nformation to the latter about Mexico
and Honduras. For Edith, the sole relief of the evening was an exchange
of sympathy with Father Damon, and she was too much preoccupied to enjoy
that. As for Carmen, placed between Jack and Mr. Mavick, and conscious
that the eyes of Mrs. Blunt were on her, she was taking a subdued role,
which Jack found much less attractive than her common mood. But this was
not her only self-sacrifice of the evening. She went without her usual
cigarette.

To Edith the dinner was a revelation of new difficulties in the life
she proposed for herself, though they were rather felt than distinctly
reasoned about. The social atmosphere was distasteful; its elements were
out of harmony with her ideals. Not that this society was new to her,
but that she saw it in a new light. Before her marriage all these
things had been indifferent to this high-spirited girl. They were merely
incidents of the social state into which she was born, and she pursued
her way among them, having a tolerably clear conception of what her own
life should be, with little recognition of their tendencies. Were only
her own life concerned, they would still be indifferent to her. But
something had happened. That which is counted the best thing in life had
come to her, that best thing which is the touchstone of character as
it is of all conditions, and which so often introduces inextricable
complications. She had fallen in love with Jack Delancy and married him.

The first effect of this was to awake and enlarge what philosophers
would call her enthusiasm of humanity. The second effect was to show
her--and this was what this little dinner emphasized--that she had put
limitations upon herself and taken on unthought-of responsibilities. To
put this sort of life one side, or make it secondary to her own idea
of a useful and happy life, would have been easy but for one thing--she
loved Jack. This philosophic reasoning about it does her injustice. It
did not occur to her that she could go her way and let him go his way.
Nor must it be supposed that the problem seemed as grave to her as
it really was--the danger of frittering away her own higher nature in
faithfulness to one of the noblest impulses of that nature. Yet this is
the way that so many trials of life come, and it is the greatest test
of character. She felt--as many women do feel--that if she retained her
husband's love all would be well, and the danger involved to herself
probably