They, of course, were people in whom she declined to be
interested, but even for those of us who could evoke some demonstration
of her vivid self her face would not always light in correspondence.
When it did there was none that I liked better to look at; and I envied
Somers Chichele his way to make it the pale, shining thing that would
hold him lifted, in return, for hours together, with I know not what
mystic power of a moon upon the tide. And he? Oh, he was dark and
delicate, by nature simple, sincere, delightfully intelligent. His
common title to charm was the rather sweet seriousness that rested on
his upper lip, and a certain winning gratification in his attention;
but he had a subtler one in his eyes, which must be always seeking and
smiling over what they found; those eyes of perpetual inquiry for the
exquisite which ask so little help to create it. A personality to button
up in a uniform, good heavens!

As I begin to think of them together I remember how the maternal note
appeared in her talk about him.

'His youth is pathetic,' she told me, 'but there is nothing that he does
not understand.'

'Don't apologize, Judy,' I said. We were so brusque on the frontier.
Besides, the matter still suffered a jocular presentment. Mrs. Harbottle
and Mr. Chichele were still 'great friends'; we could still put them
next each other at our dinner-parties without the feeling that it would
be 'marked.' There was still nothing unusual in the fact that when Mrs.
Harbottle was there Mr. Chichele might be taken for granted. We were so
broad-minded also, on the frontier.

It grew more obvious, the maternal note. I began positively to dread it,
almost as much, I imagine, as Somers did. She took her privileges all in
Anna's name, she exercised her authority quite as Lady Chichele's proxy.
She went to the very limit. 'Anna Chichele,' she said actually in his
presence, 'is a fortunate woman. She has all kinds of cleverness, and
she has her tall son. I have only one little talent, and I have no tall
son.' Now it was not in nature that she could have had a son as tall as
Somers, nor was that desire in her eyes. All civilization implies a good
deal of farce, but this was a poor refuge, a cheap device; I was glad
when it fell away from her sincerity, when the day came on which she
looked into my fire and said simply, 'An attachment like ours has no
terms.'

'I wonder,' I said.

'For what comes and goes,' she went on dreamily, 'how coul