and it seemed to him that he saw their immediate effects in her flushed
cheeks and too brightly shining eyes.

"Don't stay out late," he urged again; "you've been rushing like mad
these last weeks and you need rest."

"But I never rest," rejoined Connie, still laughing, "and I honestly
hope that I shan't come to a stop until I die."

She fastened her cloak under the fall of lace, and, when Brady had
slipped into his overcoat, Adams turned back to open the hall door,
which let in a biting draught.

"Ta-ta! don't sit up!" cried Connie breathlessly, as, more than ever
like a filmy wind flower in a high wind, she was blown down the steps,
across the slushy sidewalk, and into the hired carriage.

When they had gone Adams went into the dining-room and dined alone
without dressing, as he had done almost every evening for the last few
months. The Irish maid waited upon him with a solicitude in which he
read his pose of a deserted husband, and he tried with a forcible,
though silent, bravado to dispel her very evident assumption. Connie had
certainly not deserted him against his will, and when her absence had
begun to show as so incontestable a relief it seemed the basest
ingratitude to force upon her reckless shoulders the odium of an
entirely satisfying arrangement. After a day of mental and physical
exertion the further effort of a conversation with her was something
that he felt to be utterly beyond him, and the distant Colorado days
when she had played the part of a soft, inviting kitten and he had
responded happily to the appeal for constant petting, now lay very far