as they did then."

As he fell back languidly in his easy chair, resting his profile against
the pale green cushions, Laura noticed, for the first time, a striking
resemblance to Kemper in the full, almost brutal curve of his jaw and
chin. Ridiculous as her annoyance was, she felt that it mounted through
her veins and showed in her reddening face.

"Since you are ill I'll not take Gerty away from you to-day," she said,
rising hastily.

"Oh, don't think of going on my account," replied Perry, with a pale
reflection of his amiable smile, "a little cheerful company is the very
thing I need." Then, as a servant entered with a cup of tea and a plate
of toast, he sat up, with his invalid air, to receive the tray upon his
knees. "I manage to take a little nourishment every hour or two," he
explained, as he crumbled his toast into bits.

"I've racked my brain to amuse him," remarked Gerty, while she watched
him gravely, "but he can't get his mind off that possible attack of
pneumonia, and he's even made me look up the death rate from it in the
bulletin of the Board of Health. Do you think Arnold would come if I
telephoned him? or shall I send instead for Roger Adams? I have even
thought of writing invitations to his entire club list."

"Oh, I'll send Arnold myself," rejoined Laura, "he got back just last
night, you know."

"I saw him coming up at five o'clock when I went to the doctor's,"
returned Gerty; and this innocent chance remark plunged Laura
immediately into a melancholy which not only arrested the words upon her
lips, but seemed to deaden her whole body even to her hands which held
her muff. An intolerable suspicion seized her that they were aware of
the return of Madame Alta, that they blamed Arnold for something of
which they did not speak, that they pitied her because she was deluded
into an acceptance of the situation. Though her judgment told her that
this suspicion was a mere wild fancy, still she could not succeed in
driving it from her thoughts, and the more she struggled against it, the
stronger was the hold it gained upon her imagination if not upon her
reason. In the effort to banish this persistent torment, she began to
talk fast and recklessly of other things, until the animation with which
she spoke rekindled the old brilliant fervour in her face.

She was still talking with her restless gayety, when Adams came in to
ask after Perry, but with his presence a stillness which was almost one
of peace