don't in the least mind, Jim. She had a perfect right to
something of the sort. That is--I'm not annoyed about what she says of
me, but it will upset you terribly. And it has been my fault, from the
first." He protested vehemently, but she stopped him with a gesture;
then walked to the door opening on the porch; where, her head up, she
stood gazing out into the serene, failing light.

James Polder followed her, and Howat heard the screen softly close. He
was about to light a cigarette, but, his hand shaking, he laid it on the
table. He put up his glass, without purpose, and then let it drop.
Rudolph was placing the silver for dinner; old forks faintly marked with
a crest that Isabel Howat had brought to her husband. A recurrence of
the afternoon's sense of the continuity of all living flowed over him,
whispering with old voices, old longing and sorrow and regret, mingled
dim features, and the broken clasping of hands. He saw Mariana sweeping
in a pale current--a remote, eternal passion winding through the
transient body of life. She smiled, her subdued, mocking gaiety
infinitely appealing, and vanished.

They came in to dinner without changing the informal garb of the day.
James Polder was silent, disturbed, but Mariana was serenely
commonplace. Her voice, clear and high, went unimportantly on; until,
turning to Howat Penny, she said without the changing of a tone. "I want
James to take me back to Harrisburg with him, but he won't." Howat
endeavoured to meet this insanity with the silence usually opposed to
Mariana's frequent wildness of statement. His knife scraped sharply
against a plate; but, in the main, he successfully preserved an unmoved
countenance. "Now that Harriet has surrendered Mm," she persisted, "I
don't see why I can't be considered. It is the commonest sense--Jim
can't live alone, properly, in that house; I can't exist properly
without him. You see, Howat, how reasonable it seems." What he did
perceive was that his attitude of inattention must be sharply deserted.

"Your words, Mariana," he said coldly, "'proper' and 'reasonable,' in
the connection you have used them, would be ridiculous if they weren't
disgraceful. I have been patient with a certain amount of rash talk,
yes--and conduct, but this must be the end. I had intended to have you
leave Shadrach this morning, then later. Either that or I'll be forced
to make my excuses to James Polder." He glanced with a veiled anxiety at
the latter but cou