nbuttoned his overcoat, but did not take it off. He stood
folding his muffler slowly and carefully. What he did not understand
was, how he could go while other people stayed. Sam would be moving
about the table like this, Mrs. Wanning and her daughters would be
dressing upstairs, when he would not be coming home to dinner any
more; when he would not, indeed, be dining anywhere.

Sam, coming to turn on the parlor lights, saw Wanning and stepped
behind him to take his coat.

"Good evening, Mr. Wanning, sah, excuse me. You entahed so quietly,
sah, I didn't heah you."

The master of the house slipped out of his coat and went languidly
upstairs.

He tapped at the door of his wife's room, which stood ajar.

"Come in, Paul," she called from her dressing table.

She was seated, in a violet dressing gown, giving the last touches to
her coiffure, both arms lifted. They were firm and white, like her neck
and shoulders. She was a handsome woman of fifty-five,--still a
woman, not an old person, Wanning told himself, as he kissed her
cheek. She was heavy in figure, to be sure, but she had kept, on the
whole, presentable outlines. Her complexion was good, and she wore
less false hair than either of her daughters.

Wanning himself was five years older, but his sandy hair did not
show the gray in it, and since his mustache had begun to grow white
he kept it clipped so short that it was unobtrusive. His fresh skin
made him look younger than he was. Not long ago he had overheard the
stenographers in his law office discussing the ages of their
employers. They had put him down at fifty, agreeing that his two
partners must be considerably older than he--which was not the case.
Wanning had an especially kindly feeling for the little new girl, a
copyist, who had exclaimed that "Mr. Wanning couldn't be fifty; he
seemed so boyish!"

Wanning lingered behind his wife, looking at her in the mirror.

"Well, did you tell the girls, Julia?" he asked, trying to speak
casually.

Mrs. Wanning looked up and met his eyes in the glass. "The girls?"

She noticed a strange expression come over his face.

"About your health, you mean? Yes, dear, but I tried not to alarm
them. They feel dreadfully. I'm going to have a talk with Dr. Seares
myself. These specialists are all alarmists, and I've often heard of
his frightening people."

She rose and took her husband's arm, drawing him toward the
fireplace.

"You are not going to let this upset you