, Paul!--April
Paul!" ...

III

Life in Philadelphia runs on oiled wheels. After the huge clatter of New
York, there is something mellow and human about the drowsy hum of
Chestnut Street, the genteel reaches of Walnut, and the neat frontage of
Spruce Street. Ellenora, so quick to notice her surroundings, was at
first bored, then amused, at last lulled by the intimate life of her new
home. She had never been abroad, but declared that London,
out-of-the-way London, must be something like this. The fine, disdainful
air of Locust Street, the curiously constrained attitude of the brick
houses on the side streets--as if deferentially listening to the
back-view remarks of their statelier neighbors, the brown-stone
fronts--all these things she amused herself telling Paul, playfully
begging him not to confront her with the oft-quoted pathetic fallacy of
Ruskin. Hadn't Dickens, she asked, discerned human expression in
door-knockers, and on the faces of lean, lonely, twilight-haunted
warehouses?

She was gay for the first time in her restless dissatisfied life. By
some strange alchemy she and Paul were able to precipitate and blend the
sum total of their content, and the summer was passed in peace. At first
they went to a hotel, but fearing the publicity, rented under an assumed
name a suite in the second storey of a pretty little house near South
Rittenhouse Square. Here in the cheerful morning-room Ellenora wrote,
and Paul smoked or trifled at the keyboard. They were perfectly
self-possessed as to the situation. When tired of the bond it should be
severed. This young woman and this young man had no illusion about
love--the word did not enter into their life scheme. Theirs was a pact
which depended for continuance entirely upon its agreeable quality. And
there was nothing cynical in all this; rather the ready acceptance of
the tie's fallibility mingled with a little curiosity how the affair
would turn out.

It was not yet November when Paul stopped in the middle of a Chopin
mazurka:

"Ellenora, have you heard from Vibert?"

She looked up from the writing-desk.

"How could I? He doesn't know where we are."

"And I fancy he doesn't care." Paul whistled a lively lilt. His manner
seemed offensive. She flushed and scowled. He moved about the room still
whistling and made much noise. Ellenora regarded him intently.

"Getting bored, Paul? Better go to New York and your club," she amiably
suggested.

"If you don't care,"