arry and Mrs. Paxton
strolled in one direction, Miss Coles and I in another.

Miss Coles looked very beautiful, and she wore an expression of
childlike proprietorship which was very becoming to her.

"Why are you _Miss_ Coles?" I asked.

"I'm not--really." Her voice was little more than a whisper. "It's
more fun to be _Miss_ while the divorce is pending. I'm from
California--nobody knows me here."

"And you're getting a divorce?"

She nodded slowly. And then with a flash of engaging frankness: "No,
I'm not," she said; "_he_ is."

"Oh!"

We strolled on in silence for a moment, and then as if by agreement
came to a sudden halt and looked at each other.

Then she laughed softly, her head tilted back, and her round bare
throat showing very white in the moonlight.

I threw my cigar into a bed of scarlet flowers.

XXXIV

I had passed through one of those stages of mental and spiritual
depression during which a man does not even ask forgiveness of himself
for any of his acts. If "Miss" Coles had wished me to marry her I
would have done so; but the suggestion was never made by either of us.
We parted, a little gloomily, but not unhappily, and before there was
even a breath of scandal. It was just after she heard that her husband
had secured his decree against her. That hard cold fact, that proof of
things which no woman likes to have proved against her, seemed to sober
her, you may say, and bring her up with a round turn. From now on she
was going to be good, she said. No. I mustn't blame myself for
anything. Everything was her fault. Everything always had been. I
was ashamed too? She was glad of that. We'd always be good friends.
Why, yes! From a friend, yes--if he was really as rich as all that.
It would help her to look around, to get her bearings for the new and
better life. It had been a frightfully expensive winter. It had been
sweet of me to keep her rooms so full of flowers. She loved
flowers. . . . Oh, nobody was hurt much, and nobody but us anyway.

Reform is a great thing. I learned from Harry that the very night I
left Palm Beach she lost all the money I had "conveyed" to her at
gambling, and only the other day she ran off with a man I know very
well indeed--and a married man at that. I hope she won't talk too much
in the first few weeks of her infatuation.

I reached New York feeling like the cad that I suppose I am. But it
was pretty bitter hearing about Lucy, and the