ll," sighing, "it hardly matters. We shall not meet again for a long,
long time."

"How is that? Isabel, the last time she condescended to speak to me of
her own accord," with an unpleasant laugh, "told me that she had asked
you to come here again next February, and that you had accepted the
invitation. She, indeed, made quite a point of it."

"Ah! that was a long time ago."

"Weeks do not make a long time."

"Some weeks hold more than years. Yes, you are right; she made quite a
point about my coming. Well, she is always very civil."

"She has always perfect manners. She is, as you say, very civil."

"She is proud," coldly.

"You will come?"

"I think not. By that time you will in all probability have made it up
with her."

"The very essence of improbability."

"While I--shall not have made it up with my husband."

"One seems quite as possible as the other."

"Oh, no. Isabel is a good woman. You would do well to go back to her.
Swansdown is as bad a man as I know, and that," with a mirthless laugh,
"is saying a great deal. I should gain nothing by a reconciliation with
him. For one thing, an important matter, I have a great deal more money
than he has, and, for another, there are no children." Her voice changes
here; an indescribable alteration not only hardens, but desolates it. "I
have been fortunate there," she says, "if in nothing else in my
unsatisfactory life. There is no smallest bond between me and Swansdown.
If I could be seriously glad of anything it would be of that. I have
nothing belonging to him."

"His name."

"Oh, as for that--does it belong to him? Has he not forfeited a decent
right to it a thousand times? No; there is nothing. If there had been a
child he would have made a persecution of it--and so I am better off as
it is. And yet, there are moments when I envy you that little child of
yours. However----"

"Yet if Swansdown were to make an overture----"

"Do not go on. It is of all speculations the most useless. Do not pursue
the subject of Swansdown, I entreat you. Let"--with bitter
meaning--"'sleeping dogs lie.'"

Baltimore laughs shortly.

"That is severe," says he.

"It is how I feel toward him; the light in which I regard him. If,"
turning a face to his that is hardly recognizable, so pale it is with
ill-suppressed loathing, "he were lying on his deathbed and sent for me,
it would give me pleasure to refuse to go to him."

She takes her hand from his arm and motions hi