es my gown. She told me last night that she would never
be caught wearing silver gauze again until she wanted to look every day
as old as she really is. It was rather hard on her, poor thing, for
Arnold says she'd rather lose her character any day than her
complexion--not that she has very much of either left by now," she
corrected with her cutting laugh.

Before the studied insolence of her attack Perry drew back quickly in
surprise, and his eyelids winked rapidly as if a lighted candle had
flashed before them. Then, with that child-like need of having his eyes
opened, of being made to _see_, his attention was fastened upon the
brilliant figure of his wife, and her beauty seemed at the moment to
burn itself into his slow-witted brain.

"By Jove!" he exclaimed, and again, "By Jove!"

"I'm glad you like it," replied Gerty, with a careless shrug. "I may not
be a model woman from a domestic point of view, but at least I've
managed to keep both my colour and my reputation." She crossed to the
bureau, and opening a drawer took out a green and silver fan. "I really
needn't trouble you to come, you know," she remarked indifferently.
"Arnold will be there and I dare say he'll be willing to come back in my
carriage."

"I dare say he will," observed Perry, not without a jealous indignation,
"and I dare say you'd be pleased enough if I'd let him."

Gerty laughed as she closed the drawer with a bang. "Well, I shouldn't
exactly mind," she rejoined.

Reconciliation, such as it was, the brief reunion of suspicion and
broken faith was apparently in rapid progress, and, filled with a pity
not unmixed with disgust, Laura put on her fur coat and went slowly down
the staircase. The last sound that followed her was the flute-like music
of Gerty's laugh--a little tired, heart-sick, utterly disillusioned
laugh.

A man was going by on the sidewalk as she went out, and when the closing
of the house door caused him instinctively to look up, she saw that it
was Roger Adams. He stopped immediately and waited for her until she
descended the steps.

"Are you bound now," he asked, "for Gramercy Park?"

She nodded "But I'd like to walk a block or two. I've been shut up all
the afternoon with Gerty."

"She's not ill, I hope," he remarked, as he fell into step at her side.
"I've always had a considerable liking for Mrs. Bridewell, and for
Perry, too. He's a first-rate chap."

For a moment Laura walked on rapidly, without replying. It seeme