ith her. When
Armand, with the terrible words, 'Look, all of you, I owe this woman
nothing!' flung the gold and bank-notes at the half-swooning Marguerite,
Lena cowered beside me and covered her face with her hands.

The curtain rose on the bedroom scene. By this time there wasn't a nerve
in me that hadn't been twisted. Nanine alone could have made me cry. I
loved Nanine tenderly; and Gaston, how one clung to that good fellow!
The New Year's presents were not too much; nothing could be too much
now. I wept unrestrainedly. Even the handkerchief in my breast-pocket,
worn for elegance and not at all for use, was wet through by the time
that moribund woman sank for the last time into the arms of her lover.

When we reached the door of the theatre, the streets were shining with
rain. I had prudently brought along Mrs. Harling's useful Commencement
present, and I took Lena home under its shelter. After leaving her, I
walked slowly out into the country part of the town where I lived. The
lilacs were all blooming in the yards, and the smell of them after the
rain, of the new leaves and the blossoms together, blew into my face
with a sort of bitter sweetness. I tramped through the puddles and under
the showery trees, mourning for Marguerite Gauthier as if she had died
only yesterday, sighing with the spirit of 1840, which had sighed so
much, and which had reached me only that night, across long years and
several languages, through the person of an infirm old actress. The idea
is one that no circumstances can frustrate. Wherever and whenever that
piece is put on, it is April.

IV

HOW WELL I REMEMBER the stiff little parlour where I used to wait for
Lena: the hard horsehair furniture, bought at some auction sale, the
long mirror, the fashion-plates on the wall. If I sat down even for a
moment, I was sure to find threads and bits of coloured silk clinging
to my clothes after I went away. Lena's success puzzled me. She was so
easygoing; had none of the push and self-assertiveness that get people
ahead in business. She had come to Lincoln, a country girl, with no
introductions except to some cousins of Mrs. Thomas who lived there, and
she was already making clothes for the women of 'the young married set.'
Evidently she had great natural aptitude for her work. She knew, as
she said, 'what people looked well in.' She never tired of poring over
fashion-books. Sometimes in the evening I would find her alone in
her work-room,