India, it wasreally imperative, she declared, that she should get back to Florenceand see what was happening to her little place there; and she had beenso comfortable on the _Utopia_ that she had a fancy to return by thesame ship. There was nothing for it, therefore, but to acquiesce in herdecision and keep her with them till the afternoon before the day ofthe _Utopia's_ sailing. This arrangement fitted in with certain projectswhich, during her two days' seclusion, Mrs. Lidcote had silentlymatured. It had become to her of the first importance to get away assoon as she could, and the little place in Florence, which held herpast in every fold of its curtains and between every page of its books, seemed now to her the one spot where that past would be endurable tolook upon. 

She was not unhappy during the intervening days. The sight of Leila'swell-being, the sense of Leila's tenderness, were, after all, what shehad come for; and of these she had had full measure. Leila had neverbeen happier or more tender; and the contemplation of her bliss, and theenjoyment of her affection, were an absorbing occupation for her mother. But they were also a sharp strain on certain overtightened chords, andMrs. Lidcote, when at last she found herself alone in the New York hotelto which she had returned the night before embarking, had the feelingthat she had just escaped with her life from the clutch of a giant hand. 

She had refused to let her daughter come to town with her; she had evenrejected Susy Suffern's company. She wanted no viaticum but that of herown thoughts; and she let these come to her without shrinking from themas she sat in the same high-hung sitting-room in which, just a weekbefore, she and Franklin Ide had had their memorable talk. 

She had promised her friend to let him hear from her, but she had notkept her promise. She knew that he had probably come back from Chicago, and that if he learned of her sudden decision to return to Italy itwould be impossible for her not to see him before sailing; and as shewished above all things not to see him she had kept silent, intending tosend him a letter from the steamer. 

There was no reason why she should wait till then to write it. Theactual moment was more favorable, and the task, though not agreeable, would at least bridge over an hour of her lonely evening. She went upto the writing-table, drew out a sheet of paper and began to write hisname. And as she did so, the door opened and he came in. 

The words she met him with were the last she could have imagined herselfsaying when they had parted. "How in the world did you know that I washere?"

He caught her meaning in a flash. "You didn't want me to, then?" Hestood looking at her. "I suppose I ought to have taken your silence asmeaning that. But I happened to meet Mrs. Wynn, who is stopping here, and she asked me to dine with her and Charlotte, and Charlotte'syoung man. They told me they'd seen you arriving this afternoon, and Icouldn't help coming up. "

There was a pause between them, which Mrs. Lidcote at last surprisinglybroke with the exclamation: "Ah, she _did_ recognize me, then!"

"Recognize you?" He stared. "Why--"

"Oh, I saw she did, though she never moved an eyelid. I saw it byCharlotte's blush. The child has the prettiest blush. I saw that hermother wouldn't let her speak to me. "

Ide put down his hat with an impatient laugh. "Hasn't Leila cured you ofyour delusions?"

She looked at him intently. "Then you don't think Margaret Wynn meant tocut me?"

"I think your ideas are absurd. "

She paused for a perceptible moment without taking this up; then shesaid, at a tangent: "I'm sailing tomorrow early. I meant to write toyou--there's the letter I'd begun. "

Ide followed her gesture, and then turned his eyes back to her face. "You didn't mean to see me, then, or even to let me know that you weregoing till you'd left?"

"I felt it would be easier to explain to you in a letter--"

"What in God's name is there to explain?" She made no reply, and hepressed on: "It can't be that you're worried about Leila, for CharlotteWynn told me she'd been there last week, and there was a bigparty arriving when she left: Fresbies and Gileses, and Mrs. LorinBoulger--all the board of examiners! If Leila has passed _that_, she'sgot her degree. "

Mrs. Lidcote had dropped down into a corner of the sofa where she hadsat during their talk of the week before. "I was stupid, " she beganabruptly. "I ought to have gone to Ridgefield with Susy. I didn't seetill afterward that I was expected to. "

"You were expected to?"

"Yes. Oh, it wasn't Leila's fault. She suffered--poor darling; she wasdistracted. But she'd asked her party before she knew I was arriving. "

"Oh, as to that--" Ide drew a deep breath of relief. "I can understandthat it must have been a disappointment not to have you to herself justat first. But, after all, you were among old friends or their children:the Gileses and Fresbies--and little Charlotte Wynn. " He paused a momentbefore the last name, and scrutinized her hesitatingly. "Even if theycame at the wrong time, you must have been glad to see them all atLeila's. "

She gave him back his look with a faint smile. "I didn't see them. "

"You didn't see them?"

