precisely
carved by machines, matched the big panels of the wainscot. The
windows were high in the wall, thus preventing any intrusion from the
clothes-yard on which they looked. The bookcases, protected by leaded
panes, held countless volumes of the fiction from which Cora Ditmar had
derived her knowledge of the great world outside of Hampton, together
with certain sets she had bought, not only as ornaments, but with a
praiseworthy view to future culture,--such as Whitmarsh's Library of the
Best Literature. These volumes, alas, were still uncut; but some of
the pages of the novels--if one cared to open them--were stained with
chocolate. The steam radiator was a decoration in itself, the fireplace
set in the red and yellow tiles that made the hearth. Above the oak
mantel, in a gold frame, was a large coloured print of a Magdalen,
doubled up in grief, with a glory of loose, Titian hair, chosen
by Ditmar himself as expressing the nearest possible artistic
representation of his ideal of the female form. Cora Ditmar's objections
on the score of voluptuousness and of insufficient clothing had been
vain. She had recognized no immorality of sentimentality in the art
itself; what she felt, and with some justice, was that this particular
Magdalen was unrepentant, and that Ditmar knew it. And the picture
remained an offence to her as long as she lived. Formerly he had enjoyed
the contemplation of this figure, reminding him, as it did, of mellowed
moments in conquests of the past; suggesting also possibilities of the
future. For he had been quick to discount the attitude of bowed despair,
the sop flung by a sensuous artist to Christian orthodoxy. He had been
sceptical about despair--feminine despair, which could always be cured
by gifts and baubles. But to-night, as he raised his eyes, he felt
a queer sensation marring the ecstatic perfection of his mood. That
quality in the picture which so long had satisfied and entranced him
had now become repellent, an ugly significant reflection of
something--something in himself he was suddenly eager to repudiate and
deny. It was with a certain amazement that he found himself on his feet
with the picture in his hand, gazing at the empty space where it had
hung. For he had had no apparent intention of obeying that impulse. What
should he do with it? Light the fire and burn it--frame and all? The
frame was an integral part of it. What would his housekeeper say? But
now that he had actually rem