s's studio trying on some of
his Indian shawls and veils. He has such a lot of those things--some
of the loveliest oranges and blues. You just ought to see me in them.
I wish you might."

"Alone?"

"For a while. I thought Ethel Tuckerman and Bliss Bridge would be
there, but they didn't come until later. Lane Cross is such a dear.
He's sort of silly at times, but I like him. His portraits are so
bizarre."

She went off into a description of his pretentious but insignificant
art.

Cowperwood marveled, not at Lane Cross's art nor his shawls, but at
this world in which Stephanie moved. He could not quite make her out.
He had never been able to make her explain satisfactorily that first
single relationship with Gardner Knowles, which she declared had ended
so abruptly. Since then he had doubted, as was his nature; but this
girl was so sweet, childish, irreconcilable with herself, like a
wandering breath of air, or a pale-colored flower, that he scarcely
knew what to think. The artistically inclined are not prone to quarrel
with an enticing sheaf of flowers. She was heavenly to him, coming in,
as she did at times when he was alone, with bland eyes and yielding
herself in a kind of summery ecstasy. She had always something
artistic to tell of storms, winds, dust, clouds, smoke forms, the
outline of buildings, the lake, the stage. She would cuddle in his
arms and quote long sections from "Romeo and Juliet," "Paolo and
Francesca," "The Ring and the Book," Keats's "Eve of St. Agnes." He
hated to quarrel with her, because she was like a wild rose or some art
form in nature. Her sketch-book was always full of new things. Her
muff, or the light silk shawl she wore in summer, sometimes concealed a
modeled figure of some kind which she would produce with a look like
that of a doubting child, and if he wanted it, if he liked it, he could
have it. Cowperwood meditated deeply. He scarcely knew what to think.

The constant atmosphere of suspicion and doubt in which he was
compelled to remain, came by degrees to distress and anger him. While
she was with him she was clinging enough, but when she was away she was
ardently cheerful and happy. Unlike the station he had occupied in so
many previous affairs, he found himself, after the first little while,
asking her whether she loved him instead of submitting to the same
question from her.

He thought that with his means, his position, his future possibilities
he had the