shiny oak marvellously and precisely carved by
machines, matched the big panels of the wainscot. The windows were high
in the wall, thus preventing any intrusion from the clothes-yard on which
they looked. The bookcases, protected by leaded panes, held countless
volumes of the fiction from which Cora Ditmar had derived her knowledge
of the great world outside of Hampton, together with certain sets she had
bought, not only as ornaments, but with a praiseworthy view to future
culture,--such as Whitmarsh's Library of the Best Literature. These
volumes, alas, were still uncut; but some of the pages of the novels--if
one cared to open them--were stained with chocolate. The steam radiator
was a decoration in itself, the fireplace set in the red and yellow tiles
that made the hearth. Above the oak mantel, in a gold frame, was a large
coloured print of a Magdalen, doubled up in grief, with a glory of loose,
Titian hair, chosen by Ditmar himself as expressing the nearest possible
artistic representation of his ideal of the female form. Cora Ditmar's
objections on the score of voluptuousness and of insufficient clothing
had been vain. She had recognized no immorality of sentimentality in the
art itself; what she felt, and with some justice, was that this
particular Magdalen was unrepentant, and that Ditmar knew it. And the
picture remained an offence to her as long as she lived. Formerly he had
enjoyed the contemplation of this figure, reminding him, as it did, of
mellowed moments in conquests of the past; suggesting also possibilities
of the future. For he had been quick to discount the attitude of bowed
despair, the sop flung by a sensuous artist to Christian orthodoxy. He
had been sceptical about despair--feminine despair, which could always be
cured by gifts and baubles. But to-night, as he raised his eyes, he felt
a queer sensation marring the ecstatic perfection of his mood. That
quality in the picture which so long had satisfied and entranced him had
now become repellent, an ugly significant reflection of something
--something in himself he was suddenly eager to repudiate and deny. It
was with a certain amazement that he found himself on his feet with the
picture in his hand, gazing at the empty space where it had hung. For he
had had no apparent intention of obeying that impulse. What should he do
with it? Light the fire and burn it--frame and all? The frame was an
integral part of it. What would his housekeeper say? But no