ding, and the doctor, on their arrival, broke
the news that she was ill with typhoid, but declared that all the
symptoms were favorable. Lily could show twelve years of unblemished
health, and the case promised to be a light one. The nurse spoke as
reassuringly, and after a moment of alarm Mrs. Waythorn had adjusted
herself to the situation. She was very fond of Lily--her affection for
the child had perhaps been her decisive charm in Waythorn's eyes--but
she had the perfectly balanced nerves which her little girl had
inherited, and no woman ever wasted less tissue in unproductive worry.
Waythorn was therefore quite prepared to see her come in presently, a
little late because of a last look at Lily, but as serene and
well-appointed as if her good-night kiss had been laid on the brow of
health. Her composure was restful to him; it acted as ballast to his
somewhat unstable sensibilities. As he pictured her bending over the
child's bed he thought how soothing her presence must be in illness:
her very step would prognosticate recovery.

His own life had been a gray one, from temperament rather than
circumstance, and he had been drawn to her by the unperturbed gayety
which kept her fresh and elastic at an age when most women's activities
are growing either slack or febrile. He knew what was said about her;
for, popular as she was, there had always been a faint undercurrent of
detraction. When she had appeared in New York, nine or ten years
earlier, as the pretty Mrs. Haskett whom Gus Varick had unearthed
somewhere--was it in Pittsburgh or Utica?--society, while promptly
accepting her, had reserved the right to cast a doubt on its own
discrimination. Inquiry, however, established her undoubted connection
with a socially reigning family, and explained her recent divorce as
the natural result of a runaway match at seventeen; and as nothing was
known of Mr. Haskett it was easy to believe the worst of him.

Alice Haskett's remarriage with Gus Varick was a passport to the set
whose recognition she coveted, and for a few years the Varicks were the
most popular couple in town. Unfortunately the alliance was brief and
stormy, and this time the husband had his champions. Still, even
Varick's stanchest supporters admitted that he was not meant for
matrimony, and Mrs. Varick's grievances were of a nature to bear the
inspection of the New York courts. A New York divorce is in itself a
diploma of virtue, and in the semi-widowhood of this