red times honest, old-fashioned, formal
Denise.

An accident has made dinner an hour late, so he is in abundant time.
Mrs. Grandon has been dull all day. Laura and Marcia had this excellent
effect, they kept the mental atmosphere of the house astir, and now it
is stagnant. She complains of headache.

"Suppose we go to drive," he proposes, and the two ladies agree. Madame
is in something white and soft, a mass of lace and a marvel of
fineness. She has the rare art of harmonious adjustment, of being used
to her clothes. She is never afraid to crumple them, to trail them over
floors, to _use_ them, and yet she is always dainty, delicate, never
rough or prodigal. She is superlatively lovely to-night. As she sits in
the carriage, with just the right poise of languor, just the faint
tints of enthusiasm that seem a part of twilight, she is a very
dangerous siren, in that, without the definite purpose being at all
tangible, she impresses herself upon him with that delicious sense of
being something that his whole life would be the poorer without. A
subtile knowledge steals over him that he cannot analyze or define, but
in his soul he knows this magnificent woman could love him now with a
passion that would almost sweep the very soul out of him. He has no
grudge against her that she did not love him before,--it was not her
time any more than his; neither is he affronted at the French
marriage,--it was what she desired then. But now she has come to
something else. Of what use would life be if one had always to keep to
sweet cake and marmalade? There are fruits and flavors and wines, there
is knowledge sweet and bitter.

Very little is said. He glances at her now and then, and she reads in
his face that the tide is coming in. She has seen this questioning
softness in other eyes. If she could have him an hour or two on the
porch after their return!

That is the bitter of it. He feels that he has stayed away from sorrow
too long. His mother makes some fretful comment, she gives him a glance
that he carries with him in the darkness.

A quiet night follows. The doctor is up in the morning. "Comfortable,"
he says. "You may as well go on with the anodynes. There will be great
restlessness at the last, no doubt, unless some mood of excitement
should carry him off. Three days will be the utmost."

Briggs comes with Mr. Grandon's mail. There is a postal from Eugene,
who considers the subject unworthy of the compliment of a sealed
l