to sit three or four hours over a dinner, and yet,
if the professor talked, she could listen forever. Does Mr. Grandon
ever talk in that manner? A fine thrill speeds along her nerves, a sort
of pride in him, a secret joy that he is hers.

Oh, it is only nine o'clock! Violet tries to interest herself in a
novel, but it is stupid work. There are voices down-stairs and she
catches Marcia's inane little laugh. They never ask her down, because
she is in deep mourning, and Gertrude has kindly told her that people
do not go in society for at least six months when they have lost a near
relative. She has been married only two months, and it has seemed as
long as any other six months in her whole life.

Then she wonders why the marriages of books are so different from
the marriages of real life. There was Linda Radford, one of her
schoolmates, who went away last year to be married to an Englishman and
live at Montreal. Linda had a fortune, and the gentleman was a distant
cousin. They had always been engaged. Linda had written two letters
afterward, about her handsome house and elegant clothes. Then little
Jeanne Davray had a lover come from France, who married her in the
convent chapel and took her away. Once she wrote back to Sister
Catharine. There was a bright, wilful girl, a Protestant, placed in
the convent, who ran away with a married man and shocked the small
community so much that the mention of her name was forbidden. Right
here are Laura and Mr. Delancy, who are not story-book lovers, either.
Oh, which is true? She hides a blushing longing face on Cecil's pillow,
and sighs softly, secretly, for what she has not. Denise would call
it a sin, for she thinks every word and act of Mr. Grandon's exactly
right. Then, somehow, _she_ must be wrong. Are the books and poems all
wrong? She prays to be kept from all sin, not to desire or covet what
may not be meant for her. Oh, what a long, long evening!

Floyd Grandon is a guest at Madame Lepelletier's table. There are three
rooms, divided by silken portieres, which are now partially swung
aside. The lamps in the other rooms are burning low, there is a sweet,
faint perfume, a lovely suggestiveness, a background fit for a picture,
and this cosey apartment, hung with shimmering silk, and lighted from a
cluster of intense, velvety tropical flowers, soften the glare and add
curious tints of their own, suggestive of sunlight through a garden. It
is not the dining-room proper. Madame h