that could desire so profoundly (the deep
vibrations of that voice of yearning were in her ears still) and yet
pause, and stand back, and wait, rather than force a hair's breadth
of pretense. How he had liberated her! And once she found herself
thinking, "I shall have sables myself, and diamonds, and a house as
great as Molly's, and I shall learn how to entertain ambassadors,
as she will never know." She was ashamed of this, she knew it to be
shockingly out of key with the grand passage behind them. But she had
thought it.

And, as these thoughts, and many more, passed through her mind, as she
spoke with a quiet peace, or was silent, she was transfigured into a
beauty almost startling, by the accident of the level golden beams of
light back of her. Her aureole of bright hair glowed like a saint's
halo. The curiously placed lights and unexpected shadows brought
out new subtleties in the modeling of her face. Her lightened heart
gleamed through her eyes, like a lighted lamp. After a time, the man
fell into a complete silence, glancing at her frequently as though
storing away a priceless memory....

CHAPTER XXXV

"A MILESTONE PASSED, THE ROAD SEEMS CLEAR"

As the "season" heightened, the beautiful paneled walls of Mrs.
Marshall-Smith's salon were frequently the background for chance
gatherings of extremely appropriate callers. They seemed a visible
emanation of the room, so entirely did they represent what that sort
of a room was meant to contain. They were not only beautifully but
severely dressed, with few ornaments, and those few a result of the
same concentrated search for the rare which had brought together the
few bibelots in the room, which had laid the single great dull Persian
rug on the unobtrusively polished oaken floor, which had set in the
high, south windows the boxes of feathery green plants with delicate
star-like flowers.

And it was not only in externals that these carefully brushed and
combed people harmonized with the mellow beauty of their background.
They sat, or stood, moved about, took their tea, and talked with an
extraordinary perfection of manner. There was not a voice there,
save perhaps Austin Page's unstudied tones, which was not carefully
modulated in a variety of rhythm and pitch which made each sentence a
work of art. They used, for the most part, low tones and few gestures,
but those well chosen. There was an earnest effort apparent to achieve
true conversational give-and-ta