burn itself into his slow-witted brain.

"By Jove!" he exclaimed, and again, "By Jove!"

"I'm glad you like it," replied Gerty, with a careless shrug. "I may not
be a model woman from a domestic point of view, but at least I've
managed to keep both my colour and my reputation." She crossed to the
bureau, and opening a drawer took out a green and silver fan. "I really
needn't trouble you to come, you know," she remarked indifferently.
"Arnold will be there and I dare say he'll be willing to come back in my
carriage."

"I dare say he will," observed Perry, not without a jealous indignation,
"and I dare say you'd be pleased enough if I'd let him."

Gerty laughed as she closed the drawer with a bang. "Well, I shouldn't
exactly mind," she rejoined.

Reconciliation, such as it was, the brief reunion of suspicion and
broken faith was apparently in rapid progress, and, filled with a pity
not unmixed with disgust, Laura put on her fur coat and went slowly down
the staircase. The last sound that followed her was the flute-like music
of Gerty's laugh--a little tired, heart-sick, utterly disillusioned
laugh.

A man was going by on the sidewalk as she went out, and when the closing
of the house door caused him instinctively to look up, she saw that it
was Roger Adams. He stopped immediately and waited for her until she
descended the steps.