epened the impression. They had
found each other again, a few days later, in an old country house full
of books and pictures, in the soft landscape of southern England.
The presence of a large party, with all its aimless and agitated
displacements, had served only to isolate the pair and give them (at
least to the young man's fancy) a deeper feeling of communion, and their
days there had been like some musical prelude, where the instruments,
breathing low, seem to hold back the waves of sound that press against
them.

Mrs. Leath, on this occasion, was no less kind than before; but she
contrived to make him understand that what was so inevitably coming was
not to come too soon. It was not that she showed any hesitation as to
the issue, but rather that she seemed to wish not to miss any stage in
the gradual reflowering of their intimacy.

Darrow, for his part, was content to wait if she wished it. He
remembered that once, in America, when she was a girl, and he had
gone to stay with her family in the country, she had been out when he
arrived, and her mother had told him to look for her in the garden. She
was not in the garden, but beyond it he had seen her approaching down a
long shady path. Without hastening her step she had smiled and signed to
him to wait; and charmed by the lights and shadows that played upon her
as she moved, and by the pleasure of watching her slow advance toward
him, he had obeyed her and stood still. And so she seemed now to be
walking to him down the years, the light and shade of old memories and
new hopes playing variously on her, and each step giving him the vision
of a different grace. She did not waver or turn aside; he knew she would
come straight to where he stood; but something in her eyes said "Wait",
and again he obeyed and waited.

On the fourth day an unexpected event threw out his calculations.
Summoned to town by the arrival in England of her husband's mother, she
left without giving Darrow the chance he had counted on, and he cursed
himself for a dilatory blunderer. Still, his disappointment was tempered
by the certainty of being with her again before she left for France;
and they did in fact see each other in London. There, however, the
atmosphere had changed with the conditions. He could not say that she
avoided him, or even that she was a shade less glad to see him; but
she was beset by family duties and, as he thought, a little too readily
resigned to them.

The Marquise de