k, Simeon, and again by the pilot," she
urged, following him into the hall. "And where is your first
port--Rio? Then from Rio, and as often as you can."

He was stuffing the pockets of his overcoat with papers and pamphlets,
but he nodded assent.

She came a step nearer and laid her hand on his arm.

"Be sure _I_ shall try to do as you would wish," she half whispered,
and there were tears in her eyes.

"To be sure, to be sure," said Simeon, with a kind of embarrassment.
"Oh, yes, _I_ shall write frequently--if not to you, to French, who
will keep you informed. Don't forget to make your weekly contribution
to your mother's housekeeping. _I_ cannot allow you to be a burden on
them during my absence; and consult Stephen whenever you are in doubt.
Good-by, Deena--I am sorry to leave you."

He puckered his lips into the hard wrinkles that made his kisses so
discreet, and gave her a parting embrace. She stood at the open door
watching the distribution of his luggage, which he superintended with
anxious care, and then he stepped into the one free seat reserved for
him, and the driver squeezed himself between a trunk and roll of rugs,
and they were off.

Simeon waved his hand, and even leaned far out from the carriage
window and smiled pleasantly, and Deena wiped her eyes, and began the
awful work of making an old house, bristling with the characteristic
accumulations of several generations, impersonal enough to rent. She
had plenty to do to keep her loneliness in abeyance, but in the back
of her consciousness there was a feeling that she had no abiding
place. Her family had urged her to marry Simeon, and he was now
throwing her back upon her family, and her dignity was hurt.

At sunset Stephen came to see how she was getting on, and they had a
cup of tea beside the dining-room fire, and talked about the voyage
and the ports Simeon would touch at; and Stephen, who had the power of
visualizing the descriptions he met with in his reading, made her see
his word-painted pictures so clearly that she exclaimed:

"When were you in South America, Mr. French?" and he laughed and
declared himself a fraud.

They talked on till the firelight alone challenged the darkness, and
then French remembered he was dining out, and left her with an
imagination aglow with all the wonders Simeon was to see. Lest she
should be lonely, he undid a roll of papers, and took out several new
magazines which he said would keep her amused till bedtim