ks."

The red light of the flames shone on her exquisite fineness, on that
"look of the Blands," which lent its peculiar distinction, its
suggestion of the "something else," to her delicate features and to her
long slender figure, which had grown a little too thin. Between her and
myself, divided as we were merely by the space of the fireside, I felt
suddenly that there stretched both a mental and a physical distance; and
this sense of unlikeness,--which I had become aware of for the first
time, when she stepped from the train that October morning, between
Bonny and George,--grew upon me until I could no longer tell whether it
was my pride or my affection that suffered. I had grown careless, I
knew, of "the little things" that she prized, while I so passionately
pursued the big ones to which she appeared still indifferent. Meeting my
image in one of the old gilt-framed mirrors between the windows, I saw
that my features had taken the settled and preoccupied look of the
typical man of affairs, that my figure, needing the exercise I had had
no time for of late, had grown already unelastic and heavy. Had she
noticed, I wondered, that the "magnificent animal" was losing his hold?
Only that afternoon I had heard her laughing with George over some
trivial jest which they had not explained; and this very laughter,
because I did not understand it, had seemed, in some subtle way, to draw
them to each other and farther from me. Yet she was mine, not George's,
and the gloss on her hair, the scent of her gown, the pearls at her
throat, were all the things that my money had given her.

"I've got terribly one-ideaed, Sally, I know," I said, answering her
remark after a long silence; "but some day, in a year or two perhaps,
when I'm stronger, more successful, I'll cut it all for a time, and
we'll go to Europe together. We'll have our second honeymoon as soon as
I can get away."

"Remember I've a reception Thursday night, please, Ben," she responded,
brushing my sentimental suggestion lightly aside.

"By Jove, I'm awfully sorry, but I've arranged to meet a man in New York
on Wednesday. I simply had to do it. There was no way out of it."

"Then you won't be here?"

"I'll make a desperate effort to get back on the seven o'clock train
from Washington. That will be in time?"

"Yes, that will be in time. You are in New York and Washington
two-thirds of the month now."

"It's a beastly shame, too, but it won't last."

With a smoth