n the tombstone, and it struck Thursdale as
another proof of his friend's good taste that she had been in no undue
haste to change her habits. The whole house appeared to count on his
coming; the footman took his hat and overcoat as naturally as though
there had been no lapse in his visits; and the drawing-room at once
enveloped him in that atmosphere of tacit intelligence which Mrs.
Vervain imparted to her very furniture.

It was a surprise that, in this general harmony of circumstances, Mrs.
Vervain should herself sound the first false note.

"You?" she exclaimed; and the book she held slipped from her hand.

It was crude, certainly; unless it were a touch of the finest art. The
difficulty of classifying it disturbed Thursdale's balance.

"Why not?" he said, restoring the book. "Isn't it my hour?" And as she
made no answer, he added gently, "Unless it's some one else's?"

She laid the book aside and sank back into her chair. "Mine, merely,"
she said.

"I hope that doesn't mean that you're unwilling to share it?"

"With you? By no means. You're welcome to my last crust."

He looked at her reproachfully. "Do you call this the last?"

She smiled as he dropped into the seat across the hearth. "It's a way
of giving it more flavor!"

He returned the smile. "A visit to you doesn't need such condiments."

She took this with just the right measure of retrospective amusement.

"Ah, but I want to put into this one a very special taste," she
confessed.

Her smile was so confident, so reassuring, that it lulled him into the
imprudence of saying, "Why should you want it to be different from what
was always so perfectly right?"

She hesitated. "Doesn't the fact that it's the last constitute a
difference?"

"The last--my last visit to you?"

"Oh, metaphorically, I mean--there's a break in the continuity."

Decidedly, she was pressing too hard: unlearning his arts already!

"I don't recognize it," he said. "Unless you make me--" he added, with
a note that slightly stirred her attitude of languid attention.

She turned to him with grave eyes. "You recognize no difference
whatever?"

"None--except an added link in the chain."

"An added link?"

"In having one more thing to like you for--your letting Miss Gaynor see
why I had already so many." He flattered himself that this turn had
taken the least hint of fatuity from the phrase.

Mrs. Vervain sank into her former easy pose. "Was it that you came
for?" she a