lity of meeting
either Lena or the bishop.

The indifference was real. Wearied of her own efforts to disentangle
herself from the meshes of her plight, she was ready to challenge
chance. Had her father been sitting up for her, she would have led her
husband into his presence, prepared to take the consequences. But as
chance decided otherwise, she accepted the respite, not without relief.

She heated water over a small alcohol lamp, which she placed on the
table, and called his attention to the reflection of the green flame in
the polished mahogany surface. There was that in her manner and
conversation which deprived her act of the tone of personal service.
She watched him sip his whiskey with a judicial expression, overruling
the protest his principles suggested. She poured for herself a glass
of wine and sat opposite him, the tall wax candles between them, and
asked him for the first time how he found his duties as mayor. The
question seemed to occur to her as one which ordinary courtesy should
have prompted her to ask before.

Emmet felt her aloofness, and met it with unexpected dignity. In his
answer he spoke of Bat Quayle, and of a plan forming against him among
his enemies in the board of aldermen to lay all his appointments on the
table indefinitely, and thus to make his administration a failure. But
he did not assume, as he would once have done, that she was vitally
interested, and his remarks were fragmentary.

Felicity noticed his sombre mood and attributed it partly to his
physical condition, little dreaming how bitterly he resented, not her
kindness, but the manner of it. It was the old grievance over again.
Like the bishop, like her whole class, she was unconsciously
patronising, he reflected, even when she meant to be charitable. For
the time, at least, he asked nothing from her, and this indifference
gave him more of a tone of the world, more the air of a gentleman, than
she had ever seen in him before. For once the tables were turned, and
it was he who appeared enigmatical. If he were any longer conscious of
his conductor's uniform, it was a proud consciousness, and he seemed to
wear it like the insignia of a soldier. When he left, it was without
further appeals or personalities, but with brief thanks for her
kindness and good wishes.

She stood and watched him going down the walk in the moonlight, the
black shadows of the bare branches falling one after another across his
shoulders, an