the heavy odors of the dining room almost sickened him.
"We'll get out on the beach," he said abruptly; "a little air."
They proceeded past the unremitting sprinklers on the strip of lawn to the wide gray sweep of sand. At that hour no one else was visible, and a new recklessness invaded his discomfort. "You see," he told her, "that bad luck of yours isn't going to hold."
"It seems incredible," she murmured. She added without an appearance of the least ulterior thought: "Mrs. August Turnbull."
"Exactly," he asserted.
A triumphant conviction of pleasure to come surged through him like a subtle exhilarating cordial.
"I'll take no nonsensical airs from Louise or the Rathes," he proclaimed.
"Don't let that worry you," she answered serenely.
He saw that it need not, and looked forward appreciatively to a scene in which Meta would not come off second.
Above them the long curve of the boardwalk was empty, with, behind it, the suave ornamental roofs of the cottages. A wind quartering from the shore had smoothed the ocean into the semblance of a limitless and placid lake. Minute waves ruffled along the beach with a continuous whispering, and the vault of the west, from which the sun had just withdrawn, was filled with light the color of sauterne wine.
It was inconceivable to August Turnbull that soon Emmy would be gone out of his life. He shook his thick
