as an extraordinary thing to say. Quite extraordinary. I
couldn't for the life of me refer to total strangers as nice people.
But, of course, she was taking a line of her own in which I at any
rate--and no one else in the room, for she too had taken the trouble to
read through the list of guests--counted any more than so many clean,
bull terriers. And she sat down rather brilliantly at a vacant table,
beside ours--one that was reserved for the Guggenheimers. And she just
sat absolutely deaf to the remonstrances of the head waiter with his
face like a grey ram's. That poor chap was doing his steadfast duty too.
He knew that the Guggenheimers of Chicago, after they had stayed there
a month and had worried the poor life out of him, would give him two
dollars fifty and grumble at the tipping system. And he knew that Teddy
Ashburnham and his wife would give him no trouble whatever except what
the smiles of Leonora might cause in his apparently unimpressionable
bosom--though you never can tell what may go on behind even a not quite
spotless plastron!--And every week Edward Ashburnham would give him a
solid, sound, golden English sovereign. Yet this stout fellow was intent
on saving that table for the Guggenheimers of Chicago. It ended in
Florence saying:

"Why shouldn't we all eat out of the same trough?--that's a nasty New
York saying. But I'm sure we're all nice quiet people and there can be
four seats at our table. It's round."

Then came, as it were, an appreciative gurgle from the Captain and I
was perfectly aware of a slight hesitation--a quick sharp motion in Mrs
Ashburnham, as if her horse had checked. But she put it at the fence all
right, rising from the seat she had taken and sitting down opposite me,
as it were, all in one motion. I never thought that Leonora looked her
best in evening dress. She seemed to get it too clearly cut, there
was no ruffling. She always affected black and her shoulders were too
classical. She seemed to stand out of her corsage as a white marble bust
might out of a black Wedgwood vase. I don't know.

I loved Leonora always and, today, I would very cheerfully lay down my
life, what is left of it, in her service. But I am sure I never had the
beginnings of a trace of what is called the sex instinct towards her.
And I suppose--no I am certain that she never had it towards me. As far
as I am concerned I think it was those white shoulders that did it. I
seemed to feel when I looked at them t