Cressida's face, and felt
reassured of her unabated vitality; the old force of will was still
there, and with it her characteristic optimism, the old hope of a
"solution."

"You have been in Columbus lately?" she was saying. "No, you needn't tell
me about it," with a sigh. "Why is it, Caroline, that there is so little
of my life I would be willing to live over again? So little that I can
even think of without depression. Yet I've really not such a bad
conscience. It may mean that I still belong to the future more than to
the past, do you think?"

My assent was not warm enough to fix her attention, and she went on
thoughtfully: "Of course, it was a bleak country and a bleak period. But
I've sometimes wondered whether the bleakness may not have been in me,
too; for it has certainly followed me. There, that is no way to talk!"
she drew herself up from a momentary attitude of dejection. "Sea air
always lets me down at first. That's why it's so good for me in the end."

"I think Julia always lets you down, too," I said bluntly. "But perhaps
that depression works out in the same way."

Cressida laughed. "Julia is rather more depressing than Georgie, isn't
she? But it was Julia's turn. I can't come alone, and they've grown to
expect it. They haven't, either of them, much else to expect."

At this point the deck steward approached us with a blue envelope. "A
wireless for you, Madame Garnet."

Cressida put out her hand with impatience, thanked him graciously, and
with every indication of pleasure tore open the blue envelope. "It's
from Jerome Brown," she said with some confusion, as she folded the paper
small and tucked it between the buttons of her close-fitting gown,
"Something he forgot to tell me. How long shall you be in London? Good; I
want you to meet him. We shall probably be married there as soon as my
engagements are over." She rose. "Now I must write some letters. Keep two
places at your table, so that I can slip away from my party and dine with
you sometimes."

I walked with her toward her chair, in which Mr. Poppas was now
reclining. He indicated his readiness to rise, but she shook her head and
entered the door of her deck suite. As she passed him, his eye went over
her with assurance until it rested upon the folded bit of blue paper in
her corsage. He must have seen the original rectangle in the steward's
hand; having found it again, he dropped back between Horace and Miss
Julia, whom I think he disliked