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Pringle objected that she woke him as she passed, whereas the carpet on the front stairs was so thick that there wasn't the least chance of waking the family. As she passed Mrs. Farron's room she was surprised to see a fine crack of light coming from under it.

A change in Farron's expression made Mr. Lanley turn his head, and he saw that Adelaide had come into the room. Her appearance bore out the legend of her headache: she looked like a garden after an early frost. But perhaps the most terrifying thing about her aspect was her complete indifference to it. A recollection suddenly came to Mr.

She rose, patted her grandfather on the shoulder, and prepared to escape. He, not wishing to be interrupted at the moment, patted her hand in return. "Hello!" he exclaimed. "Hands are cold, my dear." She caught Farron's cool, black eyes, and surprised herself by answering: "Yes; but, then, they always are." This was quite untrue, but every one was perfectly satisfied with it.

"Why not to him?" "I know nothing about him." "I don't know very much myself. Yes, it's Pete Wayne. Pierson his name is, but every one calls him Pete. How strange it was that I did not even know his first name when you asked me!" A single ray pierced Mrs. Farron's depression: Vincent had known, Vincent's infallibility was confirmed. She did not know what to say.

Wayne shrank back. She liked neither diplomacy nor coercion. "But I have really no control over Pete," she said. "Surely, if he isn't in a position to support a wife " "He is, if she would live as he does." Such an idea had never crossed Mrs. Farron's mind. She looked round her wonderingly, and said without a trace of wilful insolence in her tone: "Live here, you mean?"

Farron in?" "Mr. Farron's in his room, Madam." At this she appeared to give her attention wholly back to Wayne, but Mathilde knew that she was really busy composing an escape.

I'd rather he said straight out that he thought I was a goose." "Perhaps you wouldn't if he did." "I like people to be human. Mr. Farron's not human." "Doesn't your mother think so?" "Mama thinks he's perfect." "How long have they been married?" "Ages! Five years!" "And they're just as much in love?" Miss Severance looked at him. "In love?" she said. "At their age?"

And now the sacred cupidity of the reformer did for an instant leap up within her. All the distressed persons, all the tottering causes in which she was interested, seemed to parade before her eyes. Then, too, the childish streak in her character made her remember how amusing it would be to be Adelaide Farron's mother-in-law, and Peter's grandmother by marriage.

Lanley didn't answer, but presently went out in silence. He was experiencing the extreme loneliness that follows being more royalist than the king. On Mondays and Thursdays, the only days Mr. Lanley went down-town, he expected to have the corner table at the restaurant where he always lunched and where, on leaving Farron's office, he went.

Was she to watch the dying down of his flame, and try to shelter and fan it back to life as she had seen so many other women do? Or was the trouble only that she had done something to wound his aloof and sensitive spirit, seldom aloof to her? Their intimate life had never been a calm one. Farron's interests were concentrated, and his temperament was jealous.