g
Benham's enjoyment of his cigar. It occurred to her that if he were
stripped of everything else, of love, of power, of ambition, he could
still find satisfaction in the masculine habit of living--in the simple
pleasures of which nothing except physical infirmity or extreme poverty
can ever deprive one. Moderate in all things, he was capable of taking a
serious pleasure in his meals, in his cigar, in a dip in a swimming
pool, or a game of cards at the club. Whatever happened, he would have
these things to fall back upon; and they would mean to him, she knew,
far more than they could ever, even in direst necessity, mean to a
woman.

The long drawing-room, lighted with an amber glow and drenched with the
sweetness of honeysuckle, had grown very still. Outside in the garden
the twilight was powdered with silver, and above the tops of the cedars
a few stars were shining. A breeze came in softly, touching her cheek
like the wing of a moth and stirring the iris in a bowl by the window.
The flowers in the room were all white and purple, she observed with a
tremulous smile, as if the vivid colours had been drained from both her
life and her surroundings. "What a foolish fancy," she added, with a
nervous force that sent a current of energy through her veins. "My
heart isn't broken, and it will never be until I am dead!"

And then, with that natural aptitude for facing facts, for looking at
life steadily and fearlessly, which had been born in a recoil from the
sentimental habit of mind, she said quietly, "John, Alice Rokeby came to
see me this afternoon."

He started, and the ashes dropped from his cigar; but there was no
embarrassment in the level glance he raised to her eyes. Surprise there
was, and a puzzled interrogation, but of confusion or disquietude she
could find no trace.

"Well?" he responded inquiringly, and that was all.

"You used to care for her a great deal--once?"

He appeared to ponder the question. "We were great friends," he
answered.

Friends! The single word seemed to her to express not only his attitude
to Alice Rokeby, but his temperamental inability to call things by their
right names, to face facts, to follow a straight line of thought. Here
was the epitome of that evasive idealism which preferred shams to
realities.

"Are you still friends?"

He shook his head. "No, we've drifted apart in the last year or so. I
used," he said slowly, "to go there a great deal; but I've had so many
responsi