an instant if she really looked troubled, or if he only imagined it.
There was no doubt about how Vincent looked, as though he thought Mr.
Welles, exulting over a blow with a mattock, an old imbecile in his
dotage.

Mr. Welles never cared very much whether he seemed to Vincent like an
old imbecile or not, and certainly less than nothing about it today,
intoxicated as he was with the air, the sun, and his new mastery over
the soil. He set his hands lovingly to the tool and again and again
swung it high over his head, while Vincent and Mrs. Crittenden strolled
away, still talking. . . . "Doesn't it depend on what you mean by
'beauty'?" Mrs. Crittenden was saying.




CHAPTER VII

THE NIGHT-BLOOMING CEREUS

_An Evening in the Life of Mrs. Neale Crittenden_


April 20.

Nowadays she so seldom spoke or acted without knowing perfectly well
what she was about, that Marise startled herself almost as much as her
callers by turning over that leaf in the photograph album quickly and
saying with abruptness, "No, never mind about that one. It's nothing
interesting."