tion in the old woman's apron, hiding her face from Grover's sight.
But when she saw it was time to say good-bye, she came running forward, and clung to him. They both accompanied him to the door, and the nurse allowed Marthe to stand on the stoop.
Once more she clung to him, kissing him good-bye despairingly, as though it might be forever.
"Will you come again?" she finally asked, her voice trembling with the dread of a refusal.
He promised, and at length broke away.
He kept turning back, to see her standing there, in front of the old nurse, her arm raised high as she waved to him, like a child, the tears streaming down her face. Marthe, who had proclaimed that all women were selfish! The elusive, virginal quality that had first attracted him to her shone through and enveloped her broken body in a protective halo.
At the end of the lane he turned for a final farewell. Her handkerchief still fluttered, though the shapeless mother-hubbard was almost indiscernible through the fast falling snow.
As he waited for the tram Grover wondered what the quixotic vicomte would say if he were to discover that for all these years he had been stroking a wig!
He half guessed that the old man would understand, for, reflected Grover, life is not what it seems, and it's only romantics who really penetrate the appearance. It seemed to him that the old vicomte, making his
