nk of delightful things that
have nothing to do with the ordinary run of my life. Do you
understand?"

"It is very nice," she said, "if I do." She took a breath, softly,
dramatically. "You make me think vain things, you know." (Her mouth
was a delicious O.) "You paint a pretty picture." She was warm,
flushed, suffused with a burst of her own temperament.

"You are like that," he went on, insistently. "You make me feel like
that all the time. You know," he added, leaning over her chair, "I
sometimes think you have never lived. There is so much that would
complete your perfectness. I should like to send you abroad or take
you--anyhow, you should go. You are very wonderful to me. Do you find
me at all interesting to you?"

"Yes, but"--she paused--"you know I am afraid of all this and of you."
Her mouth had that same delicious formation which had first attracted
him. "I don't think we had better talk like this, do you? Harold is
very jealous, or would be. What do you suppose Mrs. Cowperwood would
think?"

"I know very well, but we needn't stop to consider that now, need we?
It will do her no harm to let me talk to you. Life is between
individuals, Rita. You and I have very much in common. Don't you see
that? You are infinitely the most interesting woman I have ever known.
You are bringing me something I have never known. Don't you see that? I
want you to tell me something truly. Look at me. You are not happy as
you are, are you? Not perfectly happy?"

"No." She smoothed her fan with her fingers.

"Are you happy at all?"

"I thought I was once. I'm not any more, I think."

"It is so plain why," he commented. "You are so much more wonderful
than your place gives you scope for. You are an individual, not an
acolyte to swing a censer for another. Mr. Sohlberg is very
interesting, but you can't be happy that way. It surprises me you
haven't seen it."

"Oh," she exclaimed, with a touch of weariness, "but perhaps I have."

He looked at her keenly, and she thrilled. "I don't think we'd better
talk so here," she replied. "You'd better be--"

He laid his hand on the back of her chair, almost touching her shoulder.

"Rita," he said, using her given name again, "you wonderful woman!"

"Oh!" she breathed.

Cowperwood did not see Mrs. Sohlberg again for over a week--ten days
exactly--when one afternoon Aileen came for him in a new kind of trap,
having stopped first to pick up the Sohlbergs. Harold