ard the same undertone of
leisurely moving life--the scuffling of feet, the closing of doors,
distant voices, the rumble of traffic. Then, after this lazy prelude,
he had been swept on and on to the final dizzy climax.

That must not happen again. At this moment he knew he had a firm grip
on himself--but at this moment yesterday he had felt even more secure.
There had been no past then. That seemed a big word to use for such
recent events covering so few hours; and yet it was none too big. It
covered nothing less than the revelation of a man to himself. If that
process sometimes takes years, it is none the less significant if it
takes place in a day.

"Good-morning, Monte."

He turned quickly--so quickly that she started in surprise.

"Is anything the matter?" she asked.

She was in blue this morning, and wore at an angle a broad-brimmed hat
trimmed with black and white. He thought her eyes looked a trifle
tired. He would have said she had not slept well.

"I--I didn't know you were down," he faltered.

The interval of six hours upon which he had been depending vanished
instantly. To-day was but the continuation of yesterday. As he moved
toward the breakfast-room at her side, the outside world disappeared as
by magic, leaving only her world--the world immediately about her,
which she dominated. This room which she entered by his side was no
longer merely the salle-a-manger of the Normandie. He was conscious of
no portion of it other than that which included their table. All the
sunshine in the world concentrated into the rays that fell about her.

He felt this, and yet at the same time he was aware of the absurdity of
such exaggeration. It was the sort of thing that annoyed him when he
saw it in others. All those newly married couples he used to meet on
the German liners were afflicted in this same way. Each one of them
acted as if the ship were their ship, the ocean their ocean, even the
blue sky and the stars at night their sky and their stars. When he was
in a good humor, he used to laugh at this; when in a bad humor, it
disgusted him.

"Monte," she said, as soon as they were seated, "I was depending upon
you this morning."

She studied him a second, and then tried to smile, adding quickly:--

"I don't like you to disappoint me like this."

"What do you mean?" he asked nervously.

She frowned, but it was at herself, not at him. It did not do much
except make dimples between her brows.