that the girl deliberately set herself to charm the
boyish-looking composer, but there was certainly a basking allurement
in her gaze when her eyes brushed his. With her complicated personality
he could not cope--that was only too evident; and so I watched the
little comedy with considerable interest, and not without misgiving.

Arthur fell in love without hesitation, and though Ellenora felt
desperately superior to him--you saw that--she could not escape the
bright, immediate response of his face. The implicated interest of her
bearing--though she never lost her head--his unconcealed adoration, soon
brought the affair to the altar--or rather to a civil ceremony, for the
bride was an agnostic, priding herself on her abstention from
established religious forms.

Her clear, rather dry nature had always been a source of study to me.
What could she have in common with the romantic and decidedly shy youth?
She was older, more experienced--plain girls have experiences as well as
favored ones--and she was not fond of matrimony with poverty as an
obbligato. Arthur had prospects of pupils, his compositions sold at a
respectable rate, but the couple had little money to spare;
nevertheless, people argued their marriage a capital idea--from such a
union of rich talents surely something must result. Look at the
Brownings, the Shelleys, the Schumanns, not to mention George Eliot and
her man Lewes!

They were married. I was best man, and realized what a menstruum is
music--what curious trafficking it causes, what opposites it
intertwines. And the overture being finished the real curtain arose, as
it does on all who mate....

I did not see much of the Viberts that winter. I cared not at all for
society and they had moved to Harlem; so I lost two stars of my studio
receptions. But I occasionally heard they were getting on famously.
Arthur was composing a piano concerto, and Ellenora engaged upon a
novel--a novel, I was told, that would lay bare to its rotten roots the
social fabric; and knowing the girl's inherent fund of bitter cleverness
I awaited the new-born polemic with gentle impatience. I hoped, however,
like the foolish inexperienced old bachelor I am, that her feminine
asperity would be tempered by the suavities of married life.

One afternoon late in March Arthur Vibert dropped in as I was putting
the finishing touches on my portrait of Mrs. Beacon. He looked weary and
his eyes were heavily circled.

"Hello, my boy! and