k vase on which the play of light is
the only pattern.

After dinner they went out on the terrace for a look at the moon-misted
park. Through the crepuscular whiteness the trees hung in blotted
masses. Below the terrace, the garden drew its dark diagrams between
statues that stood like muffled conspirators on the edge of the shadow.
Farther off, the meadows unrolled a silver-shot tissue to the mantling
of mist above the river; and the autumn stars trembled overhead like
their own reflections seen in dim water.

He lit his cigar, and they walked slowly up and down the flags in the
languid air, till he put an arm about her, saying: "You mustn't stay
till you're chilled"; then they went back into the room and drew up
their chairs to the fire.

It seemed only a moment later that she said: "It must be after eleven,"
and stood up and looked down on him, smiling faintly. He sat
still, absorbing the look, and thinking: "There'll be evenings and
evenings"--till she came nearer, bent over him, and with a hand on his
shoulder said: "Good night."

He got to his feet and put his arms about her.

"Good night," he answered, and held her fast; and they gave each other a
long kiss of promise and communion.

The memory of it glowed in him still as he sat over his crumbling fire;
but beneath his physical exultation he felt a certain gravity of mood.
His happiness was in some sort the rallying-point of many scattered
purposes. He summed it up vaguely by saying to himself that to be loved
by a woman like that made "all the difference"...He was a little tired
of experimenting on life; he wanted to "take a line", to follow things
up, to centralize and concentrate, and produce results. Two or three
more years of diplomacy--with her beside him!--and then their real life
would begin: study, travel and book-making for him, and for her--well,
the joy, at any rate, of getting out of an atmosphere of bric-a-brac and
card-leaving into the open air of competing activities.

The desire for change had for some time been latent in him, and his
meeting with Mrs. Leath the previous spring had given it a definite
direction. With such a comrade to focus and stimulate his energies he
felt modestly but agreeably sure of "doing something". And under this
assurance was the lurking sense that he was somehow worthy of his
opportunity. His life, on the whole, had been a creditable affair. Out
of modest chances and middling talents he had built himself a fai