etting, for men always seem to discourage curly hair, father
keeping his shorn like a prize-fighter. This curl softens the rigour of
Evan's horseshoe scowl, and when I fix it gives him a chance to put his
arm around my waist, which is the only satisfactory way of discussing
plans for a pleasure trip.

We arrived in town duly a little before dinner time. It is one of Evan's
comfortable travelling habits, this always arriving at a new place at the
end of day, so as to get the bearings and be adjusted when we awake next
morning. To arrive in the morning, when paying a visit especially, is
reversing the natural order of things; you are absent-minded until lunch,
sleepy all the afternoon, dyspeptic at dinner, when, like as not, some
one you have wholly forgotten or hoped to is asked to meet you. If the
theatre follows, you recuperate, but if it is cards (of which I must have
a prenatal hatred, it is so intense) with the apology, "I thought you
might be tired and prefer a cosey game of whist to going out," you trump
your partner's tricks, lead the short suits and mix clubs and spades with
equal oblivion, and, finally, going to bed, leave a bad impression behind
that causes your hostess to say, strictly to herself, if she is
charitable, "How Barbara has deteriorated; she used to be a good talker,
but then, poor dear, living in the country is _so_ narrowing."

Of course if you merely go away to spend the day it is different; you
generally keep on the move and go home to recover from it. And how men
usually hate staying in other people's houses, no matter how wide they
keep their doors open or how hospitably inclined they may be themselves.
They seem to be self-conscious, and are constrained to alter their
ordinary habits, which makes them miserable and feel as if they had given
up their free will and identity. There are only two places that I ever
dream of taking Evan, and Lavinia Dorman's is one of them.

When we had made ourselves smart for dinner and joined Miss Lavinia by
the fire in her tiny library, we read by her hair that she was evidently
intending to stay at home that evening, for her head has its nodes like
the moon. She has naturally pretty, soft wavy hair, with now and then a
silver streak running through it. I have often seen Lucy when she brushes
it out at night. But because there is a dash of white in the front as if
a powder puff had rested there a moment by accident, it is screwed into a
little knob and cover