the
upper floors to a half-dozen tenants, had built a couple of rooms beside
the kitchen for the caretaker, and had planted two pyramidal cedars and
a hedge of box in the short front yard. "A shop is the only place where
you may have calls from people who haven't been introduced to you," she
had said; and of course as long as she had money to throw away, what did
it matter, Stephen reflected, whether she ever sold a picture or not? At
forty-eight she was lovelier, he thought, than ever; she would always be
lovelier than any one else if she lived to be ninety. There wasn't a
girl in his set who could compare with her, who had the glow and charm,
the flame-like inner radiance; there wasn't one who had the singing
heart of Corinna. Yes, that was the phrase he had been trying to
remember, trite as it was--the singing heart--that was Corinna. She had
had a hard life, he knew, in spite of her beauty and her wealth; yet she
had never lost the quality of youth, the very essence of gaiety and
adventure. When he thought of her, Patty Vetch appeared merely cheap and
common, though he felt instinctively that Corinna would have liked Patty
if she had seen her in the Square with the pigeon. It was a part of
Corinna's charm perhaps, certainly a part of her enjoyment of life that
she liked almost every one--every one, that is, except Rose Stribling,
whom she quite frankly hated. But, then, people said that Rose
Stribling, twelve years younger than Corinna and as handsome as a Red
Cross poster, had run too often across Kent Page in the first year of
the war. Kent Page had died in Prance of Spanish influenza before he
ever saw a trench or a battlefield; and Rose Stribling, all blue eyes
and white linen, had nursed him at the last. At that time Corinna was in
America, and she hadn't so much as looked at Kent for years; but a woman
has a long memory for emotions, and she is capable of resenting the loss
of a husband who is no longer hers. Rumour, of course, nothing more; yet
the fact remained that Corinna, who liked all the world, hated Rose
Stribling. It was the one flaw in Corinna's perfection; it was the black
patch on the stainless cheek, which had always made her adorable to
Stephen. Like the snow-white lock waving back from her forehead, it
intensified the youth in her face. He had often wondered if she could
have been half so lovely when she was a girl, before the faint shadows
and the tender little lines lent depth and mystery to he