g? Three months had passed since she left
him, and he had not written one word. Then the book fell from her hands,
and she sat buried in thought until the arrival of her son, whom she
endeavored to welcome with a smile. But he read the whole story in
the disorder of the room and in the careless toilet. Nothing was in
readiness for dinner.

"I have done nothing," she said, sadly. "The weather is so warm, and I
am discouraged."

"Why discouraged, dear mother? Are you not with me? You want some
little amusement, I fancy. Let us dine out to-day," he continued, with a
tender, pitying smile. But Ida wished to make a toilet; to take out
from her wardrobe some one of her pretty costumes of other days, too
coquettish, too conspicuous for her present circumstances. To dress as
modestly as possible, and walk through these poor streets, afforded her
no amusement. In spite of her care to avoid anything noticeable in her
costume, Jack always detected some eccentricity,--in the length of her
skirts, which required a carriage, or in the cut of her corsage, or the
trimming of her hat. Jack and his mother then went to dine at Bagnolet
or Romainville, and dined drearily enough. They attempted some little
conversation, but they found it almost impossible. Their lives had been
so different that they really now had little in common. While Ida was
disgusted with the coarse table-cloth spotted by wine, and polished,
with a disgusted face, her plate and glass with her napkin, Jack hardly
perceived this negligence of service, but was astonished at his mother's
ignorance and indifference upon many other points.

She had certain phrases caught from D'Argenton, a peremptory tone in
discussion, a didactic "I think so; I believe; I know." She generally
began and finished her arguments with some disdainful gesture that
signified, "I am very good to take the trouble to talk to you." Thanks
to that miracle of assimilation by which, at the end of some years,
husband and wife resemble each other, Jack was terrified to see an
occasional look of D'Argenton on his mother's face. On her lips was
often to be detected the sarcastic smile that had been the bugbear of
his boy-hood, and which he always dreaded to see in D'Argenton.
Never had a sculptor found in his clay more docile material than the
pretentious poet had discovered in this poor woman.

After dinner, one of their favorite walks on these long summer evenings
was the Square des Buttes-Chaumont, a