m of the carriage's interior redolent
of damp leather and upholstery.

"What an evening! What an evening!" she murmured.

On the way home both she and Page appealed to the artist, who knew the
opera well, to hum or whistle for them the arias that had pleased them
most. Each time they were enthusiastic. Yes, yes, that was the air.
Wasn't it pretty, wasn't it beautiful?

But Aunt Wess' was still unsatisfied.

"I don't see yet," she complained, "why the young man, the one with the
pointed beard, didn't marry that lady and be done with it. Just as soon
as they'd seem to have it all settled, he'd begin to take on again, and
strike his breast and go away. I declare, I think it was all kind of
foolish."

"Why, the duke--don't you see. The one who sang bass--" Page laboured
to explain.

"Oh, I didn't like him at all," said Aunt Wess'. "He stamped around
so." But the audience itself had interested her, and the decollete
gowns had been particularly impressing.

"I never saw such dressing in all my life," she declared. "And that
woman in the box next ours. Well! did you notice that!" She raised her
eyebrows and set her lips together. "Well, I don't want to say
anything."

The carriage rolled on through the darkened downtown streets, towards
the North Side, where the Dearborns lived. They could hear the horses
plashing through the layer of slush--mud, half-melted snow and
rain--that encumbered the pavement. In the gloom the girls' wraps
glowed pallid and diaphanous. The rain left long, slanting parallels on
the carriage windows. They passed on down Wabash Avenue, and crossed
over to State Street and Clarke Street, dark, deserted.

Laura, after a while, lost in thought, spoke but little. It had been a
great evening--because of other things than mere music. Corthell had
again asked her to marry him, and she, carried away by the excitement
of the moment, had answered him encouragingly. On the heels of this she
had had that little talk with the capitalist Jadwin, and somehow since
then she had been steadied, calmed. The cold air and the rain in her
face had cooled her flaming cheeks and hot temples. She asked herself
now if she did really, honestly love the artist. No, she did not;
really and honestly she did not; and now as the carriage rolled on
through the deserted streets of the business districts, she knew very
well that she did not want to marry him. She had done him an injustice;
but in the matter of righting herself