ors, no one even to see her bridal array and Paul's necklace. Sue
had even hinted at her not wearing the dress: "You could just go down in
your travelling things, and no one need know anything about it till it
was over".

"I should not degrade myself by doing anything of the kind;" said Maud,
throwing up her head.

No, she would not consult Paul, Paul would of course let her decide for
him,--and she did beg that no one would interfere with what after all
was _her_ affair.

Presently it was, "Paul will stay on here with us at present. He has no
real claims upon him elsewhere, for as we are not to be married just
yet, he can postpone making his arrangements. Perhaps we shall now be
able to get a house first."

To this end she ordered down agents' lists, and illustrated magazines;
also Leo came upon her in odd places posing meditatively before various
articles of furniture with a paper and pencil in her hand. Leo guessed
what she was doing.

She took no notice; but she wondered if any one could help noticing
that, whereas Paul when he first appeared on the scene had been eager
and animated over the home he hoped to form, and the life he meant to
lead, he was listless and indifferent now. He assented to everything,
initiated nothing. Sometimes he barely glanced at the attractive domain
whose allurements were so cunningly set forth--sometimes he hung over
the page so long that Leo could not help suspecting it was but a screen
to hide his face.

He had lost altogether his pleasant habit of following each speaker with
his eyes as the talk went round. The eyes would be glued to the floor,
or fixed vacantly on some object. He would start when called to order
for inattention, and thereafter be abjectly attentive.

But whatever Maud said was right, and her wishes were law. She could not
make a suggestion which he was not ready to carry out; when she withdrew
from it herself he as readily withdrew. To Leo, watching from the
background, there was something unnatural, incomprehensible about it
all--something which baffled her closest scrutiny--and yet at times made
her feel as though the scrutiny itself were but foolishness, emanating
from her own disordered imagination.

She would think so for a whole day, and school herself to believe that
it was a happy day--and then something, some trifle, would occur which
made her heart leap and her hands tremble, and she found herself talking
for dear life in a meaningless jumble of