ardonably sordid."

She pursed up her lips, and shivered her graceful shoulders with the
neatest exposition of delicate distaste.

"And too gross. But one must face and accept the pathetic risk of being
eventually converted in _garde malade_ thus, if one chooses to marry a
man considerably older than oneself. It is a mistake. I say so though I
committed it with my eyes open. I was betrayed by my affection."

As she finished speaking Henrietta stepped across to the sofa and sat
down. The airy perfection of her appearance lent point to the plaintive
character of this concluding sentence. The hot day, the summer
costume--possibly the shaded room also--combined to strip away a good ten
years from her record. Any hardness, any faint sense of annoyance, which
Damaris experienced at the abruptness of her guest's intrusion melted.
Henrietta in her existing aspect, her existing mood proved irresistible.
Our tender-hearted maiden was charmed by her and coerced.

"But General Frayling is better, isn't he?" she asked, also taking her
place upon the sofa. "You are not any longer in any serious anxiety about
him, darling Henrietta? All danger is past?"

"Oh, yes--he is better of course, or how could I be here? But I have
received a shock that makes me dread the future."

Which was true, though in a sense other than that in which her hearer
comprehended it. For the studious atmosphere of the room reacted upon
Henrietta, as did its many silent testimonies to Sir Charles Verity's
constant habitation. This was his workshop. She felt acutely conscious
of him here, nearer to him in idea and in sentiment than for many years
past. The fact that he did still work, sought new fields to conquer,
excited both her admiration and her regrets. He disdained to be laid on
the shelf, got calmly and forcefully down off the shelf and spent his
energies in fresh undertakings. Once upon a time she posed as his
Egeria, fancying herself vastly in the part. During the Egerian period
she lived at a higher intellectual and emotional level than ever before
or since, exerting every particle of brain she possessed to maintain
that level. The petty interests of her present existence, still more,
perhaps, the poor odd and end of a yellow little General in his
infinitely futile sick-bed, shrank to a desolating insufficiency. Surely
she was worthy--had, anyway, once been worthy--of better things than
that? The lavender dress, notwithstanding its still radiantly