in that difficult art.

As she chatted, chiefly of her journey, I falsely pretended to listen,
whereas I only stared and in spirit was prostrate before her. Mere
kneeling at her feet savored too nearly of arrogance. I felt the need to
be a spread rug in her presence. She sat back in the chair that embraced
her loosely, a slight figure with a small head, on which the heavy
strands of whitening hair seemed only a powdered lie above the curiously
girlish face. A tiny black patch or two on the face, I thought, would
have made this illusion perfect. And yet when she did not laugh, or in
some little silence of recollection, the deeper lines stood out, and I
could see that sorrow had long known its way to her face. It even lurked
now back of her eyes, and I knew that she tried to keep her face lighted
for me so that I should not detect it. She succeeded admirably, but the
smile could not always be there, and ghosts of her dead years came
stealthily to haunt her face as surely as the smile went.

When Clem, with an air of having had word from a numerous kitchen crew,
stood before us and bowed out, "Miss Cahline, dinneh is suhved!" I gave
her my arm with a feeling of vast relief. Not only was Miss Caroline an
abiding joy, but apprehension as to my modest complicity in her late
distress had, too, evidently been groundless. She had once, with what
seemed to be an almost artificial politeness, asked me about our timber
supply and the state of the lumber market; queries to which I had
replied with an assumption of interest equally artificial, for I was
ignorant of both topics, and not even remotely concerned about either.

Seated at the table, which Clem had arrayed with a faultless artistry, I
promptly demanded the removal of a tall piece of cut glass and its
burden of carnations, asserting that both glass and flowers might be
well enough in their way, but that I could regard them only as a blank
wall of exasperating ugliness while they interrupted a view of my
hostess. Whereat I was again regaled with that imcomparable blush.

Clem served a soup that had been two days in the making and was worth
the time. But even ere the stain had faded from the cheeks of my
hostess, cheeks of slightly crumpled roseleaf, another look flashed the
smile from her eyes--a quick, firm, woman look of suffering and
defiance.

She had raised her glass, and I mechanically did the same.

"Mr. Blake, let us drink standing!--we women earned the right to