of his reception, born of the manner of their parting; and her
hesitation, while it shook his vanity, by no means bade him despair.
After the first small shock, he had not failed to perceive the coyness
of her; and why not? If her maiden's whim demanded a brief ritual of
probationary wooing before verbally admitting him to her heart again,
never fear but he would go through his paces with a gallant's air....

The day was what photographers call cloudy-bright, turning toward
mid-afternoon into fitful sunshine. The young pair lunched _a deux_ at
the Country Club, nearly deserted at this hour on a week-day. Hugo had
stoutened the least bit under his sorrows; he was more masculine,
handsomer than ever; his manner did not want his old lordliness, even
now. He was not one to discuss business with a woman, but she learned of
the affair which was hurrying him back to Washington, nothing less than
rate-hearings before the Interstate Commerce Commission, if you please.
The able young man was now assistant counsel for his father's railway.
However, he was to pass this way soon again, probably next week.

They sat for an hour on the club piazza looking out over smooth rolling
hills, now green, now wooded, all fair in the late September sunshine.
Away to the left there was the faint gleam of the river. All day
Canning, in his subtle way, made love to Cally, but he was too wise to
press hard upon her girlish hesitancy.

"I don't believe you've missed me much," he remarked, once, on the
wooing note. "Have you?"

Cally smiled into space and answered: "At times."

"That's cheerful ... When there's not been an hour for me, all summer,
I swear it, that hasn't been singing with thoughts of you."

"You might have run up from Trouville, in July, and called on us in
Paris."

His reply indicated that running, whether up or down, involved a
considerable conquest of pride. And Cally understood that.

"I," said she, tranquilly, "have been growing weary of society. Perhaps
that is your doing...."

She told him of her experience at the Settlement yesterday, of her
rebuff at the hands of Mr. Pond. Canning thanked heaven that she need
not bother herself with such dreary faddisms of the day.

"You can safely leave all that," said he, "to the women who have failed
in their own careers."

"And what career is that?"

"The career of being a woman. Need you ask?"

Carlisle, drawing on her gloves, observed: "That would bring up the
question,