it was to come
down ready for the evening and find him there, as though he belonged
where he sat, and was part of the familiar environment.

Recently she had grown younger in a smooth-skinned, full-lipped way--so
much younger that it was spoken of. Something girlish in figure, in
spontaneity, in the hesitation of her smile, in the lack of that hard,
brilliant confidence which once characterised her, had developed; as
though she were beginning her debut again, reverting to a softness
and charm prematurely checked. Truly, her youth's discoloured blossom,
forced by the pale phantom of false spring, was refolding to a bud once
more; and the harsher tints of the inclement years were fading.

"Beverly," she said, "I am ready."

Plank stood up, dazed from his reverie, and walked toward her. His
white tie had become disarranged; she raised her hands, halting him, and
pulled it into shape for him, consciously innocent of the intimacy.

"Thank you," he said. "Do you know how pretty you are this evening?"

"Yes; I was very happy at my mirror. Do you know, the withered years
seem to be dropping from me like leaves from an autumn sapling. And I
feel young enough to say so poetically. ... Did Sylvia try to flirt with
you over the wire?"

"Yes, as usual," he said drily, descending the stairs beside her.

"And really you don't love her any more?" she queried.

"Scarcely." His voice was low and rather disagreeable, and she looked
up.

"I wish I knew what you and Sylvia find to talk about so frequently, if
you're not in love."

But he made no answer; and they drove away to the Belwether house, a
rather wide, old-style mansion of brown stone, with a stoop dividing
its ugly facade, and a series of unnecessary glass doors blockading the
vestibule.

A drawing-room and a reception-room flanked the marble-tiled hall;
behind these the dining-room ran the width of the rear. It was a typical
gentlefolk's house of the worst period of Manhattan, and Major Belwether
belonged in it as fittingly as a melodeon belongs in a west-side flat.
The hall-way was made for such a man as he to patter through; the
velvet-covered stairs were as peculiarly fitted for him as a runway is
for a rabbit; the suave pink-and-white drawing-room, the discreet, gray
reception-room, the soft, fat rugs, the intricacies of banisters and
alcoves and curtained cubby-holes--all reflected his personality, all
corroborated the ensemble. It was his habitat, his distinctl