and coolness of the
finger-tips? The backs of the hands were roughened and the palms
seamed; there was a tiny crack at a finger-joint; it seemed to her
that the spoiling of her beautiful hands had made so insidious a pace
through these years that she had, day by day, been almost unaware of
the havoc in progress. But looking down upon them in this place of
ease and grace, she saw, surprised and sorrowful, the whole of the sad
mischief. Her hands were as the hands of a scullery-maid taken out,
most unsuitably, to dinner. While Osborn still awaited the first
course, she drew her hands down and hid them on her lap. There was
time enough to display their effect when they must emerge for the use
of the table implements.

Surrounding her were women whose white hands, jewelled and unjewelled,
played about their business, lovely as pale and delicate flowers. She
cast her glances right and left, seeing them and envying. And she
looked at their clothes, their smart and slender shoes, the richness
of their cloaks hanging over chair backs, and she saw her own frock as
it was, dyed and mended and _demode_.

She knew. "It looked nice when I tried it on at home because there
were no comparisons. Here, where there's competition, I--I'm hopeless.
I'd better have worn a suit."

Her turban, that thing which had paraded so saucily in the pink room
while the babies slept regardless, was an outsider--a _gamin_
among hats.

She was not the first woman who has decked herself at home to her own
gratification, to emerge into a wealthier world to her own despair.

While these things were borne in, with the flashlight speed of woman's
impressions, upon her brain, the first course arrived and they ate.
After it, Osborn roused himself to talk. He asked her several times if
she were enjoying herself, and she told him with smiling lips that she
was.

"It's not so often that we go out, is it?" he remarked. "We must make
the best of the times we get."

"This is _lovely_."

"Poor old girl!" said Osborn, "you don't get out on the loose very
much, do you? But I don't suppose you want to, though; women are
different from men. A woman's interest centres in her home, and you've
quite enough to do to keep your mind occupied, haven't you?"

"And my hands. Look at them!"

She spread them before him.

"Poor old girl!" said Osborn, looking.

A recollection stirred in him, too, of what those hands had been in
the days of their romance. "You used to