ite as well. Have you any shopping
that you would like to do this morning?"

Shopping! When her whole world had crumbled around her! For an instant
the lump in her throat made speech impossible; then summoning that mild
yet indestructible spirit, which was as the spirit of all those
generations of women who lived in her blood, she answered gently:

"Yes, I had intended to buy some presents for the girls."

"Then you'd better take a taxicab for the morning. I suppose you know
the names of the shops you want to go to?"

"Oh, yes. I know the names. Are you going to the theatre?"

"I've got to change a few lines in the play, and the sooner I go about
it the better."

"Then don't bother about me, dear. I'll just put on my long coat over
this dress and go out right after breakfast."

"But you haven't eaten anything," he remarked, glancing at her plate.

"I wasn't hungry. The fresh air will do me good. It has turned so much
warmer, and the snow is all melting."

As she spoke, she rose from the table and began to prepare herself for
the street, putting on the black hat with the ostrich tip and the bunch
of violets on one side, which didn't seem just right since she had come
to New York, and carefully wrapping the ends of her fur neck-piece
around her throat. It was already ten o'clock, for Oliver had slept
late, and she must be hurrying if she hoped to get through her shopping
before luncheon. While she dressed, a wan spirit of humour entered into
her, and she saw how absurd it was that she should rush about from shop
to shop, buying things that did not matter in order to fill a life that
mattered as little as they did. To her, whose mental outlook had had in
it so little humour, it seemed suddenly that the whole of life was
ridiculous. Why should she have sat there, pouring Oliver's coffee and
talking to him about insignificant things, when her heart was bursting
with this sense of something gone out of existence, with this torturing
realization of the irretrievable failure of love?

Taking up her muff and her little black bag from the bureau, she looked
back at him with a smile as she turned towards the door.

"Good-bye. Will you be here for luncheon?"

"I'm afraid I can't. I've an appointment down-town, but I'll come back
as early as I can."

Then she went out and along the hall to the elevator, in which there was
a little girl, who reminded her of Jenny, in charge of a governness in
spectacles. She smiled at