broken. In
brooding silence the world seemed pent beneath the purple firmament.

By rapid walking in the heat Shelton had got rid of his despondency. He
felt like one who is to see his mistress after long estrangement. He,
bathed, and, straightening his tie-ends, stood smiling at the glass. His
fear, unhappiness, and doubts seemed like an evil dream; how much worse
off would he not have been, had it all been true?

It was dinner-party night, and when he reached the drawing-room the
guests were there already, chattering of the coming storm. Antonia was
not yet down, and Shelton stood by the piano waiting for her entry. Red
faces, spotless shirt-fronts, white arms; and freshly-twisted hair were
all around him. Some one handed him a clove carnation, and, as he held
it to his nose, Antonia came in, breathless, as though she had rushed
down-stairs, Her cheeks were pale no longer; her hand kept stealing to
her throat. The flames of the coming storm seemed to have caught fire
within her, to be scorching her in her white frock; she passed him
close, and her fragrance whipped his senses.

She had never seemed to him so lovely.

Never again will Shelton breathe the perfume of melons and pineapples
without a strange emotion. From where he sat at dinner he could not see
Antonia, but amidst the chattering of voices, the clink of glass and
silver, the sights and sounds and scents of feasting, he thought how he
would go to her and say that nothing mattered but her love. He drank the
frosted, pale-gold liquid of champagne as if it had been water.

The windows stood wide open in the heat; the garden lay in thick, soft
shadow, where the pitchy shapes of trees could be discerned. There was
not a breath of air to fan the candle-flames above the flowers; but two
large moths, fearful of the heavy dark, flew in and wheeled between the
lights over the diners' heads. One fell scorched into a dish of fruit,
and was removed; the other, eluding all the swish of napkins and the
efforts of the footmen, continued to make soft, fluttering rushes till
Shelton rose and caught it in his hand. He took it to the window and
threw it out into the darkness, and he noticed that the air was thick
and tepid to his face. At a sign from Mr. Dennant the muslin curtains
were then drawn across the windows, and in gratitude, perhaps, for this
protection, this filmy barrier between them and the muffled threats
of Nature, everyone broke out in talk. It was such a ni