w and provincial?"

"I cannot quite explain it. The interests of life don't seem so
large--the questions, I mean, what is going on in Europe, the
literature, the reforms, the politics. I get a wider view when I stand
off--at home. I suppose it is more concentrated here. And, oh dear, I'm
so stupid! Everybody is so alert in little things, so quick to turn a
compliment, and say a bright thing. While I am getting ready to say
what I really think about Browning, for instance, he is disposed of in a
sentence."

"That is because you try to say what you really think."

"If one don't, what's the use of talk?"

"Oh, to pass the time."

Margaret looked up to see if Henderson was serious. There was a smile of
amusement on his face, but not at all offensive, because the woman saw
that it was a look of interest also.

"Then I sha'n't be serious any more," she said, as there was a movement
to quit the table.

"That lays the responsibility on me of being serious," he replied, in
the same light tone.

Later they were wandering through the picture-gallery together.
A gallery of modern pictures appeals for the most part to the
senses--represents the pomps, the color, the allurements of life.
It struck Henderson forcibly that this gallery, which he knew well,
appeared very different looking at it with Miss Debree from what it
would if he had been looking at it with Miss Eschelle. There were some
pictures that he hurried past, some technical excellences only used for
sensuous effects--that he did not call attention to as he might have
done with another. Curiously enough, he found himself seeking sentiment,
purity. If the drawing was bad, Margaret knew it; if a false note was
struck, she saw it. But she was not educated up to a good many of the
suggestions of the gallery. Henderson perceived this, and his manner
to her became more deferential and protective. It was a manner to which
every true woman responds, and Margaret was happy, more herself, and
talked with a freedom and gayety, a spice of satire, and a note of
reality that made her every moment more attractive to her companion.
In her, animation the charm of her unworn beauty blazed upon him with a
direct personal appeal. He hardly cared to conceal his frank admiration.
She, on her part, was thinking, what could Miss Eschelle mean by saying
that she was afraid of him?

"Does the world seem any larger here, Miss Debree?" he asked, as they
had lingeringly made the circuit of