he fire,
her fingers resting on her hips.

In the dull light of a rainy noon-day the fire reddened the ceiling,
throwing her giant shadow across the wall, where it towered, swaying,
like a ghost above her. She caught sight of it over her shoulder, and
watched it absently; then gazed into the coals again, her chin dropping
on her bared chest.

At her maid's repeated knocking she turned, her boots and the single
spur sparkling in the firelight, and opened the door.

An hour later, fresh from her bath, luxurious in loose and filmy lace,
her small, white feet shod with silk, she lunched alone, cradled among
the cushions of her couch.

Twice she strolled through the rooms leisurely, summoned by her maid
to the telephone; the first time to chat with Grace Ferrall, who, it
appeared, was a victim of dissipation, being still abed, and out of
humour with the rainy world; the second time to answer in the negative
Marion's suggestion that she motor to Lakewood with her for the week's
end before they closed their house.

Sauntering back again, she sipped her milk and vichy, tasted the
strawberries, tasted a big black grape, discarded both, and lay back
among the cushions, her naked arms clasped behind her head, and dropping
one knee over the other, stared at the ceiling.

Restlessness and caprice ruled her. She seldom smoked, but seeing on the
table a stray cigarette of the sort she kept for any intimates who might
desire them, she stretched out her arm, scratched a match, and lighted
it with a dainty grimace.

Lying there, she tried to make rings; but the smoke only got into her
delicate uptilted nose and stung her tongue, and she very soon had
enough of her cigarette.

Watching the slow fire consume it between her fingers she lay supine,
following the spirals of smoke with inattentive eyes. By-and-by the
lengthening ash fell, powdering her, and she threw the cigarette into
the grate, flicked the ashes from her bare, round arm, and, clasping her
hands under her neck, turned over and closed her eyes.

Sleep?--with every pulse awake and throbbing, every heart-beat sending
the young blood rushing out through a body the incarnation of youth
and life itself! There was a faint flush in the hollow of each upturned
palm, where the fingers like relaxed petals curled inward; a deepening
tint in the parted lips; and under the lids, through the dusk of the
lashes, a glimmer of blue.

Lying there, veiled gaze conscious of the rose-