that for you showed it to me. Most of what I am now has been you." He
reached out his hands to her in a wave of tenderness, but she evaded
him. She stood irresolute for a moment and then abruptly turned and
disappeared.

A white rim of new moon grew visible at the edge of dusk, and he stood
gazing at it before he entered the dwelling. A dull unrest had become
part of his inner tumult, a premonition falling over him like an
advancing shadow. But above all his vague fears rose the knowledge that
he would never let Ludowika go from him; that was the root of his being.
Now she could never leave him. It was natural, he assured himself again,
that she should feel doubts at first; everything here was so different
from the life she had known; and women were variable. He would have to
understand that, learn to accommodate himself to changing, surface
moods, immovable underneath.

She had put on for supper, he saw, a daring dress; and her expression
was that which he had first noted, indifferent, slightly scoffing. Her
shoulders and arms gleamed under fragile gauze, her bodice was hardly
more than a caress of silk. He watched her every movement, and got a
sort of satisfaction from the knowledge that she grew increasingly
disturbed at his unwavering scrutiny. His mother's attitude toward Mrs.
Winscombe had not changed by a shade, an inflection; she was correctly
cordial in her slightly distant manner.

In the ebb and flow of the evening Howat was left with Ludowika for a
little, and he bent over her, kissing her sharply. She was coldly
unresponsive; and he kissed her again, trying vainly to bring some
warmth to her lips. She did not avoid him actually, but he felt that
something in her, essential, slipped aside from his caress. His emotion