. "Why not Machiavelli? But as no doubt it is black velvet,
much puffed and slashed, I may hope it will be becoming to my nondescript
fairness. You must promise not to wander off for long walks with any of
your admirers. Not that I fear the admirers, but the thieves that are
bound to get into that crowd one way or another. They have a way of
unclasping necklaces even of the most circumspect wives in the company of
not too absorbing men."

Her eyes opened and flashed, but he had no time to analyze that fleeting
expression before she was promising volubly not to wander from the
illuminated spaces.

* * * * *

He interrupted her suddenly. They were in the library now, and sat down
on a little sofa in front of the window. The moon was high and brilliant
and the great expanse of water with the high clusters of lights on the
islands, the sharp hard silhouette of the encircling mountains, the green
and silver stars so high above, the moving golden dots of an incoming
liner from Japan, the long rows of arc lights along the shore, made a
landscape of the night that Mrs. Thornton with all her millions hardly
could rival.

"Are you not grateful for this?" he asked whimsically and a little
wistfully.

"Oh, Price, dear, I am more grateful than you will ever know. I have not
a fault on earth to find with you. You would be the prince of the fairy
tale if you were not so busy.

"But that is the tragedy. You are busy--I am not."

"Well, let us have the personal solution--one that fits ourselves. You
have time to think it out. I, alas! have not." He took her hand and
fondled it, hoping for her confidence.

"I don't know." She had a deep rich voice and she could make it very
intense. "I only know there must--must--be a change--if--if--I am
to--Can't you take me abroad for a year? That might not be work, but at
least I should be learning some thing--I have traveled almost not at
all--and, at least, I should have you."

"But later? Most of your friends have spent a good deal of time in
Europe. I doubt if any state in the Union goes to Europe as often as
California! They are all the more discontented when they come back here
to vegetate--as Mrs. Thornton would express it.

"It would be a blessed interval, but no more."

"We should have time to think out a new and different life....

"You know--in the class I come from--in France--the women are the
partners of their husbands. Even in the higher bo