s calculations.

But Mrs. Ravenel, who was too fearful of her comfort to trust written
descriptions, asked her son to step over to Paris, as she jauntily put
it, and see Anne's home before she committed herself.

"She writes me," said Mrs. Ravenel, eyeing the invitation suspiciously,
"that she has taken a house like a palace. I lived in a palace once in
Venice. The walls were of marble, with moisture on them constantly, and
there was but four feet of rug on a tiled floor forty feet square. When
I asked for fire they brought me a china basket with three or four
semi-hot coals in it, and placed it in the exact centre of the room
where one was liable to trip over it. The experience cured me of
'dreaming to dwell in marble halls.' I want heat, electricity, and a
large bath of my own."

According to his mother's wishes, Frank had written to Anne that
business was bringing him to Paris, and that he would give himself the
pleasure of calling upon her some time within the following fortnight.
In the stately old house, which she had taken on the Boulevard
Haussmann, Anne awaited Frank's coming with more emotion than she
acknowledged to herself. She knew that he had arrived in Paris two days
before, had seen that he was at the Grand Club, and the day previous had
received from him a note asking permission to call at four. He had been
more than deliberate in his attentions, a deliberation to which she had
become accustomed. It was, in fact, part of his charm. Often, in past
years, he had hurt her so much by his coldness that his coming brought a
keener pleasure than the presence of a more ardent suitor might have
done, if he could with any exactness be termed a suitor at all.

Long before her ill-assorted marriage had been dissolved by the death of
her husband, Anne Lennox's name had been connected with that of Francis
Ravenel. But it was one of the few affairs of his life which had caused
no scandal, one which other women had slurred over with a laugh.

"Anne's all right, you know," they explained, "and really Frank and she
would have been very well suited to each other if they could have
married. At worst nothing but a flirtation; and who, knowing her
husband, can blame her?" These were the excuses framed for Mrs. Lennox
by her many friends. The death of her husband had brought the general
belief that a wedding between Frank and herself would naturally follow.
Nearly four years had elapsed, however, and marriage between them