bon.

Travis dropped upon the shrouded sofa, and Condy set himself carefully
down on one of the frail chairs with its spindling golden legs, and
they began to talk.

Condy had taken her to the theatre the Monday night of that week, as
had been his custom ever since he had known her well, and there was
something left for them to say on that subject. But in ten minutes
they had exhausted it. An engagement of a girl known to both of them
had just been announced. Condy brought that up, and kept conversation
going for another twenty minutes, and then filled in what threatened to
be a gap by telling her stories of the society reporters, and how they
got inside news by listening to telephone party wires for days at a
time. Travis' condemnation of this occupied another five or ten
minutes; and so what with this and with that they reached nine o'clock.
Then decidedly the evening began to drag. It was too early to go.
Condy could find no good excuse for taking himself away, and, though
Travis was good-natured enough, and met him more than half-way, their
talk lapsed, and lapsed, and lapsed. The breaks became more numerous
and lasted longer. Condy began to wonder if he was boring her. No
sooner had the suspicion entered his head than it hardened into a
certainty, and at once what little fluency and freshness he yet
retained forsook him on the spot. What made matters worse was his
recollection of other evenings that of late he had failed in precisely
the same manner. Even while he struggled to save the situation Condy
was wondering if they two were talked out--if they had lost charm for
each other. Did he not know Travis through and through by now--her
opinions, her ideas, her convictions? Was there any more freshness in
her for him? Was their little flirtation of the last eighteen months,
charming as it had been, about to end? Had they played out the play,
had they come to the end of each other's resources? He had never
considered the possibility of this before, but all at once as he looked
at Travis--looked fairly into her little brown-black eyes--it was borne
in upon him that she was thinking precisely the same thing.

Condy Rivers had met Travis at a dance a year and a half before this,
and, because she was so very pretty, so unaffected, and so
good-natured, had found means to see her three or four times a week
ever since. They two "went out" not a little in San Francisco society,
and had been in a measure ident