. Not throwing herself
against him in the old mad sweetness of her impulsive nature,--both
pretty gloved hands were held out to him and her upturned face lifted
all sparkle and brilliance, her red lips parted. "Oh, Cousin Antony!"

Both Fairfax's hands held hers.

"Quick!" she cried, "before Miss Jackson comes out. Where do you live?
When will you come to see me? But you can't come! We're not allowed to
have gentlemen callers! When can I come to see you? Dear Cousin Antony,
how glad I am!"

"Bella!" he murmured, and gazed at her.

The rank-and-file of schoolgirls, giggling, outraged and diverted,
passed them by, and the stiff teachers were the last to appear from the
church.

"Tell me," Bella repeated, "where do you live? I'll write you. I've
composed tons of letters, but I forgot the number in Nut Street. Here's
Miss Jackson, the horrid thing! Hurry, Cousin Antony."

He said, "Forty, Canal Street," and wondered why he had told her.

Miss Jackson and Miss Teeter passed the two, and were so absorbed in
discussing the text of the sermon that neither saw Mistress Bella Carew.

"I'm safe," she cried, "the old cats! The girls will never tell--they're
all too sweet. But I must go; I'll just say I've dropped my Prayer-book.
There, you take it!"

And she was gone.

Antony stood staring at the flitting figure as Bella ran after the
others down the steps like an autumn leaf blown by a light wind. She
wore a brown dress down to her boot tops (her boots too were brown with
bows at the tops); her little brown gloves had held his hand in what had
been the warmest, friendliest clasp imaginable. She wore a brown hat
with a plume in it that drooped and dangled, and Antony had looked into
her brown eyes and seen their bright affection once more.

Well, he had known that she was going to be like this! Not quite,
though; no man ever knows what a woman can be, will be, or ever is. He
felt fifty years old as he walked down the steps and turned towards
Canal Street to the door he had fastened four hours before on his
formless visions.

CHAPTER XXX

He did not go home that day.

Towards late evening he sat in the twilight, his head in his hands, a
pile of smoked cigarettes and Bella's Prayer-book on the table before
him.... In the wretched afternoon he had read, one after another, the
services: Marriage ... for better or for worse, till death do us
part.... The Baptismal service, and the Burial for the Dead.

At six