and straightway he began making preparations for
the journey. In a quarter of an hour he was ready, and with joy upon his
handsome face kissed Ellenora fervently and went away to the Broad
Street station. Then she did something surprising. She threw herself
upon a couch and wept until she was hysterical.

"I'm a nice sort of a fool, after all," she reflected, as she wiped her
face with a cool handkerchief and proceeded to let her hair down for a
good, comfortable brushing. "I'm a fool, a fool, to cry about this vain,
selfish fellow. Paul has no heart. Poor little Arthur! If he had been
more of a man, less of a conceited boy. Yet conceit may fetch him
through, after all. Dear me, I wonder what the poor boy did when he got
the news."

Ellenora laughed riotously. The silliness of the situation burned her
sense of the incongruous. There she stood opposite the mirror with her
tears hardly dry, and yet she was thinking of the man she had deserted!
It was absurd after all, this hurly-burly of men and women. Then she
began to wonder when Paul would return. The day seemed very long; in the
evening she walked in Rittenhouse Square and watched Trinity Church
until its brown facade faded in the dusk. She expected Paul back at
midnight, and sat up reading. She didn't love him, she told herself, but
felt lonely and wished he would come. To be sure, she recalled with her
morbidly keen memory that Howells had said: "There is no happy life for
woman--the advantage that the world offers her is her choice in
self-sacrifice." At two hours past the usual time, she went to bed and
slept uneasily until dawn, when she reached out her hand and awoke with
a start....

The next night he came back slightly the worse for a pleasant time. He
was too tired to answer questions. In the morning he told her that
Vibert announced a concert in Carnegie Hall, the programme made up of
his own compositions.

"His own compositions?" Ellenora indignantly queried. "He has nothing
but the piano concerto, an overture he wrote in Germany, and some
songs." She was very much disturbed. Paul noticed it and teased her.

"Oh, yes, he has; read this:"

"Mr. Arthur Vibert, a talented young composer, pupil of Saint-Saens and
Brahms, will give an instrumental concert at Carnegie Hall, November
10th, the programme of which will be devoted entirely to his own
compositions. Mr. Vibert, who is an excellent pianist, will play his new
piano concerto; a group of his charmi