o little. As she stood there, he realized more acutely than he
had ever done before how utterly stationary she had remained since he
married her. With her sweetness, her humility, her old-fashioned
courtesy and consideration for others, she belonged still in the
honey-scented twilight of the eighties. While he had moved with the
world, she, who was confirmed in the traditions of another age, had
never altered in spirit since that ecstatic moment when he had first
loved her. The charm, the grace, the virtues, even the look of gentle
goodness which had won his heart, were all there just as they had been
when she was twenty. Except for the fading flesh, the woman had not
changed; only the needs and the desires of the man were different. Only
the resurgent youth in him was again demanding youth for its mate.

"Why, my trunk is all packed," she replied. "Has anything happened?"

"Oh, no, I was only wondering how you would manage to amuse yourself.
You know I shall be at the theatre most of the time."

"But you mustn't have me on your mind a minute, Oliver. I won't go a
step unless you promise me not to worry about me a bit. It's all so new
to me that I shall enjoy just sitting in the hotel and watching the
people."

"Then we'd better go to the Waldorf. That might interest you more."

His eagerness to provide entertainment for her touched her as deeply as
if it had been a proof of his love instead of his anxiety, and she
determined in her heart that if she were lonesome a minute he must never
suspect it. Ennui, having its roots in an egoism she did not possess,
was unknown to her.

"That will be lovely, dear. Lucy wrote me when she was there on her
wedding trip that she used to sit for hours in the corridor looking at
the people that went by, and that it was as good as a play."

"That settles it. I'll telegraph for rooms," he said cheerfully,
relieved to find that she fell in so readily with his suggestion.

She was giving a last caressing pat to the tray before closing the
trunk, and the look of her thin hands, with their slightly swollen
knuckles, caused him to lean forward suddenly and wrest the keys away
from her.

"Let me do that. I hate to see you stooping," he said.

The telegram was sent, and late the next evening, as they rolled through
the brilliant streets towards the hotel, Virginia's interest was as
effervescent as if she were indeed the girl that she almost felt herself
to have become. The sound of th