up appearances," and by whom she
would be supported, even at the worst, through a fellow-feeling with her
cares.

This consciousness helped her to be firm when, a few minutes later,
having reached the dike by the border of the Charles, she came face to
face with Peter Davenant. She saw him from a long way off, but without
recognition. She noticed him only as an unusually tall figure, in a
summery gray suit and a gray felt hat. He was sauntering in a leisurely
way toward her, stopping now and then to admire some beautiful dog
sniffing the scent of water-rats in the weeds, or a group of babies
tumbling on the sand, or a half-naked undergraduate sculling along the
serpentine reaches of the river, or a college crew cleaving the waters
with the precision of an arrow, to a long, rhythmic swing of eight slim
bodies and a low, brief grunt of command. The rich October light
striking silvery gleams from the walls of the Stadium and burnished gold
from the far-off dome of the State House brought all the hues of fire
from the rim of autumnal hills on the western horizon. It touched up
with soft dove-gray, in which were shades of green and purple, the row
of unpainted, ramshackle wooden cabins--hovels of a colony of
"squatters" that no zeal for civic improvement had ever been able to
dislodge--lined along a part of the embankment, and wrought indefinable
glories in the unkempt marshes, stretching away into shimmering
distances, where factory windows blazed as if from inner conflagration
and steam and smoke became roseate or iridescent.

The tall stranger, so much better dressed than the men who usually
strolled on the embankment at this hour of a week-day afternoon, fixed
her attention to such a degree as to make her forget that she herself
was probably a subject of curiosity and speculation among the
passers-by. It was with a little disappointment that as she came nearer
she said to herself, "It's only--that man." Common fairness, however,
obliged her to add that he seemed "more like a gentleman" than she had
supposed. That he was good-looking, in a big, blond, Scotch or
Scandinavian way, she had acknowledged from the first. On recognizing
Davenant her impulse was to pass him with the slightest recognition, but
on second thoughts it seemed best to her to end the affair impending
between them once for all.

"I'm sorry you didn't wait for me to come downstairs the other day," she
said, after they had exchanged greetings, "because