t, empty rooms, alone; and I told Maude that
I would go to the Club--during her absence. I preferred to keep up
the fiction that her trip would only be temporary. She forbore from
contradicting me, devoting herself efficiently to the task of closing
the house, making it seem, somehow, a rite,--the final rite in her
capacity as housewife. The drawing-room was shrouded, and the library;
the books wrapped neatly in paper; a smell of camphor pervaded the
place; the cheerful schoolroom was dismantled; trunks and travelling
bags appeared. The solemn butler packed my clothes, and I arranged for
a room at the Club in the wing that recently had been added for the
accommodation of bachelors and deserted husbands. One of the ironies of
those days was that the children began to suggest again possibilities of
happiness I had missed--especially Matthew. With all his gentleness, the
boy seemed to have a precocious understanding of the verities, and the
capacity for suffering which as a child I had possessed. But he had more
self-control. Though he looked forward to the prospect of new scenes and
experiences with the anticipation natural to his temperament, I thought
he betrayed at moments a certain intuition as to what was going on.

"When are you coming over, father?" he asked once. "How soon will your
business let you?"

He had been brought up in the belief that my business was a tyrant.

"Oh, soon, Matthew,--sometime soon," I said.

I had a feeling that he understood me, not intellectually, but
emotionally. What a companion he might have been!... Moreton and Biddy
moved me less. They were more robust, more normal, less introspective
and imaginative; Europe meant nothing to them, but they were frankly
delighted and excited at the prospect of going on the ocean, asking
dozens of questions about the great ship, impatient to embark.....

"I shan't need all that, Hugh," Maude said, when I handed her a letter
of credit. "I--I intend to live quite simply, and my chief expenses
will be the children's education. I am going to give them the best, of
course."

"Of course," I replied. "But I want you to live over there as you have
been accustomed to live here. It's not exactly generosity on my part,--I
have enough, and more than enough."

She took the letter.

"Another thing--I'd rather you didn't go to New York with us, Hugh. I
know you are busy--"

"Of course I'm going," I started to protest.

"No," she went on, firmly. "I'd rath