plain. But then he became aware that he was too angry for that--to say
nothing of Gordon's being too angry also; and, moreover, that there
was nothing to explain. He was to marry Angela Vivian; that was a
very simple fact--it needed no explanation. Was it so wonderful, so
inconceivable, an incident so unlikely to happen? He went, as he always
did on Sunday, to dine with Mrs. Vivian, and it seemed to him that he
perceived in the two ladies some symptoms of a discomposure which had
the same origin as his own. Bernard, on this occasion, at dinner, failed
to make himself particularly agreeable; he ate fast--as if he had no
idea what he was eating, and talked little; every now and then his
eyes rested for some time upon Angela, with a strange, eagerly excited
expression, as if he were looking her over and trying to make up his
mind about her afresh. This young lady bore his inscrutable scrutiny
with a deal of superficial composure; but she was also silent, and she
returned his gaze, from time to time, with an air of unusual anxiety.
She was thinking, of course, of Gordon, Bernard said to himself; and a
woman's first meeting, in after years, with an ex-lover must always make
a certain impression upon her. Gordon, however, had never been a
lover, and if Bernard noted Angela's gravity it was not because he felt
jealous. "She is simply sorry for him," he said to himself; and by the
time he had finished his dinner it began to come back to him that he
was sorry, too. Mrs. Vivian was probably sorry as well, for she had a
slightly confused and preoccupied look--a look from which, even in the
midst of his chagrin, Bernard extracted some entertainment. It was Mrs.
Vivian's intermittent conscience that had been reminded of one of its
lapses; her meeting with Gordon Wright had recalled the least exemplary
episode of her life--the time when she whispered mercenary counsel in
the ear of a daughter who sat, grave and pale, looking at her with eyes
that wondered. Mrs. Vivian blushed a little now, when she met Bernard's
eyes; and to remind herself that she was after all a virtuous woman,
talked as much as possible about superior and harmless things--the
beauty of the autumn weather, the pleasure of seeing French papas
walking about on Sunday with their progeny in their hands, the
peculiarities of the pulpit-oratory of the country as exemplified in
the discourse of a Protestant pasteur whom she had been to hear in the
morning.

When they rose