just lately returned to New York.

The small servant entered to clear away the tea things. She said she
thought that Ann had rung. Her tone implied that anyhow it was time
she had. Matthew rose and Ann held out her hand.

"I shall be at the concert," he said.

"It isn't till next week," Ann reminded him.

"Oh, I'm not in any particular hurry," said Matthew. "Are you
generally in of an afternoon?"

"Sometimes," said Ann.

He thought as he sat watching her from his stall that she was one of
the most beautiful women he had ever seen. Her voice was not great.
She had warned him not to expect too much.

"It will never set the Thames on fire," she had said. "I thought at
first that it would. But such as it is I thank God for it."

It was worth that. It was sweet and clear and had a tender quality.

Matthew waited for her at the end. She was feeling well disposed
towards all creatures and accepted his suggestion of supper with
gracious condescension.

He had called on her once or twice during the preceding days. It was
due to her after his long neglect of her, he told himself, and had
found improvement in her. But to-night she seemed to take a freakish
pleasure in letting him see that there was much of the old Ann still
left in her: the frank conceit of her; the amazing
self-opinionatedness of her; the waywardness, the wilfulness, the
unreasonableness of her; the general uppishness and dictatorialness of
her; the contradictoriness and flat impertinence of her; the swift
temper and exasperating tongue of her.

It was almost as if she were warning him. "You see, I am not changed,
except, as you say, in appearance. I am still Ann with all the old
faults and failings that once made life in the same house with me a
constant trial to you. Just now my very imperfections appear charms.
You have been looking at the sun--at the glory of my face, at the
wonder of my arms and hands. Your eyes are blinded. But that will
pass. And underneath I am still Ann. Just Ann."

They had quarrelled in the cab on the way home. He forgot what it was
about, but Ann had said some quite rude things, and her face not being
there in the darkness to excuse her, it had made him very angry. She
had laughed again on the steps, and they had shaken hands. But walking
home through the still streets Sylvia had plucked at his elbow.

What fools we mortals be--especially men! Here was a noble woman--a
restful, understanding, te