tenance
gave the measure of what she would do to avoid it.

These thoughts were in her mind when, a day or two before sailing, she
came out of the Washington Square house with her boy. It was a late
spring afternoon, and she and Paul had lingered on till long past the
hour sacred to his grandfather's nap. Now, as she came out into the
square she saw that, however well Mr. Dagonet had borne their protracted
romp, it had left his playmate flushed and sleepy; and she lifted Paul
in her arms to carry him to the nearest cab-stand.

As she raised herself she saw a thick-set figure approaching her across
the square; and a moment later she was shaking hands with Elmer Moffatt.
In the bright spring air he looked seasonably glossy and prosperous; and
she noticed that he wore a bunch of violets in his buttonhole. His small
black eyes twinkled with approval as they rested on her, and Undine
reflected that, with Paul's arms about her neck, and his little flushed
face against her own, she must present a not unpleasing image of young
motherhood.

"That the heir apparent?" Moffatt asked; adding "Happy to make your
acquaintance, sir," as the boy, at Undine's bidding, held out a fist
sticky with sugarplums.

"He's been spending the afternoon with his grandfather, and they played
so hard that he's sleepy," she explained. Little Paul, at that stage in
his career, had a peculiar grace of wide-gazing deep-lashed eyes and
arched cherubic lips, and Undine saw that Moffatt was not insensible
to the picture she and her son composed. She did not dislike his
admiration, for she no longer felt any shrinking from him--she would
even have been glad to thank him for the service he had done her husband
if she had known how to allude to it without awkwardness. Moffatt seemed
equally pleased at the meeting, and they looked at each other almost
intimately over Paul's tumbled curls.

"He's a mighty fine fellow and no mistake--but isn't he rather an armful
for you?" Moffatt asked, his eyes lingering with real kindliness on the
child's face.

"Oh, we haven't far to go. I'll pick up a cab at the corner."

"Well, let me carry him that far anyhow," said Moffatt.

Undine was glad to be relieved of her burden, for she was unused to the
child's weight, and disliked to feel that her skirt was dragging on
the pavement. "Go to the gentleman, Pauly--he'll carry you better than
mother," she said.

The little boy's first movement was one of recoil from the ru