ether with a stable and half an acre of
ground, from one of the few Benhamites whose financial ventures had
ended in disaster, and who was obliged to sell. It was a more ambitious
residence than Mr. Parsons had desired, but it was the most available,
inasmuch as he could occupy it at once. It had been painted and
decorated within, but was unfurnished. Mr. Parsons, as a practical
business man, engaged the builder to select and supply the bedroom and
solid fittings, but it occurred to him to invite Selma to choose the
furnishings for what he called the show rooms.

Selma was delighted to visit once more the New York stores, free from
the bridle of Wilbur's criticism and unrestrained by economy. She found
to her satisfaction that the internal decoration of the new house was
not unlike that of the Williamses' first habitation--that is, gay and
bedizened; and she was resolved in the selection of her draperies and
ornaments to buy things which suggested by their looks that they were
handsome, and whose claim to distinction was not mere sober
unobtrusiveness. She realized that some of her purchases would have made
Wilbur squirm, but since his death she felt more sure than ever that
even where art was concerned his taste was subdued, timid, and
unimaginative. For instance, she believed that he would not have
approved her choice of light-blue satin for the upholstery of the
drawing-room, nor of a marble statue--an allegorical figure of Truth,
duly draped, as its most conspicuous ornament.

Selma was spared the embarrassment of her first husband's presence.
Divorce is no bar to ordinary feminine curiosity as to the whereabouts
of a former partner for life, and she had proved no exception to the
rule. Mrs. Earle had kept her posted as to Babcock's career since their
separation, and what she learned had tended merely to demonstrate the
wisdom and justice of her action. As a divorced man he had, after a
time, resumed the free and easy, coarse companionship to which he had
been partial before his marriage, and had gradually become a heavy
drinker. Presently he had neglected his business, a misfortune of which
a rival concern had been quick to take advantage. The trend of his
affairs had been steadily downhill, and had come to a crisis three
months before Littleton's death, when, in order to avoid insolvency, he
sold out his factory and business to the rival company, and accepted at
the same hands the position of manager in a branch