opened the door eyed him with more curiosity than
caution, and her protests that Mrs. Hilmer could see no one seemed
rather tentative and perfunctory. Fred had a curious feeling that she
was demanding a more or less conventional excuse for admitting him,
and in the end he flung out as a chance:

"Tell Mrs. Hilmer I have a message from Sylvia Molineaux."

The girl's pale-blue eyes sparkled with a curious glint of humor, and
without further protest she went away, and came back as swiftly with
an invitation for him to step inside. There was something
inexplainable about this maid who veiled her eagerness to admit him
with such transparencies. Even a fool would scarcely have left so
forbidding a character to dawdle about the living room while she went
to fetch her mistress.

He had expected to find this room changed, and yet he was not prepared
for quite the quality of familiarity which it possessed. Most of the
old Hilmer knickknacks had been swept aside, their places taken by
bits that had once enlivened the Starratt household. Here was a silver
vase that he had bought Helen for an anniversary present, and there a
Whistler etching that had been their wedding portion. His easy-chair
was in a corner, and Helen's music rack filled with all the things she
used to play for his delight. And on the mantel, in a silver frame,
his picture, with a little bowl of fading flowers before it... He went
over and picked it up. Instinctively he glanced in the mirror just in
front of him... _Dead ... quite dead!_ No wonder his wife put flowers
before this photographic shrine... For a moment he had a swooning hope
that he had misjudged her ... that he had misread everybody ... that
they had done everything for him that they thought was best. But he
emerged from this brief deception with a shuddering laugh... He would
not have cared so much if his wife had swept him from her life
completely ... but to trample on him and still use his shadow as a
screen--this was too much! What really pallid creatures these women of
convention were! How little they were prepared to risk anything! He
could almost hear the comments that Helen inspired:

"Poor Helen Starratt! She has had an awful time!... I don't know what
she would have done without the Hilmers... She's so devoted to Mrs.
Hilmer... I do think it's lovely that they can be together."

He felt that he could have admired a Helen Starratt with the courage
of her primitive instincts. As it was, h