man of
him, she remembered his low-voiced when that change impended as he held
her by her wrists a moment, then dropped them. He had said, half to
himself: "You should have let me alone!"

Sometimes at noon she remembered this when they went out for luncheon
realizing they would never have been seated together in a restaurant had
she not satisfied her curiosity. She should have let him alone; she
knew that. She tried to wish that she had--tried to regret everything,
anything; and could not, even when within her the faint sense of alarm
awoke amid the softly unchangeable unreality of these last six weeks of
spring.

Was this then really love?--this drifting through alternating dreams
of shyness, tenderness, suspense, pierced at moments by tiny flashes
of fear, as lightning flickers, far buried in softly shrouded depths of
cloud?

She had long periods of silent and absorbed dreaming, conscious only
that she dreamed, but not of the dream itself.

She was aware, too, of a curious loneliness within her, and dimly
understood that it was the companion of a lifetime she was missing--her
conscience. Where was it? Had it gone? Had it died? Were the little,
inexplicable flashes of fear proof of its disintegration? Or its
immortal vitality?

Dead, dormant, departed, she knew not which, she was dully aware of its
loss--dimly and childishly troubled that she could remember nothing to
be sorry for. And there was so much.

Men in his profession who knew him began to look askance at him and her,
amused or otherwise, according to their individual characters.

That Cecile White went about more or less with the sculptor Drene was
a nine days' gossip among circles familiar to them both, and was
forgotten--as are all wonders--in nine days.

Some of his acquaintances recalled what had been supposed to be the
tragedy of his life, mentioning a woman's name, and a man's--Drene's
closest friend. But gossip does not last long among the busy--not that
the busy are incapable of gossip, but they finish with it quickly,
having other matters to think about.

Even Quair, after recovering from his wonder that his own condescending
advances had been ignored, bestowed his fatuously inflammable attentions
elsewhere.

He had been inclined to complain one day in the studio, when he and
Guilder visited Drene professionally; and Guilder looked at his dapper
confrere in surprise and slight disgust; and Drene, at first bored, grew
irritable.

"Wha