grass-widow, and, moreover, the attendant hopeless adorer nourishes
her hungry egotism as nobody else can. G.J. thought these thoughts,
clearly and callously, in the same moment as, mounting the next
flight of stairs, he absolutely trembled with sympathetic anguish for
Concepcion. His errand was an impossible one; he feared, or rather he
hoped, that the very look on his face might betray the dreadful news
to that undeceivable intuition which women were supposed to possess.
He hesitated on the stairs; he recoiled from the top step--(she had
coquettishly withdrawn herself into the room)--he hadn't the slightest
idea how to begin. Yes, the errand was an impossible one, and yet such
errands had to be performed by somebody, were daily being performed by
somebodies. Then he had the idea of telephoning privily to fetch her
cousin Sara. He would open by remarking casually to Concepcion:

"I say, can I use your telephone a minute?" He found a strange
Concepcion in the drawing-room. This was his first sight of Mrs.
Carlos Smith since the wedding. She wore a dress such as he had never
seen on her: a tea-gown--and for lunch! It could be called neither
neat nor prim, but it was voluptuous. Her complexion had bloomed; the
curves of her face were softer, her gestures more abandoned, her
gaze full of a bold and yet shamed self-consciousness, her dark
hair looser. He stood close to her; he stood within the aura of her
recently aroused temperament, and felt it. He thought, could not help
thinking: "Perhaps she bears within her the legacy of new life." He
could not help thinking of her name. He took her hot hand. She said
nothing, but just looked at him. He then said jauntily:

"I say, can I use your telephone a minute?" Fortunately, the telephone
was in the bedroom. He went farther upstairs and shut himself in the
bedroom, and saw naught but the telephone surrounded by the mysterious