o the world, she engrossed in
establishing her relation with an intensely new gown, he shrinking with
dyspeptic dread from the multiplied solicitations of the MENU. The mere
fact that they thus showed themselves together, with the utmost openness
the place afforded, seemed to declare beyond a doubt that their
differences were composed. How this end had been attained was still
matter for wonder, but it was clear that for the moment Miss Bart rested
confidently in the result; and Selden tried to achieve the same view by
telling himself that her opportunities for observation had been ampler
than his own.

Meanwhile, as the dinner advanced through a labyrinth of courses, in
which it became clear that Mrs. Bry had occasionally broken away from
Lord Hubert's restraining hand, Selden's general watchfulness began to
lose itself in a particular study of Miss Bart. It was one of the days
when she was so handsome that to be handsome was enough, and all the
rest--her grace, her quickness, her social felicities--seemed the
overflow of a bounteous nature. But what especially struck him was the
way in which she detached herself, by a hundred undefinable shades, from
the persons who most abounded in her own style. It was in just such
company, the fine flower and complete expression of the state she aspired
to, that the differences came out with special poignancy, her grace
cheapening the other women's smartness as her finely-discriminated
silences made their chatter dull. The strain of the last hours had
restored to her face the deeper eloquence which Selden had lately missed
in it, and the bravery of her words to him still fluttered in her voice
and eyes. Yes, she was matchless--it was the one word for her; and he
could give his admiration the freer play because so little personal
feeling remained in it. His real detachment from her had taken place, not
at the lurid moment of disenchantment, but now, in the sober after-light
of discrimination, where he saw her definitely divided from him by the
crudeness of a choice which seemed to deny the very differences he felt
in her. It was before him again in its completeness--the choice in which
she was content to rest: in the stupid costliness of the food and the
showy dulness of the talk, in the freedom of speech which never arrived
at wit and the freedom of act which never made for romance. The strident
setting of the restaurant, in which their table seemed set apart in a
special glare of p