ss to failure; but even in failure
there were choices, and wasn't this the best form of failure? Franklin
was not, could never be, the lover she had dreamed of; she had never met
that lover, and she had always dreamed of him. Franklin was
dun-coloured; the lover of her dreams a Perseus-like flash of purple and
gold, ardent, graceful, compelling, some one who would open doors to
large, bright vistas, and lead her into a life of beauty. But this was a
dream and Franklin was the fact, and to-night he seemed the only fact
worth looking at. Wasn't dun-colour, after all, preferable to the
trivial kaleidoscope of shifting tints which was all that the future,
apart from Franklin, seemed to offer her? Might not dun-colour, even,
illuminated by joy, turn to gold, like highway dust when the sun shines
upon it? Althea wondered, leaning back in her chair and gazing before
her; she wondered deeply.

If only Franklin would come in now with the right look. If only he would
come in with the right word, or, if not with the word, with an even more
compelling silence! Compulsion was needed, and could Franklin compel?
Could he make her fall in love with him? So she wondered, sitting alone
in the Paris hotel, the open letter in her hand.

CHAPTER III.

When Althea went in to lunch next day, after an arduous morning of
shopping, she observed, with mingled relief and disappointment, that the
young lady in black was not in her place. She might very probably have
gone away, and it was odd to think that an impression so strong was
probably to remain an impression merely. On the whole, she was sorry to
think that it might be so, though the impression had not been altogether
happy.

After lunch she lay down and read reviews for a lazy hour, and then
dressed to receive Miss Harriet Robinson, who, voluble and beaming,
arrived punctually at four.

Miss Robinson looked almost exactly as she had looked for the last ten
years. She changed as little as the hotel drawing-room, but that the
pictures on the wall, the vases on the shelf of her mental decoration
varied with every season. She was always passionately interested in
something, and it was surprising to note how completely in the new she
forgot last year's passion. This year it was eugenics and Strauss; the
welfare of the race had suddenly engaged her attention, and the menaced
future of music. She was slender, erect, and beautifully dressed. Her
hands were small, and she constantly bu