"No. That is, excepting little Charlotte Wynn. That child is exquisite. We had a talk before luncheon the day I arrived. But when her motherfound out that I was staying in the house she telephoned her to leaveimmediately, and so I didn't see her again. "

The colour rushed to Ide's sallow face. "I don't know where you get suchideas!"

She pursued, as if she had not heard him: "Oh, and I saw Mary Giles fora minute too. Susy Suffern brought her up to my room the last evening, after dinner, when all the others were at bridge. She meant itkindly--but it wasn't much use. "

"But what were you doing in your room in the evening after dinner?"

"Why, you see, when I found out my mistake in coming, --how embarrassingit was for Leila, I mean--I simply told her I was very tired, andpreferred to stay upstairs till the party was over. "

Ide, with a groan, struck his hand against the arm of his chair. "Iwonder how much of all this you simply imagined!"

"I didn't imagine the fact of Harriet Fresbie's not even asking ifshe might see me when she knew I was in the house. Nor of Mary Giles'sgetting Susy, at the eleventh hour, to smuggle her up to my room whenthe others wouldn't know where she'd gone; nor poor Leila's ghastly fearlest Mrs. Lorin Boulger, for whom the party was given, should guess Iwas in the house, and prevent her husband's giving Wilbour the secondsecretaryship because she'd been obliged to spend a night under the sameroof with his mother-in-law!"

Ide continued to drum on his chair-arm with exasperated fingers. "Youdon't _know_ that any of the acts you describe are due to the causes yousuppose. "

Mrs. Lidcote paused before replying, as if honestly trying to measurethe weight of this argument. Then she said in a low tone: "I know thatLeila was in an agony lest I should come down to dinner the first night. And it was for me she was afraid, not for herself. Leila is never afraidfor herself. "

"But the conclusions you draw are simply preposterous. There arenarrow-minded women everywhere, but the women who were at Leila's knewperfectly well that their going there would give her a sort of socialsanction, and if they were willing that she should have it, why on earthshould they want to withhold it from you?"

"That's what I told myself a week ago, in this very room, after my firsttalk with Susy Suffern. " She lifted a misty smile to his anxious eyes. "That's why I listened to what you said to me the same evening, and whyyour arguments half convinced me, and made me think that what hadbeen possible for Leila might not be impossible for me. If the newdispensation had come, why not for me as well as for the others? I can'ttell you the flight my imagination took!"

Franklin Ide rose from his seat and crossed the room to a chair near hersofa-corner. "All I cared about was that it seemed--for the moment--tobe carrying you toward me, " he said. 

"I cared about that, too. That's why I meant to go away without seeingyou. " They gave each other grave look for look. "Because, you see, Iwas mistaken, " she went on. "We were both mistaken. You say it'spreposterous that the women who didn't object to accepting Leila'shospitality should have objected to meeting me under her roof. And so itis; but I begin to understand why. It's simply that society is much toobusy to revise its own judgments. Probably no one in the house with mestopped to consider that my case and Leila's were identical. They onlyremembered that I'd done something which, at the time I did it, wascondemned by society. My case has been passed on and classified: I'm thewoman who has been cut for nearly twenty years. The older people havehalf forgotten why, and the younger ones have never really known: it'ssimply become a tradition to cut me. And traditions that have lost theirmeaning are the hardest of all to destroy. "

Ide sat motionless while she spoke. As she ended, he stood up witha short laugh and walked across the room to the window. Outside, theimmense black prospect of New York, strung with its myriad lines oflight, stretched away into the smoky edges of the night. He showed it toher with a gesture. 

"What do you suppose such words as you've been using--'society, ''tradition, ' and the rest--mean to all the life out there?"

She came and stood by him in the window. "Less than nothing, of course. But you and I are not out there. We're shut up in a little tight roundof habit and association, just as we're shut up in this room. Remember, I thought I'd got out of it once; but what really happened was that theother people went out, and left me in the same little room. The onlydifference was that I was there alone. Oh, I've made it habitable now, I'm used to it; but I've lost any illusions I may have had as to anangel's opening the door. "

Ide again laughed impatiently. "Well, if the door won't open, why notlet another prisoner in? At least it would be less of a solitude--"

She turned from the dark window back into the vividly lighted room. 

