abnormality,
productive of a higher and more sustained delight, a more complete
annihilation of prosaic life, than any mere function bestowed on all
men alike. It might bring suffering, disappointment, mortification,
even despair in its train, but the agitation of that uncharted tract in
the brain compensated for any revenge that nature, through her
by-product, human nature, might visit on those who departed from her
beloved formulae.

Nevertheless, and before his walk was finished and he had returned home
to dress for dinner with her, the play was on one plane and he on
another, visioning himself alone with her in the Austrian agapemone.
And cursing the interminable weeks between. He anathematized himself
for consenting to the delay, and vowed she'd had her own way for the
last time, He foresaw many not unagreeable tussles of will. She was
far too accustomed to having her own way. Well, so was he.

For two weeks he left his rooms only to walk, or dine or spend an hour
with her in the afternoon when she was alone. He rebelled less than he
had expected. If he could not have her wholly, the less he saw of her
the better.

Dinners, luncheons, theatre parties, receptions, were being given for
her not only by her old friends--who seemed to her to grow more
numerous daily--but by their daughters and by many others who made up
for lack of tradition by that admirable sense of rightness which makes
fashionable society in America such a waste of efficiency and force.
And whether the younger women privately hated her or had fallen victims
to that famous charm was of little public consequence. It was as if
she had appeared in their midst, waved a sceptre and announced: "I am
the fashion. Always have I been the fashion. That is my _metier_.
Bow down." At all events the fashion she became, and it was quite as
patent that she took it as a matter of course. The radiant happiness
that possessed her, refusing as she did to look into the future with
its menace to those high duties of her former dedication--clear, sharp,
ruthless children of her brain--not only enhanced both her beauty and
magnetism, but enabled her to endure this social ordeal she had
dreaded, without ennui. She was too happy to be bored. She even
plunged into it with youthful relish. For the first time in her life
she was at peace with herself. She was not at peace when Clavering
made love to her, far from it; but she enjoyed with all the zest of a
w