y
and dress, and Roger and Mary were left alone.

It was the first time that they had seen each other, since the night of
the wedding. They had arranged everything by telephone, and on the
second short visit that Roger had made to his rooms, Susan Jenks had
looked after him.

It seemed to Roger now that, like the house, Mary had taken on a new
and less radiant aspect. She looked pale and tired. Her dress of
white with its narrow edge of dark fur made her taller and older. Her
fair waved hair was parted at the side and dressed compactly without
ornament or ribbon. He was again, however, impressed by the almost
frank boyishness of her manner as she said:

"I want you to meet Aunt Isabella. She can't hear very well, so you'll
have to raise your voice."

As they went in together, Mary was forced to readjust certain opinions
which she had formed of her lodger. The other night he had been
divorced from the dapper youths of her own set by his lack of
up-to-dateness, his melancholy, his air of mystery.

But to-night he wore a loose coat which she recognized at once as good
style. His dark hair which had hung in an untidy lock was brushed back
as smoothly and as sleekly as Gordon Richardson's. His dark eyes had a
waked-up look. And there was a hint of color in his clean-shaven olive
cheeks.

"I came down," he told her as he walked beside her, "to thank you for
the coffee, for the hyacinths; for the fire, for the--welcome that my
room gave me."

"Oh, did you like it? We were very busy up there all the morning, Aunt
Isabelle and I and Susan Jenks."

"I felt like thanking Susan Jenks for the big bath towels; they seemed
to add the final perfect touch."

She laughed and repeated his remark to Aunt Isabelle.

"Think of his being grateful for bath towels, Aunt Isabelle."

After his presentation to Aunt Isabelle, he said, smiling:

"And there was another touch--the big gray pussy cat. She was in the
window-seat, and when I sat down to look at the lights, she tucked her
head under my hand and sang to me."

"_Pittiwitz_? Oh, Aunt Isabelle, we left Pittiwitz up there. She
claims your room as hers," she explained to Roger. "We've had her for
years. And she was always there with father, and then with Constance
and me. If she's a bother, just put her on the back stairs and she
will come down."

"But she isn't a bother. It is very pleasant to have something alive
to bear me company."

The moment that his