"It would be more of a prison. You forget that I know all about that. We're all imprisoned, of course--all of us middling people, who don'tcarry our freedom in our brains. But we've accommodated ourselves to ourdifferent cells, and if we're moved suddenly into new ones we're likelyto find a stone wall where we thought there was thin air, and to knockourselves senseless against it. I saw a man do that once. "

Ide, leaning with folded arms against the windowframe, watched her insilence as she moved restlessly about the room, gathering togethersome scattered books and tossing a handful of torn letters into thepaperbasket. When she ceased, he rejoined: "All you say is based onpreconceived theories. Why didn't you put them to the test by comingdown to meet your old friends? Don't you see the inference they wouldnaturally draw from your hiding yourself when they arrived? It looked asthough you were afraid of them--or as though you hadn't forgiven them. Either way, you put them in the wrong instead of waiting to let them putyou in the right. If Leila had buried herself in a desert do you supposesociety would have gone to fetch her out? You say you were afraid forLeila and that she was afraid for you. Don't you see what all thesecomplications of feeling mean? Simply that you were too nervous at themoment to let things happen naturally, just as you're too nervous nowto judge them rationally. " He paused and turned his eyes to her face. "Don't try to just yet. Give yourself a little more time. Give _me_ alittle more time. I've always known it would take time. "

He moved nearer, and she let him have her hand. 

With the grave kindness of his face so close above her she felt like achild roused out of frightened dreams and finding a light in the room. 

"Perhaps you're right--" she heard herself begin; then something withinher clutched her back, and her hand fell away from him. 

"I know I'm right: trust me, " he urged. "We'll talk of this in Florencesoon. "

She stood before him, feeling with despair his kindness, his patienceand his unreality. Everything he said seemed like a painted gauze letdown between herself and the real facts of life; and a sudden desireseized her to tear the gauze into shreds. 

She drew back and looked at him with a smile of superficial reassurance. "You _are_ right--about not talking any longer now. I'm nervous andtired, and it would do no good. I brood over things too much. As yousay, I must try not to shrink from people. " She turned away and glancedat the clock. "Why, it's only ten! If I send you off I shall beginto brood again; and if you stay we shall go on talking about the samething. Why shouldn't we go down and see Margaret Wynn for half an hour?"

She spoke lightly and rapidly, her brilliant eyes on his face. As shewatched him, she saw it change, as if her smile had thrown a too vividlight upon it. 

"Oh, no--not to-night!" he exclaimed. 

"Not to-night? Why, what other night have I, when I'm off atdawn? Besides, I want to show you at once that I mean to be moresensible--that I'm not going to be afraid of people any more. And Ishould really like another glimpse of little Charlotte. " He stoodbefore her, his hand in his beard, with the gesture he had in moments ofperplexity. "Come!" she ordered him gaily, turning to the door. 

He followed her and laid his hand on her arm. "Don't you think--hadn'tyou better let me go first and see? They told me they'd had a tiring dayat the dressmaker's* I daresay they have gone to bed. "

"But you said they'd a young man of Charlotte's dining with them. Surelyhe wouldn't have left by ten? At any rate, I'll go down with you andsee. It takes so long if one Ģends a servant first" She put him gentlyaside, and then paused as a new thought struck her. "Or wait; my maid'sin the next room. I'll tell her to go and ask if Margaret will receiveme. Yes, that's much the best way. "

She turned back and went toward the door that led to her bedroom; butbefore she could open it she felt Ide's quick touch again. 

"I believe--I remember now--Charlotte's young man was suggesting thatthey should all go out--to a musichall or something of the sort. I'msure--I'm positively sure that you won't find them. "

Her hand dropped from the door, his dropped from her arm, and as theydrew back and faced each other she saw the blood rise slowly through hissallow skin, redden his neck and ears, encroach upon the edges of hisbeard, and settle in dull patches under his kind troubled eyes. She hadseen the same blush on another face, and the same impulse of compassionshe had then felt made her turn her gaze away again. 

A knock on the door broke the silence, and a porter put his head' intothe room. 

"It's only just to know how many pieces there'll be to go down to thesteamer in the morning. "

With the words she felt that the veil of painted gauze was torn intatters, and that she was moving again among the grim edges of reality. 

"Oh, dear, " she exclaimed, "I never _can_ remember! Wait a minute; Ishall have to ask my maid. "

She opened her bedroom door and called out: "Annette!"