the chin, with silk featherstitching at the wrists. Little knobs of hair in wire wavers stuck out on her head. She drew the curtains closely across the two windows. How the rain beat! Voices came from the dining-room below. Renny's voice, exclaiming: "Never! Never!" How odd that he should exclaim "Never!" that way, as though in answer to her thoughts. . . . She caught sight of her reflection in the pier-glass, as she stood against the long dark curtain. She drew back her head and stared. A stately figure she made, truly. An upright, noble-looking creature, she could not help thinking. She raised one hand and placed it palm downward across her brow in the attitude of one searching the horizon for a sail, in the attitude of one standing on the edge of a cliff, buffeted by the wind, with the stormy sea below.
She posed thus for a moment like a statue, then turned out the light and sought her bed.
Ernest had felt a little odd coming up the stairs, almost light-headed, but when he got to his own room he was quite himself, except that he had a feeling of agreeable exhilaration. He very much liked the rose-coloured shade for his lamp that Alayne had sent him from New York on his birthday. It made his room so pretty and cheerful, even on such a night as this. Really, since this wet dark spell of weather had set in, he could hardly wait to light the lamp. Even in the daytime it made a charming spot of colour in the room. Alayne had always been so sweet to him. Her going had left a real blank in his life. And Eden, too, he missed him greatly. It was such a pity that their marriage had turned out as it did. They had been such a lovely young couple, intellectual, good to look upon.
He stood meditatively, enjoying the soft pink glow that was diffused over the room. It imparted a fragile liveliness to the Dresden china figures on the mantelpiece, a tremulousness as of sunrise on the water-colours on the grey walls. He was lucky to have such a room. Well, not altogether lucky, for his own good taste had made it what it was, though, of course, the view over the
