ng to dine that night I know that she would
have been standing there at Mrs. Bannister's side, her own eyes fixed
expectantly on the door. But between the company of such excellent
folk as these Ruyters, with the glorious music of "Tristan," and this
awkward man whose people were not her people, who found content in the
lodges of the Todds and Bundys, there could be but one choice. I was
humiliated. The good-natured grace with which I expressed my
disappointment to Mrs. Bannister belied my angry mind, and as we moved
toward the dining-room, she chattering incessantly, she must have
believed that I was entirely satisfied with just her company.
Fortunately I had only to smile my responses, while my thoughts were
busy with the cavalier way in which I had been treated. I was incensed
at Penelope, but had it been any balm to my wounds to make her feel the
weight of my anger, I knew well enough that she was far beyond the
reach of my reproaches. But hopelessly I repeated over and over to
myself that I never could forgive her. Then, by a sudden weak
reversal, I did forgive her and let my anger evaporate into a silent
protest against the unkind fate which had decreed that her people
should no longer be my people.

It was when I saw her that I forgave her. As we three sat at dinner,
Mrs. Bannister chattering on, Rufus Blight meditative but offering a
mono-syllable now and then as evidence that he listened, I smiling
responsively, Penelope came in. How could I not forgive her when I saw
her thus, gowned in the daintiest art of the Rue de la Paix, cloaked in
soft white fur, capped with a scarf of filmy lace, and one small hand
held out to mine.

The fault, I said, was my own, mine and the Fates which had ordered
that the orbits in which we moved should meet but rarely. The fault,
too, lay with my forebears, who, had they considered me, would have
settled on the shores of the Hudson instead of pushing westward so
recklessly. Then I might now be going to the Ruyters', to sit at
dinner at her side, to sit behind her in the shadow of an opera-box and
whisper in her ear the ten thousand things which I had to say. I
forgave Penelope. I called down maledictions on the robust Malcolms
and McLaurins who had carried me out of her world and abandoned me to
the garrulous Mrs. Bannister and the taciturn Rufus Blight.

Penelope was exceedingly sorry to be going out, but she knew that David
would understand and would come some oth