roud, curt voice.

"How are you, Adelaide?" said I, originally, feeling that any display of
emotion would be unwelcome and inappropriate, and moreover, feeling any
desire to indulge in the same suddenly evaporate.

She took my hand loosely, gave me a little chilly kiss on the cheek, and
then held me off at arms'-length to look at me.

I did not speak. I could think of nothing agreeable to say. The only
words that rose to my lips were, "How very ill you look!" and I wisely
concluded not to say them. She was very beautiful, and looked prouder
and more imperious than ever. But she was changed. I could not tell what
it was. I could find no name for the subtle alteration; ere long I knew
only too well what it was. Then, I only knew that she was different from
what she had been, and different in a way that aroused tenfold all my
vague forebodings.

She was wasted too--had gone, for her, quite thin; and the repressed
restlessness of her eyes made a disagreeable impression upon me. Was she
perhaps wasted with passion and wicked thoughts? She looked as if it
would not have taken much to bring the smoldering fire into a blaze of
full fury--as if fire and not blood ran in her veins.

She was in a loose silk dressing-gown, which fell in long folds about
her stately figure. Her thick black hair was twisted into a knot about
her head. She was surrounded on all sides with rich and costly things.
All the old severe simplicity of style had vanished--it seemed as if she
had gratified every passing fantastic wish or whim of her restless,
reckless spirit, and the result was a curious medley of the ugly,
grotesque, ludicrous and beautiful--a feverish dream of Cleopatra-like
luxury, in the midst of which she stood, as beautiful and sinuous as a
serpent, and looking as if she could be, upon occasion, as poisonous as
the same.

She looked me over from head to foot with piercing eyes, and then said
half scornfully, half enviously:

"How well a stagnant life seems to suit some people! Now you--you are
immensely improved--unspeakably improved. You have grown into a pretty
woman--more than a pretty woman. I shouldn't have thought a few months
could make such an alteration in any one."

Her words struck me as a kind of satire upon herself.

"I might say the same to you," said I, constrainedly. "I think you are
very much altered."

Indeed I felt strangely ill at ease with the beautiful creature who, I
kept trying to convince myself, was