something newer than them all by now."

Felix sighed.

"The nomadic spirit. I have it, too!"

And a sudden vision came to him of his mother's carved ivory face, kept
free of wrinkles by sheer will-power, its firm chin, slightly aquiline
nose, and measured brows; its eyes that saw everything so quickly, so
fastidiously, its compressed mouth that smiled sweetly, with a resolute
but pathetic acceptation. Of the piece of fine lace, sometimes black,
sometimes white, over her gray hair. Of her hands, so thin now, always
moving a little, as if all the composure and care not to offend any eye
by allowing Time to ravage her face, were avenging themselves in that
constant movement. Of her figure, that was short but did not seem so,
still quick-moving, still alert, and always dressed in black or gray. A
vision of that exact, fastidious, wandering spirit called Frances
Fleeming Freeland--that spirit strangely compounded of domination and
humility, of acceptation and cynicism; precise and actual to the point of
desert dryness; generous to a point that caused her family to despair;
and always, beyond all things, brave.

Flora dropped the last little bottle, and sitting on the edge of the bath
let her eyebrows rise. How pleasant was that impersonal humor which made
her superior to other wives!

"You--nomadic? How?"

"Mother travels unceasingly from place to place, person to person, thing
to thing. I travel unceasingly from motive to motive, mind to mind; my
native air is also desert air--hence the sterility of my work."

Flora rose, but her eyebrows descended.

"Your work," she said, "is not sterile."

"That, my dear," said Felix, "is prejudice." And perceiving that she was
going to kiss him, he waited without annoyance. For a woman of
forty-two, with two children and three books of poems--and not knowing
which had taken least out of her--with hazel-gray eyes, wavy eyebrows
darker than they should have been, a glint of red in her hair; wavy
figure and lips; quaint, half-humorous indolence, quaint, half-humorous
warmth--was she not as satisfactory a woman as a man could possibly have
married!

"I have got to go down and see Tod," he said. "I like that wife of his;
but she has no sense of humor. How much better principles are in theory
than in practice!"

Flora repeated softly, as if to herself:

"I'm glad I have none." She was at the window leaning out, and Felix
took his place beside her. The air was full