lace. You can go in swimming three times a day
and never feel it. And talk about eating oysters, you can't swallow 'em
as fast as a fellow I know down there, Joe Pusey, can open 'em. It's some
trick to open 'em."

He described the process, but she--scarcely listened. She was striving to
adjust herself to the elements of a new and revolutionary experience; to
the waiters who came and went, softly, deferentially putting hot plates
before her, helping her to strange and delicious things; a creamy soup, a
fish with a yellow sauce whose ingredients were artfully disguised, a
breast of guinea fowl, a salad, an ice, and a small cup of coffee.
Instincts and tastes hitherto unsuspected and ungratified were aroused in
her. What would it be like always to be daintily served, to eat one's
meals in this leisurely and luxurious manner? As her physical hunger was
satisfied by the dainty food, even as her starved senses drank in the
caressing warmth and harmony of the room, the gleaming fire, the heavy
scent of the flowers, the rose glow of the lights in contrast to the
storm without,--so the storm flinging itself against the windows,
powerless to reach her, seemed to typify a former existence of cold,
black mornings and factory bells and harsh sirens, of toil and
limitations. Had her existence been like that? or was it a dream, a
nightmare from which she had awakened at last? From time to time, deep
within her, she felt persisting a conviction that that was reality, this
illusion, but she fought it down. She wanted--oh, how she wanted to
believe in the illusion!

Facing her was the agent, the genius, the Man who had snatched her from
that existence, who had at his command these delights to bestow. She
loved him, she belonged to him, he was to be her husband--yet there were
moments when the glamour of this oddly tended to dissolve, when an
objective vision intruded and she beheld herself, as though removed from
the body, lunching with a strange man in a strange place. And once it
crossed her mind--what would she think of another woman who did this?
What would she think if it were Lise? She could not then achieve a sense
of identity; it was as though she had partaken of some philtre lulling
her, inhibiting her power to grasp the fact in its enormity. And little
by little grew on her the realization of what all along she had known,
that the spell of these surroundings to which she had surrendered was an
expression of the man himself. He