r, and if any one in their secret bad suggested that
she was afraid to meet him, he would have laughed at this idea. This
was of bad omen for the success of his errand; for it showed that he
recognized the ground of her presumption,--his having the superstition
of old promises. By the time she appeared, he was flushed,--very angry.
She closed the door behind her, and stood there looking at him, with the
width of the room between them.

The first emotion her presence excited was a quick sense of the strange
fact that, after all these years of loneliness, such a magnificent
person should be his wife. For she was magnificent, in the maturity of
her beauty, her head erect, her complexion splendid, her auburn tresses
undimmed, a certain plenitude in her very glance. He saw in a moment
that she wished to seem to him beautiful, she had endeavored to dress
herself to the best effect. Perhaps, after all, it was only for this she
had delayed; she wished to give herself every possible touch. For some
moments they said nothing; they had not stood face to face for nearly
ten years, and they met now as adversaries. No two persons could
possibly be more interested in taking each other's measure. It scarcely
belonged to Georgina, however, to have too much the air of timidity;
and after a moment, satisfied, apparently, that she was not to receive a
broadside, she advanced, slowly rubbing her jewelled hands and smiling.
He wondered why she should smile, what thought was in her mind. His
impressions followed each other with extraordinary quickness of pulse,
and now he saw, in addition to what he had already perceived, that she
was waiting to take her cue,--she had determined on no definite line.
There was nothing definite about her but her courage; the rest would
depend upon him. As for her courage, it seemed to glow in the beauty
which grew greater as she came nearer, with her eyes on his and her
fixed smile; to be expressed in the very perfume that accompanied her
steps. By this time he had got still a further impression, and it was
the strangest of all. She was ready for anything, she was capable of
anything, she wished to surprise him with her beauty, to remind him that
it belonged, after all, at the bottom of everything, to him. She was
ready to bribe him, if bribing should be necessary. She had carried on
an intrigue before she was twenty; it would be more, rather than less,
easy for her, now that she was thirty. All this and more wa