ld think things out more clearly. Certainly they could not continue
as they were now. She had not meant to "nag." Yet she had nagged. Sophy
had rare largenesses in her. She was neither as hurt nor as angered by
Loring's words as most women would have been. She had reached that very
chill room in Love's House, where it is easy to put one's self in
another's place.

"But I can't go on like this ... not _all_ my life," she thought
wearily. Yet she saw no way out. The thought of divorce never occurred
to her. She hated divorce as she hated other vulgarities. Yet,
illogically enough, this view of the matter was only applied to her own
case. She heartily and thoroughly approved of it for others. She even
thought that marriage should be a civil contract, dissolvable by the
mutual consent of both parties, or by the resolution even of one.

A woman of whom she was rather fond--Helen Van Raalt--spoke to her
suddenly, touching her shoulder from behind.

"Sophy, dear, I'm _dreadfully_ sorry to be so late! I had to take May to
Fanny's party first, you know. And we've only _just_ got away. And I've
brought an old friend of yours along with me--my cousin--Marco
Amaldi...."

XXVII

Sophy found herself with her hand in Amaldi's. She wanted to laugh
nervously. She could think of nothing clearly for a moment.

Amaldi noticed how pale she was. She did not seem less beautiful than he
remembered her, but his heart winced, for he thought that she looked
ill.

He had the advantage of Sophy in this sudden meeting, because he had
been prepared for it. However, "preparation" in such a case is something
as if a man imprisoned for years in a dark dungeon should "prepare" to
see the sunlight. As much as he might school himself, he would be sure
to quake to his inmost core when once again it flooded him.

Amaldi had tried hard to forget. If he had not forgotten he had at least
succeeded in dulling the edge of his feeling for her. But it was by time
and work that he had chiefly commanded his love.

He flung himself into all sorts of agricultural and civic reforms and
enterprises. Political life, as an end in itself, did not appeal to him,
but he thought with Cavour in regard to the "need which every worthy man
feels of making himself useful to the society of which he is a part."

Then had come the news of Sophy's marriage to Loring. Amaldi had had
another bitter recrudescence of feeling over that. He was filled with a
contemptuous