gentleman--"

"Tell Barlow to put off dinner for half an hour," Waythorn cut him off,
hurrying upstairs.

He went straight to his room and dressed without seeing his wife. When
he reached the drawing-room she was there, fresh and radiant. Lily's
day had been good; the doctor was not coming back that evening.

At dinner Waythorn told her of Sellers's illness and of the resulting
complications. She listened sympathetically, adjuring him not to let
himself be overworked, and asking vague feminine questions about the
routine of the office. Then she gave him the chronicle of Lily's day;
quoted the nurse and doctor, and told him who had called to inquire. He
had never seen her more serene and unruffled. It struck him, with a
curious pang, that she was very happy in being with him, so happy that
she found a childish pleasure in rehearsing the trivial incidents of
her day.

After dinner they went to the library, and the servant put the coffee
and liqueurs on a low table before her and left the room. She looked
singularly soft and girlish in her rosy pale dress, against the dark
leather of one of his bachelor armchairs. A day earlier the contrast
would have charmed him.

He turned away now, choosing a cigar with affected deliberation.

"Did Haskett come?" he asked, with his back to her.

"Oh, yes--he came."

"You didn't see him, of course?"

She hesitated a moment. "I let the nurse see him."

That was all. There was nothing more to ask. He swung round toward her,
applying a match to his cigar. Well, the thing was over for a week, at
any rate. He would try not to think of it. She looked up at him, a
trifle rosier than usual, with a smile in her eyes.

"Ready for your coffee, dear?"

He leaned against the mantelpiece, watching her as she lifted the
coffee-pot. The lamplight struck a gleam from her bracelets and tipped
her soft hair with brightness. How light and slender she was, and how
each gesture flowed into the next! She seemed a creature all compact of
harmonies. As the thought of Haskett receded, Waythorn felt himself
yielding again to the joy of possessorship. They were his, those white
hands with their flitting motions, his the light haze of hair, the lips
and eyes....

She set down the coffee-pot, and reaching for the decanter of cognac,
measured off a liqueur-glass and poured it into his cup.

Waythorn uttered a sudden exclamation.

"What is the matter?" she said, startled.

"Nothing; only--I don't